REVIEW #8
Hey everyone!
I'm new here, but a lifelong SW fan. Loved Episode 2 and was proud to be standing in a not-so-monstrous line for that first night's midnight showing at the UA Galaxy 9.

I'm a friend of fellow new member, "Flix", aka Brad Miller, part time projectionist, who actually ran the 35mm print that night and had the auditorium's THX sound tweeked for optimum audio orgasmic bliss. I am not biased just because I know the guy. He knows his stuff, and he's damn good at it.

I have not seen the DLP presentation yet, and I look forward to it, though most, if not all of those shows are sold out, meanwhile one can easily hop over to the Biggest Screen in Texas and see a FANTASTIC presentation. The picture was crisp, clean, bright and the sound is UNEQUALLED in the DFW area. Your seat rumbles from start to finish.

I've heard multiple reports of the DLP presentation totally rocking visually, with something to be desired in the sound department.

Everyone has their own opinion, and this is mine.........for hands-down, THE best sound presentation bar none, you OWE IT TO YOURSELF to see Star Wars Episode 2 on the gigantor screen at the UA Galaxy 9.

Mind you, I did not have issues with the visual presentation at all, but the sound is the real kicker here. Episode 2's genius sound design needs to be shown off and for Metroplex fans, it luckily is.

REVIEW #9
Well today I went and saw AOTC at both the Galaxy and the legacy. To be honest in my opinion I think that they equal themselves out. The sound system at the Legacy is better now since the premier, however I still dont think it is anywere near as good as the Galaxies THX system. The Galaxy had it turned up really loud and sounds awsome. The hair on my head was moving. The picture quality was fair at the most. I saw a bit of "wobble" in the picture. The Galaxy is also going down the tubs. The past couple of years have not been good to it. In my opinion the only thing the Galaxy has left is the sound system which by far is still the best I have ever heard.

Basiclly if you want Excellent image quality and decent sound go to the Legacy and vise verse for the Galaxy.

I will continue to see the movie at both theaters. Just more at the legacy in the fact it takes me some time to get to the Galaxy from Plano

REVIEW #10
Can't wait to see the DLP. Me and Darth Snoogans caught the 7:30 pre-screen at the Galaxy ... the sound was as all have said, incredible!

We'd tried to go this weekend to catch a DLP screening, but of course, it was all sold out. We're going to try again tomorrow/today if possible. I hear there's 8 minutes of additional footage on the DLP that's not in the celluloid prints? Can anyone confirm that? That would rock!

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So does anyone know if there is indeed a difference between the film versions and the DLP version? Do they both have the same running time, or is the DLP 8 minutes longer? I'm just wondering if that is gossip or fact.

I also have a feeling if these guys were comparing Episode II on one of our smaller 40 foot wide-ish screens (with 4000 watt lamp) instead of our 80 foot wide screen (with 4500 watt lamp) that they would not be hailing the image superiority of DLP quite so much.

I was impressed overall despite several things which detracted from the performance.

Trailers ran at full house lights, no ads before them, although there were short spots for DLP and TDC after the last trailer. Lights went full off at the LucasFilm logo. Only the Goldmember trailer looked poorer resolution than the movie itself. The package was, in order:
Goldmember
Matrix 2
MIB 2
Minority Report
DLP
Technicolor Digital Cinema

SOUND
We got to the aud with five minutes to spare and had to sit in the back row. This was great for viewing, but not so great for sound because the back wall speakers were above our heads and we lost some of the surround effect. So I didn't have the best sound experience possible, but I could have if we had made it there earlier. Sound was excellent outside of this; the right amount of depth and punch. Very very nice, no distortion at high or low frequencies.

PICTURE
This was one of the brightest presentations I have ever seen. It was so bright, in fact, that four of the seven screen seams were illuminated to the point of distraction. They ran vertically at (from the right) 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4 of the screen. It was really, really annoying, especially since one of the nicer things about DLP is the lack of scratching possibility. I had four vertical lines which effectively were the same thing as scratches, and which really took away from what the presentation could have been.

Another problem I noticed was the presence of three blurry faint spots of light on the left hand center and center top of the screen. The left/center was green, same color as the exit signs, the center/tops were red... during credits the place emptied out quick so me and my assistant (who came with me) ran down and covered up the exit sign to see if that was it. It wasn't. When the projector shut off the lights went away. I don't know that much about DLP, and they wouldn't let me see their booth . It almost reminded me of the spots we used to get on our screen from the green window that lets you see the bulb while it's running, but it was a different color green, and that wouldn't explain the red spots. Annoying, but not as bad as the screen seam "scratches".

We also noticed that from the fourth row, the stars are squares. In the first seven rows or so of the theatre you would be able to see the jagged (stair-step) edges on the curves of objects or credits (ESPECIALLY the credits). Also from up close you can see the vertical strips that comprise picture which is annoying. I would say that on the whole, I could toleratre film presentations from the first few rows but not digital ones.

Ok, now for the exciting raving parts. Hands down some of the truest colors I have ever seen. The reds were incredible and definitely the best I have ever seen. In the scene where Jango is standing by the pink electronic ads, the ads glowed with sharp intensity. Everything was bright, distinct, with no bleed and crystal focus. It was amazing to see the backgrounds so sharply. It was a very nice picture from where we were sitting, about three screen lengths away (40 foot screen?). The picture was steady, steady, steady. I found the lack of changeover cues noticeable at first, but forgot about them eventually. Only a projectionist would notice that anyway.

Overall a good show. I will have to go back and sit in the middle sometime so I can get the full surround sound effect. Focus was clearer than the film prints at my multiplex can get, although I think in some scenes (Mos Eisley, e.g.), the computer animation is more noticeable in DLP than on film. None of the white specks were on the digital version, they are on all five of the prints we have here.

Sarah Werning
Chief of IMAX Projection
Regal IMAX Lincolnshire

No ads or policy daters. Trailers: Like Mike, Men In Black 2, Minority Report, Austin Powers, Matrix sequals. DLP Tag and Technicolor Logo.

Film evenly illuminated and focus sharp edge to edge. Masking dead-nuts on. Oddly enough, I saw the exact same blobs of light Sarah noted above, they came and went with the show, were very visible in fades-to-black and were clearly not ambient in nature. Sound very clear. There was a soda (or something) stain on the screen, fer crissakes, about center and down slightly with the usual reflectance change. They have one DLP set up in one of their smaller houses, and are working three other prints. Picture very clean and saturated (we surfed into the big screen after the show and caught a few minutes of 35mm, which was slightly lower in saturation and thinner in contrast, and not nearly as visually involving). No aliasing or artifacts that I could see.

All in all, if I hadn't "known", I would never have made it out to be a video origination. The wholly digital effects sequences were very sharp and clear, the live action photography less so. It seemed to me that there were depth-of-field issues in the photography of the actors, I felt that there were clear focus problems when the focal plane was split even slightly between a foreground performer and someone in the backround. You really see the difference in resolution in people's faces, it seemed to me. The whole effect of the video photography put me in mind of 35mm. with a fair amount of diffusion, like the kind you would get with a lite Tiffen softnet.

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If only the Galaxy would get DLP....

REVIEW #12
After seeing 12:01 at the Galaxy and Saturday afternoon at the Legacy...the Galaxy definitely was a better experience. Looking at the replies it looks like the Galaxy was prefered. It is pretty clear where the line should be next year...Legacy, that way I will be closer to the front for Episode III at the Galaxy!

REVIEW #13
The Galaxy screening I saw was phenomenal in sound. I doubt it can be surpassed, but I admit the picture quality had some grain to it. Will see it on DLP as soon as possible.

REVIEW #14
The Galaxy sound is out of this world. But the picture quality stinks.

Give me DLP any day of the Week.

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REVIEW #15
Ok guys. I've been back to the Galaxy again now, and I have to say that I much prefer the "experience" at the UA Galaxy 10 there more than the "movie" on DLP at the Cinemark Legacy. This is after 3 viewings at the Legacy and 2 at the Galaxy. Look at it this way....

When you watch a show at the Legacy on DLP, you get GREAT visual quality, but the sound just isn't where it should be. You just can't "feel" the movie. You are only getting one of your senses aroused… sight.

But when you go take in a showing at the Galaxy on theater #5, you can really hear everything. You and your chair are vibrating with every saber blow and explosion. And although it may only be a film version of the movie, it is one of the best possible theaters to see film (clean with few scratches, etc…). You are getting 3 of your senses pleased with this experience…. sight, sound, AND feeling.

Nothing can beat the orgasmic feeling you get when those sonic charges go off in the asteroid field. You can actually feel the peril for Obi-Wan because you actually feel asteroids exploding all around him. And I personally think that the Mids and Highs are better in the Galaxy. They are almost too sharp and piercing at the Legacy, and there is no Bass to counter it out with.

The Legacy’s legacy just can’t hold it’s own against the Galaxy far, far away….

Now, what was said above is relating to the quality of the movie experience ONCE the sound was turned on in the theater!! Check this out…

It was myself with my Aunt, Jeff and his friend that he brought in from Sherman, TX, and I can never remember your name man , but you had your son with you yesterday. When the lights went down and the previews began to roll, something just didn’t sound right. I could not feel/hear any bass with the MIB2 trailer and I’m sure I have before. So I got up and ran down the hall to the girl who was tearing tix and asked her to have them check it before the movie began to play. She picked up her walkie-talkie and began to talk into it, so I figured it was taken care of. Boy was I wrong.

The first time I went to the Galaxy for AOTC last week, my 2nd favorite scene was the opening sequence where the Royal Naboo ship passes over us 3 times and then explodes. Every thing in the theater (including my chair) was vibrating. I love this because you can really get a sense of the size of this starship and then you feel like you are on that landing platform when it explodes. Unfortunately, upon this viewing yesterday, the sound was just not there. It was like watching a big screen TV with MONO sound and no bass.

So I ran back out and complained again about the sound, to which I was told they’d get right on it. I felt like Branson was working there… Now I was hoping that at least the rest of the movie would be better. Boy was I wrong AGAIN.

Apparently the sound was never touched. So from the whole scene with Zam and her chase all the way until Obi-Wan meets Jango on Kamino in his apartment (about an hour into the movie), we are listening to crap. I kept hoping that they would get it fixed and get it right, but it was clear that wasn’t going to happen by the end of the apartment scene. And I wanted good sound for the duel and subsequent chase through the asteroids. So I pulled out my cell phone and called the box office from inside the theater to which I was told that someone would fix it.

Finally, on my 3rd complaint for them to correct the problem, the sound kicked in. We all (in my party) could clearly tell when the digital sound was turned on, even though we were watching a conversation at the time. The next scene was the Jango/Obi-Wan duel and that was great. From then on, the movie was fine.

After the show, we tried to complain and were told to wait and someone would be with us shortly, but after about 10 min of waiting we left. It was enough time for everyone in our group to run to the restroom and come back (even my Aunt ).

Although the presentation was good AFTER the sound was turned on, the customer service sucked. I don’t know why I would take me 3 tries to get the sound turned up/on and why we were ignored after the show, but it was not pleasant. I will probably go back to see AOTC at the Galaxy due to the great sound, but perhaps they care more about their customers on the weekend when they have massive amounts of them than the few weekday matinee customers. So I suppose I’ll just have to fight thru the large weekend crowds and lines just to see this movie the way it should be seen. Or I can just go to the DLP at the Legacy, which is closer to my house anyway.

"Lost some respect the Galaxy has. How embarrassing, how embarrassing!"

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Definitely not acceptable!!! Clearly the projectionist that day failed to do his mandatory 15-20 minute "booth walks" to check on things, and then proceeded to lie to the manager that "all was fine" (so he would not get into trouble) and as such the manager believed him without question and refused to make good to these customers with 6 passes for their group. Upon researching the problem I believe it has been tracked down to a relay in the automation (a few more screenings will tell for sure). Over the 24 hours after this screening, the system failed 4 times to "bump up" the level from 3.5 (previews) to 7.0 (feature) and remained in SR for the feature. Our systems are very reliable and this happens *maybe* once a year. Regardless, this is no excuse for the projectionist to not get off of his ass and check on things throughout his shift. This should have been caught within the first reel of the movie, worst case senario, and of course passes should have been given. (Yes, I am stewing over this one.)

Disclaimer: while yes this is the theater I work 2 nights a week at, I have nothing to do with how the floor operations are ran. Up until this week I have always felt the managers did a good job at taking care of the customers. Today I have lost much of that respect due to Thursday's events and the complete refusal of the manager to make good in some manner to that party of 6 that drove out of their way to patronize the Galaxy and got a bad show.

(BTW, these guys have been speaking on the Star Wars board since before the movie opened about how "film gets scratched" and most have been well conditioned to believe that as a fact of film. Our prints are NOT scratched! An ex-projectionist of mine (who is very picky) was in that same auditorium last night and reported the print was "perfect from beginning to end". The infamous Mr. Ron Beardmore from Northpark is going to the theater to screen the movie tomorrow and if there is a mark on that print, I will certainly hear about it.)

Since there are many technical glitches that can cause the wrong sound format to be selected, in my Perfect World the person on duty in the booth would be ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED to check for proper sound format playback at the start of the feature, AFTER all the trailers etc. are finished.

I've always felt that the digital logos need to have a nice friendly voice on the analog track saying "Welcome to everyone at this theater. If you are hearing this announcement, this movie is NOT being played in Dolby Digital/DTS/SDDS and the management of the theater needs to be contacted immediately." Wouldn't that be nice? It would also prevent those theaters advertising digital from running those logos, because it does happen, frequently intentionally.

Actually I remember reading something related to the analog sound on the DTS flying disc logo when the system was being rolled out for Jurassic Park. The DTS people were concerned that some theaters not equipped with DTS would get hold of the logo and play it to mislead customers (of course there could be other scenarios such as prints being moved to non-DTS houses, etc). Their idea was to have no analog sound on it whatsoever. I think exhibitors balked at that and DTS went ahead and put the analog soundtrack on the logo, which seems awfully dumb. Playing that logo in bad SR is not very impressive.

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The adds abd trailers also played in SR only. Something must have gone wrong.

Anyway

Back to Star Wars......

For some reason the curtains were open when I walked in. Strange. I've never seen the giant 70ft screen out in the open like that. Lots of movable black masking. It looks like they can raise the top a bit to make 1.85:1 films bigger than they would normally be. I can't confirm that they do that since I've never seen a non-2.35 film there. Anyone know? After awhile the curtains closed and then opened and then the lights dimmed. Hmm, I guess the timing is out of sync. This was later confirmed when the curtains closed all the way and reopened during the MIIB trailer. They also didn't close at the end credits like I've seen them do. The lights didn't come back on either so everyone who had stayed until the end had to find their way out in darkness.

Picture

I never thought DLP would hold up well on this particular screen but I was wrong. Image was consistently bright, detailed, and of course, mindblowingly steady. Only the Minority Report trailer exihibited film artifacts. From where my seat was(just to the right of the exact middle) I couldn't see any artifacts or pixels. Only when I got up and moved closer to have a look did the picture reveal it's digital nature. That's okay though since the same happens with film, only there's grain and other junk instead of pixels. Being the first movie I've seen shot entirely with digital cameras and projected digitally I didn't know what to expect. It certainly wasn't soft or grainy like some people have said about the film prints. I was really critical of Lucas pulling this off but I have to say I was really impressed at how much detail his team squeezed out of those cameras. It actually looked better than most prints I've seen.

Sound

Oh man! Of all the times I've been to Grauman's this definitely was the loudest I've heard their sound system go. While I appreciate an insanely powerful sound system(ie Cinermam Dome) there are limits to how much people can endure. The MIIB trailer in particular was just too much. Very very harsh sounding. Dialogue intelligibilty was also worse than past experiences I've had there. The beautiful interior of the auditorium just isn't good for sound. It bounces, it echoes. Fortunately the bass is well understood and AOTC has enough to... well, you know. It kicks some major ass. The sound sytem had no trouble reproducing it. Surround activity was equally impressive with the countless fly-bys of ships and explosions. I'm pretty sure I heard 3 channels.

Program Order

Austin Powers: Goldmember
Like Mike
Men in Black II
Sum of All Fears
The Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions
Minority Report
New Mann's Chinese complex trailer
Latest THX trailer
Latest DLP trailer
Technicolor Digital Trailer
Main Feature

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A KIWI eats,roots & Leaves.