Curious what other people are seeing as ticket prices (for the IMAX 70mm showings).
My closest theater with that format is charging twenty-five dollars a ticket, even for matinee showings.
I got the best digital version tix and they were $25 each.
I think all versions were the same price but I really only checked two (70mm and good digital so maybe the smaller theaters were less…not sure).
ETA: I live in Chicago if that makes any difference.
My IMAX 70mm theater was charging $15. Although these were bad seats and possibly been marked down.
I paid $16 per ticket at a first-come-first-seated lower-res IMAX theater.
I will say I was bummed to see the senior citizen discount was about $1.50 less (a bit less than that actually). I do not qualify but the person I went with did.
What a joke.
My guess is that “senior citizens” are at least as motivated to see in-theater movies as anyone else. I’m honestly surprised they are still offering a discount.
$32 for AMC Lincoln Square NYC. $26.79 for matinees. Both plus fees if you’re not an AMC Stubs member so it would end up being around $35 for regular showings and $30 for matinees. (Or $0 with A-List.)
Here is the official site’s explanation of the various formats.
The 35mm prints are “scope,” which means they use an anamorphic lens to stretch the full 35mm frame (which has a natural aspect ratio of about 1.33) to a wide screen ratio of 2.39, wider than the standard 70mm ratio of 2.20.
The important thing about all these various ratios is that Nolan has shot the movie with all of them in mind. So, unlike other format conversions that are usually done without the input of the filmmaker, The Odyssey’s framing is exactly what the director intended, regardless of format. The critical stuff in each frame will appear in every version. The taller formats will be more immersive.
I would expect that virtually every format will use the full width of the camera frame in most shots, and will crop the top and bottom. The IMAX 70mm and Laser GT versions will give you the full height of the image captured by the IMAX film cameras. The others are shorter.
So I just saw it earlier tonight in the “IMAX with Laser” (4K) format.
After the showing, I ducked into another theater and watched for a few minutes on a regular non-IMAX screen. This was after seeing the whole last act (about 30 minutes) on a regular non-IMAX screen last week.
Having seen the two formats both side-by-side, the regular screens were noticeably cropped. But a casual viewer would never notice. What the large IMAX screens add is a sense of expansiveness as you watch the film. There’s a whole lot more real estate that shows the foreground (like a beach) and the background (like an expansive hillside, or the sky). In the Cylclops’s cave, you can see and experience the whole cave, top to bottom.
But with that said, the core action is in the center. You’re not really missing anything that takes away from the story.
Still, if you enjoy a large big-screen experience, the “IMAX with Laser” format was well worth it.
I can only imagine what the 70mm IMAX experience is like.
One complaint I had is that I didn’t quite catch all of the dialog. (I missed maybe 10%.) I guess I’m too used to closed-captions at home.
Any while the movie was visually spectacular, it seemed a little thin on the plot and exposition. I was familiar with the Odyssey gong in, and this version seemed very abridged.
Overall I give it a 9/10 for visuals, and a 7/10 overall.
Yeah…I’ll be waiting for TV. I dropped the theater habit entirely during COVID and I don’t really miss it. I’ve done the full IMAX experience with friends a few times in the dusty past and I never found it was for me. If it’s a good enough film to watch on a 65" TV screen, I’ll see it eventually. If it’s not, IMAX for the spectacular visuals won’t make it worth it for me.
No, I did not think the first Avatar was worth it and no, having read the reviews I will never bother watching the second one no matter how pretty it is.
I’m getting the sense that this viewing experience premium is like how very expensive fine wine is wasted on me. Yeah there’s a difference between good wine and that very premium stuff, I can tell, I guess, it just isn’t adding much to my enjoyment over plain good? To me the spectacle isn’t the part that drives my movie going experience as much as the story and the characters.
Nolan should have shot it in 9:16 vertical since that’s how all the kids will be watching it anyway!