This is too mild for the Pit and I wasn’t sure whether Cafe Society or MPSIMS was more appropriate. I did some post-Christmas shopping today (having gotten alot of gift cards). Afterwards I decided to check out the new Imax theatre and see Tron Legacy. It was a 4:35pm showing. Now of course I didn’t expect the feature to actually start at 4:35pm. I did expect the 5-10 minutes of film previews to start then (which is how the other theatres do it).
At about 4:05pm I went in to get a seat (since it was busy and I didn’t want to get stuck with one of the crappy seats upfront). I noticed that they weren’t showing the ads for local businesses/movie trivia/behind the scenes/etc stuff most theatres do. Then 4:35pm roles around. Then they started the local ads/triva/etc. For 35 minutes. It wasn’t until ten after 5 that the lights went off and the film previews started. Ten minutes worth of previews. :mad: So to sum up the feature didn’t start until 45 minutes after it was advertised and I spent an hour waiting in the theatre.
After the movie was over I complained to the manger on duty. Guess what her response was? She very politley explained that they “didn’t have any control over that”, everything was set by corporate (that wasn’t unexpected). She then helpfully informed me that the ticketsellers can tell you the feature’s actual start/end time if you ask them. :rolleyes: Gee that never would’ve occured to me.
Who the hell thinks to ask because the feature might not start for almost an hour? That’s just ridiculous. Oh, and I to top it all off I didn’t notice all that much of a difference between Imax 3D and regular 3D. And the theatre I normally go to has a much better snack bar (basically a fast food counter with a surprisingly large menu). This place just had candy, popcorn, and nachos. At least it did have an actual bar. Which was closed. :smack: I’m not going back.
That may have been one of the IMAXlite theatres also.
Many yaren ago I was a projectionest–and my biggest problem was when the movies GOT OUT. We were on the 3ed floor of the mall, and escalators do not like to be overloaded with people. Many emergency trailer changes had to be done Friday…
My ticket said theatre 8, the door on the theatre said 8, and it was the theatre the ticket taker pointed too. I did check my ticket a couple times. I didn’t want to leave the theatre early and complain because; I kept thinking the previews would start soon, and I was alone so I’d didn’t want to risk losing my seat.
I remember a story of an Englishman who brought suit against a theater somewhere in the UK a few years back over the issue of excessive ads. I’m not sure if anything came of it, though. When I was over there the average time for ads and previews was around 25 minutes.
There is no theater anywhere in America that I am aware of that would start the previews a full half hour after the start time on purpose. It certainly sounds like they screwed up. As for IMAX 3D not being better than digital 3D, it seems likely that you went to a “LieMAX” theater - i.e., a digital IMAX theater. Digital IMAX 3D isn’t all that different from standard digital 3D - real film IMAX 3D, IMO, is considerably better.
The fact that the lights didn’t go down until a half hour after the start time sounds like a mistake to me. Or its the worst movie theater in existence. Did you notice how everyone else was reacting?
At the local theaters here in Las Vegas, you can count on about 15 minutes of previews, etc. before the movie starts. It’s not bad - usually it means we can take our time getting popcorn and cola before sauntering in. As we usually go to early screenings, the theaters are never full so there is ample seating.
One funny story was when I went with two Americans to Warsaw, Poland for a long weekend. It was cold and raining, and we noticed a local movie theater was showing a new Mel Brooks film (this was in about 1980 or so). We bought the tickets and there was a huge crowd in the lobby. We went in to sit down and there were maybe three other people in the entire theater!
The room got dark and then there was a gawdawful 15 minute propaganda film - showing happy workers reaping wheat and happy workers in coal mines, etc. The minute that crappy short film ended, the theater filled up almost immediately. Apparently everyone in Poland knew not to show up when the film was scheduled to start.
Oh, and regarding the IMAX lite screens - yeah, we learned the hard way that those are not at all worth the money. Either go to a real IMAX, with a screen the size of a football field, or don’t bother at all. I suppose the picture in those IMAX lite theaters is 2% better than a regular version of the film, but hardly worth paying $5 more!
Another majorly irritating thing is when the website for the movie theater gets the start times just plain wrong, and I’ve known this to happen a couple of times. It’ll say 4:35 and the movie either started at 4:15 or starts at 5:15. For one local movie theater I don’t plan an outing until I’ve called them and listened to their automated message give start times, because they’re often wrong online. (If there’s a difference in automated message and online it’s the former that’s the correct one.)
I think this comes about when a movie goes from being shown on, say, 4 screens to being shown on 1 or 2 and the theater neglects to omit the showtimes for the extra screens.
This has been my experience as well, almost universally. Not that I don’t believe you, alpha, but it sounds like your experience did not represent the norm at all. Something was definitely wrong there.
It’s a problem with the newspaper listings as well. Ok, I admit it, I’m old- fashioned. I get my news from the morning paper, and the 3 times a year I might want to see a movie at the theater I check the listings in the paper for times. On more than one occasion they have been WRONG. One time the girl argued with me until I showed her the newspaper listing. But at least I got a couple of free passes to account for my wasted time. (But still very annoying)