Aotc Imax...

[JonathanLB]

Hey, umm, I was surprised not to see any other threads about this specifically, like any actual reactions now.

If I missed it, very sorry to repost then.

Well I saw it last night, October 31, just past midnight at the OMNIMax theater here at OMSI (The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry). We had a sold out showing of course, coordinated by my Fan Force chapter and the 501st here in Portland (very nice of all of them). I wish I could have been more involved as I am the city rep. for Portland and I feel bad I haven't done even more, but with college, I'm not exactly as free for time as some people who live in the city and don't have to drive 1.5 hours back.

Well anyway, the guy who was handling passing out the Bantha Tracks #0 things is one of our best members, he's attended every time, a really great Star Wars fan and a nice guy. It was awesome of him to help out. He also helped me out a bit, which I'll get to in a sec ;)

Just before they showed AOTC IMAX, he did a little contest and gave away two posters to the winners. Well it just so happened (and I knew this in advance because we had been talking earlier) that his question was, "Who has seen AOTC the most times in theaters?" Some chick claimed she had seen it 65 times, but he didn't at first make it clear he meant IN THEATERS, so she sat down because of course she is a pirate, lol. Anyway, he is like, "More than 5, raise your hand." Some people behind me, total idiots, were like, "5 times?! No way, nobody could have seen it FIVE times!" I am just thinking, my god, what fools, just get on with it, this is going to take all day if we start at 5, lol. Then he's like, "10," and "15 and up, standup," and the people behind me again were like, "FIFTEEN TIMES?! Get help!" Obviously not Star Wars fans whatsoever, probably thought that this would be the best thing to do on Halloween night and really haven't even seen AOTC before, lol. So finally we get to 50, and nobody believes me, but not like I care. I take that as the highest form of compliment.

Anyway, I won one of the posters. So, free AOTC IMAX poster for me. :) It was nice...

The movie itself, well, the good and the bad:

The detail in some scenes is so fantastic that I hadn't noticed little parts even though I had seen the movie 53 times before!!!

Really, really big projection. That was pretty tight.

Well, as for the bad, the OMNIMax is not a normal IMAX screen, and I think OMNIMax is pretty stupid. The image is all curved, the lightsabers are curved, it is projected onto a doom, so of course you cannot ever see much, and you lie down to watch it because the entire image is ABOVE you, not in front of you. It's very odd. Even just with a normal IMAX, you can't see everything at once very well.

I think that AOTC IMAX would be the worst way to watch the film for the first time, but perhaps one of the better ways to watch it after you've already seen it 10 times or so.

The cut scenes are really obnoxious and the movie does not flow properly whatsoever without them, nor does it make sense, but because I already know what happens (and is not shown), it doesn't really matter as much. I mean, for the fans, it is great. I'm just saying that I would never want anyone to see the movie for the first time in this hacked, cut up version. It's bad enough that the original version has about 45 minutes of cut scenes that appear in the script and make total sense, then are not there at all in the film. Of course, I agree with Lucas in keeping the film to just about 2h15m, so he had to cut those scenes from the initial version, but my point stands that if you have read the script, you understand AOTC a LOT better than if you just watch the movie and have no idea what HAPPENED and was not shown on screen.

Anyway, overall, fun experience, very glad I went, I had a lot of fun and I loved the extra detail I could see, but digital is 100 times better than IMAX. The Cinerma digital theater is already about 5 stories tall anyway, so what's the difference?

Ok, it may not be five stories tall, but... I bet it's close. It's a massive screen, probably 4 stories anyway...

Anyone else see AOTC IMAX yet?

[Arya Ravenwing]

:cry no!

[Leeloo Mina]

Nope, and I won't be.. :(

[Quadinaros]

I got my fingers crossed that I'll get the chance, but my car just broke down Friday night, and I gotta go 65 miles to the nearest IMAX. Well, I guess I got several weeks to formulate a plan.

Glad you had a good time, Jon. It's great to see it with a bunch of fans.

[JMK]

I saw it on a real Imax screen and liked it alot. Especially the Coruscan chase. They went about the editing hoping that whoever sees it had already seen it before. Some of the edits quickened the pace, others would have left newbie wondering what happened.

[Dutchy]

It made $1.45M (estimate) from 58 theaters averaging $25,000 per theater this weekend.

[Jedi Master Carr]

Thats pretty good I think it will make at least 5 million from IMAX, and if they count it, AOTC will easily pass ID4 and ROTJ for 11th place.

[JonathanLB]

$5 million...

It'll make well over $5 million. Those numbers won't decline all that much from the first weekend throughout the run.

My IMAX theater, and I assume most of them / all of them, plays it through January 5. That is many, many weeks.

I think that it should take in about $10 million to $12 million total it seems to me.

Probably during the week it won't be making too much, except during the x-mas break time it could pick up a bit, and it should clear $1 million each weekend I would imagine.

Fox said they thought it could take in $20 million. Well, they might be closer than I would have been in saying, originally, I thought it would make about $5 million to $8 million. If it hits $15 million, they'd be pretty close.

Whatever the case, impressive first weekend. That's a very good average, even for a large format theater, and above some estimates. BO Mojo said $1.1 million I think. It beat that by quite a ways.

[Darth23]

I saw in at a Dome IMAX theater in Tampa FL, at the MOSI (Museam of Science and Industry - sound familiar id slightly sideways. It's right newa USF which is the sideways Florida Univeristy so I guess that makes sense ;))

Anyway the Dome thing didn't really work - I got a neck ache twisting from one corner of the screen to another tryingto follow the action. All of the great action sequences just looked really disorienting and confusing - especially the chase scenes.

That wasn't as bad as the cuts though. I think AOTC really needed LESS cut scenes, not more.

I'd still see it in a normal IMAX screen, if I had the chance. If I had realiuzed that THe IMAX - 70mm theater tht TheForce.net listed no longer exists, I would have got to see it in the other Tampa IMAX theater in addition to the Dome theater.

[JonathanLB]

I must agree with you there.

"Anyway the Dome thing didn't really work - I got a neck ache twisting from one corner of the screen to another tryingto follow the action. All of the great action sequences just looked really disorienting and confusing - especially the chase scenes."

I felt that way many times. To be honest, I'd rather have just seen it again on a large screen with a perfect print. The IMAX experience was worth it for the details, though, it's just that you are right, it needed LESS cut scenes, not more.

Already, you need to be familiar with the script of AOTC to understand completely the action and events in the film. Otherwise, there are still aspects where you kind of wonder, "Well hmm," but parts of the SCRIPT that never made the final cut actually go a long ways towards explaining such parts of the film. That is not to say AOTC isn't complete in and of itself, just that with an even greater knowledge of what supposedly happened and was not shown on screen, you can appreciate the movie even more.

I'm sickened by all of this nonsense about how "oh the movie is much better now with 20 minutes cut and it flows so quickly!!!" Umm yeah maybe we should cut it down to 30 minutes so the pacing would be EVEN BETTER!!! Just like the SW Trilogy in 30 minutes that USC was putting on, hehe. Fun exercise, fun idea, but not what I would want to watch the trilogy as all of the time. Same goes with AOTC.

I dunno about you guys, but I'm excited about that DVD in 8 days now!

[Dutchy]

Originally posted by Jedi Master Carr
Thats pretty good I think it will make at least 5 million from IMAX, and if they count it, AOTC will easily pass ID4 and ROTJ for 11th place.

I don't think they count it...

[JonathanLB]

It does count.

It is part of the total AOTC gross.

[Dutchy]

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/2002/44.htm

BOX OFFICE MOJO doesn't add it.

[JonathanLB]

That's nice. That is their problem, not my problem.

It isn't a different movie, so it cannot be considered a different box office gross. Regardless of how the two are reported and/or tracked, they will be added together for purposes of record-keeping. It is not actually a different movie besides being shorter, but it's not a special edition even, and the SEs, as you know, are added to the original grosses despite being significantly different.

[Jedi Master Carr]

Well I wonder that too, somebody on the Box Office Mojo forums said they heard they count it when the IMAX run is finished. I really have no idea because I only know of three other major films to be released on IMAX Apollo 13 (which is still in theaters), Fantasia 2000 (I am not sure if this counts since it is a lot different from the first Fantasia) and Beauty and the Beast (which made 20 million in IMAX and I am not sure if they counted it to its total or not.)

[JMK]

I'd like to hear a reason as to why it wouldn't count. Doesn't make sense to me that it wouldn't count.

[BUFFJEDI]

I think it should count. it has not left the theaters, it's still first run.and if i'm not mistaken(could be ) they added some to spidey for the MIB2/spidey crapathon.

[BUFFJEDI]

Carr/EBS you guy's go to Box-office mojo?? see anyone you know(hint hint);)

[JonathanLB]

By the way, Dutchy, you are wrong -- Box Office Mojo IS adding the figures.

Look no further than the 2002 Yearly Grosses list and you see that the newest $1.45 million was already added.

[Jedi Master Carr]

I just saw that they also added it to the yearly totals. Maybe they want to keep the weekend numbers secert for some reason. I have no clue. And Buff I go there occasionaly. You post over there?

[JonathanLB]

I like that yearly list, I've seen 99 of the top 100 highest grossing movies of 2002. The one I missed, I'll get to before this year ends anyway, and it will be knocked off the list in a week or so (it is Juwanna Mann at #98).

I have seen a lot of the ones well past #100 too, like I was noticing that Below (good movie) and Little Secrets (poor movie) both made only $400,000, which means that my $8 ticket or whatever made a huge difference, haha. I've never had the chance to affect a box office gross by that much before ;) Ouch.

Harrison's Flowers made only $1.8 million, too bad because that was a good movie too.

[Quadinaros]

Well, IMAX is an entirely different exhibition. Tickets cost more, theaters are sparse, and only a miniscule percentage of normal theatrical releases ever play on IMAX.

I think the IMAX gross should be included in the totals since, money is money. But in terms of ranking a movie's popularity, I don't think it should be included. Although ranking movie popularity, as we all know, is not an exact science by a longshot.

[JonathanLB]

There is no reason not to think that this money should be part of the "movie's popularity." TPM played during this same period of time for the most part, well, actually it was gone Nov. 4 through early December, but it was also around all of Dec. and January and much of February.

At that point, mostly the money was repeat viewership, but that is no reason not to count the cashola. Spider-Man had tons of repeat viewers.

Granted, nobody saw Spider-Man 54 times I doubt (I wouldn't believe them if they said yes), but still.

I just was rewatching parts of Spider-Man yesterday on DVD, hehe, I love that movie too. Best scene has got to be when Peter Parker beats the snot out of the bully without even really trying.

[Dutchy]

Originally posted by JonathanLB
By the way, Dutchy, you are wrong -- Box Office Mojo IS adding the figures.

Look no further than the 2002 Yearly Grosses list and you see that the newest $1.45 million was already added.

Yep, I see. Apparently they track both totals.

[BUFFJEDI]

Originally posted by Jedi Master Carr
. . And Buff I go there occasionaly. You post over there?

yes, check out the count down to AOTC on dvd :) that's me:) although I have been VERY!!!!!!!!!!!!!slack :(