THX means the theater's equipment, auditorium, etc are peachy keen. It DOESN'T mean the monkey flipping the switch behind the port-hole window knows what he's doing. And it doesn't mean you will get the experience THX promotes.

The only time I every hear people talking about THX anyway is when Star Wars movies come out.

We're doing a World Premier this weekend and TAP is coming to check the screens we are running it on. I guess in this situation, their critical minds are a calming effect. Something going wrong or not being perfect during an event of that magnitude would be a catastrophy, IMHO.

Maybe it could be reccomended to Carmike to spend the money on Kodak's Screen Check. A brilliant idea on their part. Not a clue on cost tho.

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"And the monkey flips the switch."
- Major Don West, "Lost In Space"

Andrew D'Vrey
IATSE Local 219
 

It isn't a tragedy, just interesting that the 2nd largest theater chain is saying "screw you" to Lucas. Bout time IMHO. It gives me a project for an otherwise boring Thursday afternoon-pull the two THX trailers and add Dolby's. Course that will take all of 10 minutes, leaving me nothing to do for the rest of the 40 customer afternoon .
 

I attributed it to bad ad writing...this same theatre constantly puts STEREO next to films that are in DTS. (they have DTS in all screens.) Unless they have a couple of malfunctioning units......

What's THX going to come up with next? A projectionist REQUIRED to run the machines and not a manager? Now that would be ludicrous.

Just kidding, of course!
 

Then, about 5 years ago, Cinemark dropped THX and within seconds their theatres turned to crap. A few months later, Carmike came to Utah and eventually they built some THX houses. If they drop it here, then we'll run low on quality again.

At least with THX, there's SOME kind of notion that the equipment will be maintained. One of the greatest theatres in Salt Lake City (the big house at Trolley Corners) was great in the 1980s but, after a half-dozen bad shows there in the early 90s, I haven't been back since THE FUGITIVE. They never had THX.

(I remember asking a Cinemark manager why they dropped THX 5 years ago and he said something like "Now we have DTS and that's better." I guess managers thought DTS was a cure-all back then. Thing is, they'd already had DTS for 18 months while they still had THX... and THOSE were good presentations. I can't wait to hear some other bone-head explanation from someone who will instantly reveal he doesn't know what he's talking about. Of course, another manager at a different theatre once admitted that the DTS player was at the shop but said "We just turn it up louder and people think it's digital." Unfortunately, he was right, since the average customer's mind has been numbed by too much VHS.)

[This message has been edited by Greg Anderson (edited 03-16-2000).]
 

I think Gordon is right; theaters are loosing money, and this is a cost they can "save" on right away.

I never heard of a requirement to lock the THX cabinets, either. Ours do lock, but the keys are just stuck in the lock itself. Knowing us, we would loose them if they were anywhere else...

About 5 years ago, it was $10,000 for the first year of THX; $1,000 per year after. Those amounts could change, depending on how many screens you were doing a one time.

We also went for over two years (twice) without any one from THX comming by to re-certify. When they did, it had to be at their convenince. Our tech guy had one day notice to meet THX and spent all day (from 6:00am to 6:00pm; break for dinner while shows were running; then from 11:30pm to 3:00 next morning.)
 

Possibly I was unclear, MTS is not doing recerts, just general maintanence. They came through our theater back in January for their bi-annual complete theater check. They went through each projector very thouroughly.
 

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I was just informed today that we will be pulling all forms of THX advertising including trailers, signs, newspaper ads, etc. Supposedly Carmike no longer likes the overly strict THX standards.

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Ads in today's newspaper for Carmike theaters in Mobile, AL still tout THX. Plus an ad for a new Carmike theater opening in April says it will be THX also.

[This message has been edited by William Hooper (edited 03-17-2000).]
 

I just know we're boxing up everything that has THX on it and sending it to the District office.
 

Didn't you hear? Popcorn Penny decided she prefers "bad boys" and ran off with Clyde! Front Row Joe was do depressed he stuck his head in a popcorn popper and popped himself to death!

As goofy as it was I like Front Row Joe much better than those dumb "Image" trailers!
 

The THX division has had so many people problems and it seems that they had a huge turnover every time I did another system. These hassles are not worth the headaches. I still design at least two houses to THX standards in all the plexes I do. I also still use my R-2 on every house I eq. No exceptions there.....ever. The results obtained are way to good to consider anything else. Seems to me that when they were moved off "The Ranch" they went downhill and have not been heading back up. Perhaps George has even had enough.
Mark
 

You know what they found wrong in 98 when they recertified us? Our lights were too bright during the feature. We knew about this and it was scheduled to be fixed. Really wasn't that bad and hadn't recieved any complaints about it, but things should be as perfect as possible. The only other problem we had was that our entry doors closed to loudly. Five minutes with a wrench fixed that for both theaters. So we dropped all that money for Lucas to tell us that. Not worth it in my opinion. Our projectors and sound systems recieve regular maintanence. Maybe THX was needed a few years back to bring up standards, but until the bar needs to be raised again having the certification is just dumping money down a drain in my opinion.
 

--Chris

 

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Originally posted by Dustin Mitchell:
You know what they found wrong in 98 when they recertified us? Our lights were too bright during the feature. We knew about this and it was scheduled to be fixed.

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The only other problem we had was that our entry doors closed to loudly. Five minutes with a wrench fixed that for both theaters.

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I don't know about this. You must understand they weren't closing that loudly, I mean, the whole building didn't shake. But yes, they were closing kind of hard. At this time I was only in the concession stand though, so I don't know for sure if that was on the to do list before they came out or not.