I remember seeing a very strange film misprint where a part of another scene was sloppily superimposed over the picture and lasted for a couple seconds. It had nothing to do with the plot whatsoever and it looked to be a technical glitch.
On June 21, I went to go see Star Trek for the second time (well, second and a half time) at Liberty Science Center at Liberty State Park in Jersey City, NJ. The Center has an IMAX Dome theater, which it claims to be the largest in the country.
I had heard about this showing from a friend at work, and he said it was playing there only until the 28th. Now I had seen an IMAX movie before, in the late 90's, after the Loews Lincoln Square/Loews IMAX Theater opened up in Manhattan, and some of us who were working at the Loews Theater in Secaucus were loaned out to that theater for the first few opening days. I saw some underwater life movie (maybe it was called Into the Deep), and I wasn't impressed. We the had the headsets with the red and blue lenses, and I didn't see what the big fuss was. For one thing, the screen didn't look as big as it was advertised, and I didn't really detect the 3-D effect that much. I could actually see the red and blue portions of the images sticking out at certain points. But hey, maybe this would be different.
It wasn't.
There were no headsets, or any 3-D anything, so I didn't see what the big fuss was. My coworker Rod said that the screen was so big that you felt like you were in the middle of the action, but I didn't feel that. The use of a larger-than-usual screen merely meant that I felt that I was watching a regular screen, but was too close to it. I mean, wouldn't that present the same effect--sitting really close to the screen of a conventional theater? Aren't those rows usually considered the least desirable to sit in? What's so good about being so close to a screen that important things in the image are relegated to one's peripheral vision, requiring moviegoers (as one person did in front of me to his/her companions) to point out something happening at the edge of the screen?
This cannot be what the moviemakers intended. In the beginning of the film, when we first see the young Kirk and Spock, the establishing shots of Vulcan and Iowa are accompanied by title cards identifying them as such. When watching it on this giant dome screen (which curves the image for reasons I cannot imagine, and for benefits I did not perceive), those title cards are not only in the upper corners of the screen where they are barely noticeable, but are actually cut off, partially blurred onto the blank corners of the screen.
Mind you, I enjoyed seeing the movie again, as seeing it on an IMAX dome didn't make it completely unenjoyable. But I don't think I'm gonna waste another $11.25 on an IMAX film again unless I'm cajoled into by friends with whom I see it.
I saw it in IMAX as well. There is one difference from just sitting too close to a regular screen. There is a somewhat higher definition as well.
This translated into extremely distracting close-ups. All I could focus on were the pores in the actors' skins and the men's 5 o'clock shadows. Also the Vulcans', Romulans' and the Orion cadet's green makup suddenly ending at the mouth and corners of the eyes revealing bright red.
When I went to Omniverse (simaler to Imax) in 1990, I was absolutly blown away by the "flying over Philadelphia" sequences. I really felt like I was flying even though the seats did not move. Those movies were specificaly talored for the system used.
If the Imax version of Star Trek is the same as the regular theatrical movie and they simply enlarged the image, I can see why it did not work so well.
Omstudios created the Omcopster, a small helicopter drone that can carry the Red Epic HD camera, and to display how seamlessly it can do this, they put together a silent, 5-minute ninja battle sequence. It's really cool, and the camera does move really seamlessly.
We've lost 75% of our silent films.
Well, that just blows.
No kidding. I loves me some silent movies.