As everyone goes out to see Episode II, post your technical review of it on this thread. Be SURE and note the theater name, city and state, along with a date and showtime if possible. For this particular movie, I think it is also ESSENTIAL to note whether you screened a 35mm film print, or a DLP presentation. Please do not review your own theater, but feel free to paste other people's comments about your own presentation from comment cards, website comments, newspaper writeups or Star Wars geek internet forums.

Remember, this is not the place to post your comments about the movie itself, only the presentation of the movie.

Note: those of you who have been making comments about presentation on this movie in other threads here, please copy and paste the technical comments here. For those of you who actually don't know what TAP stands for, it's Lucasfilm's "Theatre Alignment Program" at 1-800-PHONE-THX (or as many lovingly refer to it, the "Lucas bitch hotline".)

I urge Ted Costas to post actual TAP reports here too. He may not be able to print negative reports, but surely he can print the occasional positive report. (People DO occasionally call in with a GOOD report, right Ted?)

If political reasons prevent you from posting a review, email it to me with the subject header "TAP review" and I'll post it. Just make sure to include your full name as it appears on the forums so I can verify you against your email address. I will not post your name.

Based on how smoothly this goes and how much participation there is will depend on whether we set up a forum specifically for this in the future.

The focus was iffy but I this was largely down to the cinema set up rather than the print as there was a left to right difference even during ads and trailers.

The splices were lousy. Nice and jumpy with black marks across the screen. At one reel change just before the arena scene there was a nice black vertical scratch for a couple of seconds about third way across from left side of screen.

As everyone says the darker scenes showed up more digital artefacts than the light scenes

Oh and to top it all the feature presentation tag between ads and AOTC was out of rack ! Film done right, I don't think so.

Sound wise it seemed to be lacking bottom end during some of the explosions, not sure which sound format they were using.

Next screening May 16 4:20pm at Jordan Commons, theatre number 13 with SDDS digital audio and it was film. Again, the picture was just fine. This time it was a THX-certified auditorium with the "punch" I missed the first time.

In both screenings, I noticed no "white specs" in the picture and only a few isolated, black specs. Each print had a factory splice somewhere in the middle (different places in each print) but apart from the one affected frame, no other printing and/or color problems near the splices.

I must say, I can't find anything lacking in the picture quality of this movie. If I'd never been told it was shot entirely without film, I never would have known. To me, the visual quality is no better or worse than it was when I saw The Phantom Menace on film three years ago. Those who claim to see glaring digital artifacts are, to me, just like those who claim to hear the difference between DTS and Dolby Digital in a "blind" test. They possess super powers which I didn't get on my home planet.

Edit: Each print had a preview for Die Another Day on it. We brought some very young children to the movie and the preview was not appreciated. This was "approved for all audiences"?

"Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones".

35mm film.

05/16/2002, Regal Cinema World 8, Eugene OR, 10:00AM (2nd public showing). House #3, SDDS sound. Screen width is about 30' according to the telltale ceiling tiles. Standard sloped seating (not stadium). This theatre was THX-certified back around 1995, but the THX certification was dropped when Regal bought out Act III. My favorite theatre in Eugene for technical presentation quality.

Show started on-time, perfectly framed, and in sharp focus.

I counted 5 ads (1 US Army; 3 for Coke products, 1 for Fandango); 1 PSA (Foundation For A Better Life); 4 or 5 green-banded previews; and the Regal roller-coaster image. All "rolling stock" and the feature were clean, hardly a black speck in sight. All seemed to play in digital sound.

Ep2 did have some white specks here and there but nothing drastically bad. I saw no CAP codes or lab splices (though I missed a few minutes at the end of reel 1 and beginning of reel 2 -- see sound comment below).

Image quality was OUTSTANDING. Very bright and steady, uniformly lit & focused across the entire screen. The image quality really jumped off the screen. I previously reported that the image was centered in the masking. It is well-framed by the masking, however, if I want to get nit-picky, it's shifted left of center about 10"-12" or so. Overshoots the masking quite a bit on the left side, hardly at all on the right, and titles are slightly left-of-center. Reel change splices were very clean, wouldn't have noticed them if not for cue marks. There is essentially no keystoning or geometry errors on this screen.

The sound was in SDDS, and except for a stretch of dropouts near the end of reel 1 (see below), it was FANTASTIC. I can't say enough good things about this theater's ability to reproduce it in something approaching its full glory. This theater blows area rival Cinemark out of the water in the sound department.

The SDDS sound did repeatedly drop out for the last few minutes of reel 1. Several people went out to complain to theater staff. After that though, it was fine for the rest of the show. After the movie, I spoke to the manager and he said they are probably going to switch it from SDDS to DTS.

EDIT: Forgot to mention the theatre: SilverCity Riverport, Richmond BC, screen #5

DLP showing in a 300 (or so) seat THX theatre.

Image Quality:

Let me first note that this is the first time I've seen a DLP presentation, and I didn't expect much from it.

The first thing that struck me was that the image was very clean. I guess I'm used to seeing at least some dirt, scratches or lab problems that are unfortunately common to the films found in your average multiplex. Other things I noticed about the image was that it was bright, had surprisingly good contrast, and extremely vibrant colour. I did not notice any significant artifacts due to the compression, although there was a bit of horizontal tearing during quick "camera" movements.

Not all was well though. Where the image quality really disappointed was with the resolution. I sat a bit closer to the screen than I normally prefer, but no where near the front row. I found the edges of the screen a tiny bit on the fuzzy side. It took me about 2/3 of the movie to really get over the low res image. Even so, upon leaving the theatre, my eyes were slightly sore, as if I had been squinting a bit to try and correct for the lack of resolution. One of the friends I was with also complained of sore eyes.

Another problem, unrelated to the digital nature of the movie, was that the masking was terrible. There was a good 2 foot overlap at the bottom of the screen, and about 6 inches on the left side. It wasn't too bad during darker scenes, but as soon as there was a bright object near the edge of the frame, it stuck out like a sore thumb.

Sound:

The sounds was clear and crisp, but lacked any real depth or punch. Explosions did not seem to be backed with enough low end. I find this is fairly typical in the multiplexes I tend to frequent. My guess is that instead of adding more sound proofing, they just turn down the subs to help lower the amount of noise that leaks from theatre to theatre.

General:

The show was pretty much sold out. Since it was the first showing of the day, they did not require us to stand outside, but allowed us to take our seats, even though we were an hour and a half early. This was great, as nobody really wanted to stand in line for that long, but neither did we want to get front row seats. I wish all theatre operators did this for popular movies. As early as we were, the theatre was already about 1/3 full.

The movie started right on time. I was very surprised to see no ads or PSAs, only 3 trailers (The Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions, Minority Report, and a third which I can't recall right now). The lack of ads is most likely due to the movie being digital. I also noticed that the trailers had much worse picture quality than the main feature, especially Minority Report which almost looked like a RealPlayer streaming video.

Summary:

Overall, the picture quality was acceptable. None of the people I went with had any problems with the DLP, other than myself. I wonder if the lack of sharpness was due to the DLP projection, the resolution that Mr. Lucas shot the movie, or a combination of both. It is pretty obvious to me though, that full digital movie making is still not where it really needs to be. Double the number of horizontal and vertical pixels (therefore quadrupling the total amount of data), and then I will be sold.

Having not seen the film version, I can't say which I prefer, especially since the source material is all digital. I suspect that DLP is the way to view Attack of the Clones, as several critics, such as Roger Ebert, have mentioned.

All in all, I don't think that all digital movie making is at the technology level it needs to be to out shine 35mm film. Maybe for Episode III...

05/17/2002, Cinemark 17, Springfield OR, house #16. Dolby SR-D sound. Screen measures about 40 feet in width. Stadium seating. 35mm film presentation.

Show started on time. 1 Coke-product ad, 4 or 5 previews, 1 PSA (FFABL), no policy or sound snipe.

Image Quality

All the pre-show stuff was clean and free of scratches. Judging from some text being just barely cut off at the bottom, the framing seemed to be slightly off (too low) but not objectionable and I saw none of those negative flashes or whatever they're called.

I was "pleasantly surprised" to see that the image quality was very close to what I praised at the rival Regal screen, even though this screen is larger. Focus and brightness were both excellent and uniform. There was a very slight weave but hardly worth mentioning. Image did not quite reach the masking on the bottom or the right side. Reel change splices were noticeable and the image jumped when a couple of them went through. There is slight keystoning on this screen, but not real bad, mostly only noticeable in titles or when they show a flat trailer printed in scope (the bars on either side are elongated some at the bottom).

If anything, this print was a little better than the previous one I rated. Practically no white specks at all, same for black specks. Not a scratch anywhere. I did see what is probably CAP code dots near the beginning of reel 2. No lab splices that I could detect.

Sound Quality

The last show I saw in this particular house was Lord of the Rings, and the sound was making that "tick" noise that's been blamed on SR-D block errors ("F" readouts on the processor?). There were no such flaws in this show. Overall the sound was crisp, clean, loud enough, and directional.

My only sound-related complaint is the lowest, deep bass was totally absent. There was low-frequency stuff in the show I reviewed previously that was totally missing in this theatre. Other than that "flaw", the sound was very good.

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quote:

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David, please edit your post to include the theater name. Without that one specific, your review doesn't offer much. Thanks.

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05/18/2002, Cinemark 17, Springfield OR, House #3, 4:15PM. DTS digital sound. Stadium seating.

Star Wars Episode 2: Attack Of The Clones. 35mm film.

Show started on time. 1 ad, 4 or 5 trailers. 1 PSA, which was dirty (FFABL).

Image Quality

Screen is about 36 feet wide. The scope aspect ratio seems to be only about 2.1:1. It looks common-height (scope image uses all the available height). Mild keystoning but not objectionable. The image overshoots the masking by a foot or so on both sides, but does not quite reach either the top or the bottom masking. Bright and steady, but seemed to be just slightly out of focus, not really sure (star fields and subtitles looked sharp, yet the rest of the image seemed softer than other Ep2 shows I saw).

Print was once again excellent, and clean. CAP code dots in reel 2. 1 lab splice, forget which reel (maybe 3). Reel change splices were noticeable. Overall looked pretty good but just a little soft.

Sound Quality

Unlike the SR-D show I saw yesterday, this DTS house is able to reproduce some of that really deep bass in this movie. It sounded much better in that regard. However, the volume seemed just a little too low, and things seemed "flat" and lacking in detail. Not terrible, just not real crisp.

In the middle of reel 6, the DTS sound dropped out completely (the analog SR was good but obviously different). I waited until reel 7 started and it remained in SR, so went downstairs and the GM happened to be standing right there doing crowd control. He radioed the booth and they confirmed it was in SR. Went back to my seat and after a couple minutes it returned to digital. Have no idea what the problem was.

EPISODE II ATTACK OF THE CLONES
19 May 2002
1:00pm
Loews Boston Common
[Screen] 18
Boston, MA

This was a DLP presentation.

Throughout the entire presentation, including the
trailers, there was a hair visible from the top of
the screen running down 1/3 the height of the image,
and positioned 1/5 from the left edge of the screen.
At first I thought it was a scratch on the screen, but
later noticed throughout the film that it swayed slowly
from side to side, ranging from straight vertical to
about 15 degrees of arc to the left and to the right.

Additionally, the DLP projector is positioned such that
heads of average-height audience members (e.g. 5'6"
tall humans) interesect with the bottom half of the
projected image as they walk through the rear left/right
aisle. This was not a problem during the feature, but it
was quite significant during the trailers and credits.
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05/19/2002, Regal Cinema World 8, Eugene OR, 1:10PM, house #3. Digital sound format unknown this time around.

The ceiling tiles seem to be 5' long which would make this screen about 37' wide, not 30' like I said before, but I'm not sure. It really looks larger than 30'.

Changes & exceptions to earlier comments about this location & its print:

After only 3 days, the print has picked up significant dirt. One 20 or 30 second stretch looked so bad it was as if someone laid out the film and rolled over it lengthwise with a chair (most of it wasn't nearly that bad, but there were still plenty of black specks). Other than the appearance of all this new dirt, the print looked excellent and again the image quality jumped off the screen more than in any other show I've seen.

At Friday's screening there was a problem with the SDDS sound, and they said they would "probably" switch it to DTS. Today, some of the trailers played in digital and all seemed to be fine. Then the feature started, and it wasn't in digital. SR. Wait. Wait. Still SR. Now, there were about 300 people there, and I'm sitting there thinking "HOW CAN THEY LET THIS HAPPEN!!?? THERE'S A PACKED HOUSE AND YOU'RE RUNNING THE BIGGEST FREAKING MOVIE OF THE YEAR IN THE BEST THEATER WITHIN AT LEAST 50 MILES AND THE SOUND IS HOSED!! WAKE THE F$%K UP!!!". So I got up, asked for the "manager", reported it, and she made the ascent up to the apparently-projectionistless booth to check on it. Returned to my seat, a couple minutes later the sound suddenly switched to digital. Apart from that incident, the sound was again great.

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