Tron Ares - sound note

[Mike Blakesley]

I didn't watch the whole thing but I did look at the first and last few minutes of Tron: Ares tonight. It will give your sound system a workout. I set ours to our normal level and it sounded fantastic to me. The movie is a visual feast, I get the feeling it would be entertaining to watch even if you didn't understand or care about the story.

It features music by Nine Inch Nails, which if you like Nine Inch Nails is great. A movie theater is a great place to listen to this kind of music, if you're into it. If you're not, it'll be an endurance test.

A small warning: At the end of the credits, the music gets incredibly distorted. (There may be more like this within the movie too, I suppose.) Eventually it calms down but then there's a VERY loud note right at the end. The distorted part sounds for all the world like your speakers have all been torn to shreds.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Play the frequency sweep test DCP and see if your speakers did get torn to shreds, but hopefully it was just clipping or something at the amps and protecting the speakers.

[Josh Jones]

I have the new NIN album which includes the score. There are a few tracks that end with distortion, its likely intentional.

[Mike Blakesley]

I'm sure it is 'on purpose,' as the loud note at the very end came out sounding fine.

[Ryan Gallagher]

I have the new NIN album which includes the score. There are a few tracks that end with distortion, its likely intentional.

yeah I almost edited to say it was probably intentional distortion considering the Artist.

[Jim Cassedy]

I haven't had time to sit and actually watch T-A ( I rarely do!) - but we're playing it in
HDR, and I did catch a glimpse of it on screen while working in the booth, and the
picture on screen looks amazing! I'm sure the film-makers 'pushed' some of the
color saturation a bit in some sequences, but it really looks great in HDR.

[Josh Jones]

One review I read called Tron: Ares a 'mediocre movie, or a fantastic big budget Nine Inch Nails music video.' Apparently the plot is a bit thin.

[Mike Blakesley]

People are liking it, but from our office vantage point (which is steps from the auditorium, so we can see part of the picture and hear the sound) I can tell you if you're not a NIN fan, it may be of the most annoying movies in history. I don't get the appeal of that music. But it looks amazing. I do love the immersiveness of it.

I hate the way all of Disney's promotional materials are screaming "SEE IT ON THE BIGGEST SCREEN POSSIBLE!!!" Hey Disney....how about saying "Make sure you SEE IT IN A THEATER," all right? We're all paying the same film rent, ya know?

[James Wyrembelski]

You weren't kidding about the sound system workout. Haven't ever seen the sub amp kick out that much. Love it.

[Mike Blakesley]

I finally got fed up with hearing that extreme distortion toward the end (which goes on for a couple minutes) and I put a cue 3 minutes from the end to turn it down to 2.5. There's nobody left at that point anyway -- in fact, last night nobody was there for the beginning or middle, either. This thing is a turkey for us. Gonna be a long 2 weeks. I don't think we EVER had a zero-show for day 3 of a major new release before, but we did last night.

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

All of this reminds me of the infamous "Addams Family Rap" trailer where they overmodulated the optical tracks so badly they "Clashed" (overlapped in the center split band) so hard every kick drum hit came out as a loud "BLAT" sound.... oh, and Stallone's "Cobra" (an Ultra-Stereo track) had the same issues at every theatre it played at. For the ones in my service "kit" I did a special "A" chain to try to minimize the very bad distortion, with mixed results.

I had the trailer but it when to John E. before he passed way.

[James Wyrembelski]

Just had an empty show for Tron this afternoon. This has been a long year. I've had more empty shows this year than every year I've run this theater combined. This fall has been atrocious.

[Frank Cox]

This movie has everything but a script. Otherwise it looks pretty cool (actually it's red so maybe I should say it looks "hot"), and the music is pretty good if you like that kind of music.