Other theaters like Paramus, Newark Airport, Rockaway have much more asymmetrical theaters and you may need to be quite a few seats over from max seat #/2 to be centered.
Also, FWIW, the seats did seem to be very slightly asymetrical. I could be wrong, but it felt more like seat 23 is center rather than between seats 21 and 22. (but with such a wide screen, a few seats this way or that still doesn’t feel too far off, even for 3D where being dead center is very important IMO- in fact, I sometimes wonder if people who don’t like 3D don’t like it because they don’t sit dead center)
Saw Last Jedi in Laser IMAX 3D here. This time my glasses had no issues, none of the problem where the right eye coating was like half missing. Perfect 3D corner to corner with zero ghosting. Awesome quality. Much better 3D than regular IMAX and even moreso compared to Real3D. Deep blacks, nice contrast, more detailed. Fantastic.
Not sure what happened last time, both our glasses had the exact same problem where the right eye seemed to be coated only in the center and if you eye spacing didn’t exactly match that, HORRIBLE double vision for the right eye. Not sure if they shipped them a whole new set of glasses, went through them and replaced all the bad ones or whether it was just total bad luck last time to get two of just a few bad ones or this time total good luck to get two of the few good ones (probably not this considering lack of any other recent complaints).
Anyway, it seems the Laser IMAX 3D is working well here now. (Now if only they would start spreading it to more theaters (and if only they would build some more true IMAX locations, there are so, so few, not one in all of northern NJ despite that being one the richest and more densely populated places in the whole country; sure NYC isn’t far BUT as soon as you are over the river it suddenly means a much longer and more expensive trip and something you just do all the time).)
granted with the screen being so super huge here, a few seats this way or that isn’t as far off center as on most screens, but it is still good to know, since if it was non-symmetrical and you already had to chose somewhat out, going one side vs. the other could start putting you somewhat more out there
So nobody knows what seat is dead center in the renovated IMAX? (talking side to side not front to back and also talking about the rows that have the max number of seats across, so not the front few rows nor the very back row).
I forget, what seats are dead center in the renovated IMAX? Is it like 21-22 (although most theaters do not have screen and seats symmetrical, often the entrance pushes seats over to one side more) or more like 24-25?
Thanks. I was just wondering since a lot of Dolby Cinema screens suddenly pulled TLJ even though they had no new DOlby releases either. Jumanji takes over starting Friday. Seems strange to me, at least in one place, TLJ Dolby screenings have been jammed, even as recently as tonight and yet they still switch to Jumanji on Friday!
Wow, they pulled Last Jedi from Dolby here for Jumanji? Last Jedi Dolby was packed here every time I looked for tickets, even today still, every good seat sold out. Seems like a bizarre decision. Just like how they got rid of TCM Classics, all of the showings for everything, even though they had the best sales for sales of any theater in the entire region.
“just one little note for people (like me) seeing The Last Jedi in IMAX here this weekend. While the film did use IMAX cameras for select sequences, it will be a locked scope presentation, and the screen will not be filled for any of those sequences.
Apparently, the director found the aspect ratio switches distracting when he was finishing the movie, and people who’ve seen the film in the UK mentioned there are no IMAX aspect ratio switches."
too bad they didn’t at least keep in one or two, in TFA, I thought it was spectacular when it expanded
I’d say Jersey Gardens IMAX is the best (tied for largest and seems the brightest and crispest of all), then Garden State (this one; tied for largest), then Rockaway, then Clifton (smallest).
Saw Titanic and the Dolby 4K presentation is pretty incredible. It was a long time ago, but I don’t recall seeing nearly this level of detail back in 1997 when I saw it here. The Dolby screen is also a good deal larger than the largest screen they had back in 1997.
Lines a bit shorter though haha. They were insane in 1997 here! Week after week wrapped way around the outer mall, way back, on some days almost all the way around to the far end of the back, crazy. Nothing ever like that other than for Star Wars.
The HDR was pretty good too, I don’t think the film version had quite this ability back then. Maybe some of the dark scenes at the end had some brighter areas seeming a little too bright, but whatever. Mostly it was all spectacular presentation all-around every which way. Maybe those who saw it in 70mm back when had something beginning to be like this, but this seems way beyond what I recall seeing in the 1997 original film release or later digital re-release. It did make it almost feel a little like it was something you hadn’t seen before (although maybe for those who did manage to see it in 70mm the difference would not be quite as huge, by ‘97 70mm was already pretty rare).
(oddly, the AMC that was doing super well with those re-releases, sometimes all but selling out their 300+ seat, 56' screen auditorium, way far out in the NJ suburbs, seems to have had recently had AMC pull the classic release series from them and now AMC seems to be mostly showing in the tiny theaters and ones where the series did not do half (or even, at times, 1/10th) as well, baffling and annoying decision)
@bigjoe59 – part of it is just 20th anniversary. Lots of movies have been getting a re-release for some anniversary. Just over the last year they have given semi-wide release to titles like: The Godfather, Breakfast At Tiffany’s, The Princess Bride, Dirty Dancing, Carousel, Pretty In Pink, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, E.T., Blade Runner and so on.
@leowtyx – Yeah it’s not on digital (other than in the indirect way in that it let some theaters get away with dumping long time experienced projectionists, well sort of let them get away with it, although as it seems, maybe not quite so much).
I think they have the volume set way wrong at the IMAX here now (or at least on the day I saw Blade Runner) since it sounded way, way louder here than at the Jersey Gardens IMAX or even the Lincoln Square laser IMAX. There is no way the deep bass should have been much louder at Rockaway than at Lincoln Square! It was the loudest I’ve ever heard for any movie ever. So I think my comments about the sound for that movie that I wrote above were based on someone at this theater going nuts and just dialing up everything to 10 and way beyond the already very loud IMAX standards or something. It mean it seemed at least twice as loud as the other IMAX theaters, probably far more. It was nuts. Even out in the exit hall screaming at the top of our lungs we could not hear each other and that was just during the music at the end which wasn’t even as loud as some other parts of the movie.
I have to say digital projection has seemed to have become more random these days. Not so sure about at this Lincoln location since I’ve only been to the IMAX (which had a serious issue with the laser 3D glasses, at least last year, never did receive an update as to what they found and whether they truly fixed that or not, the AMC manager seemed to take it seriously, the IMAX techs only sort of) and the huge balcony screen (although even speaking of that screen there was some sort of bit of odd keystoning at the corners), but for instance at AMC Rockaway some screens are bright and sharp, others bright and 2k when they could be 4k, others now so dark they must be using a way, way underspec Xenon bulb or one months beyond the date it should have been tossed. At Jersey Gardens the IMAX and a couple big screens look great, but I saw something at a tiny, high numbered screen and despite the minute screen size it was still soooooo dark, Xenon bulb must’ve been months to years over used. They did fix the problem where two screens had had huge degrees of color fringing around every pixel, but they had it messed up like that for months, even a couple years on one screen until written complaints were sent to management by some.
Paramus AMC, from what I’ve seen, seems to be using decent Xenon bulbs, although I saw one screen where the projector was mis-aimed by over 5' so at least 5' or more at top had no image and at least 5' or more was projected onto the bare wall below the screen.
OTOH at the non-AMC theater near the football stadium in NJ, crisp, well focused 4k and bright, same at the few screens I peaked at the renovated Hanover AMC.
@Al Alvarez – the least people were at Jersey Gardens, more at Rockaway and Lincoln so it doesn’t fit audience size sound pattern at all.
I guess Rockaway must just have some of HS people who run the show going all Back To The Future and turning every dial to 10, calibration be damned. I mean it was crazy that it actually pumped out way more deep bass than even Lincoln and just overall was so much louder than at any other theater. Literally felt like I was getting turned inside out at some points the deep sound pressure was so intense. Even Interstellar at Palisades IMAX didn’t hit those levels. Even at the music at the end, even screaming at top of our lungs we could not even hear a word we were saying even part way down the exit.
yeah, kinda the same thing, the movie theater Jersey Gardens is directly across from Newark Aiport
Other theaters like Paramus, Newark Airport, Rockaway have much more asymmetrical theaters and you may need to be quite a few seats over from max seat #/2 to be centered.
Also, FWIW, the seats did seem to be very slightly asymetrical. I could be wrong, but it felt more like seat 23 is center rather than between seats 21 and 22. (but with such a wide screen, a few seats this way or that still doesn’t feel too far off, even for 3D where being dead center is very important IMO- in fact, I sometimes wonder if people who don’t like 3D don’t like it because they don’t sit dead center)
Saw Last Jedi in Laser IMAX 3D here. This time my glasses had no issues, none of the problem where the right eye coating was like half missing. Perfect 3D corner to corner with zero ghosting. Awesome quality. Much better 3D than regular IMAX and even moreso compared to Real3D. Deep blacks, nice contrast, more detailed. Fantastic.
Not sure what happened last time, both our glasses had the exact same problem where the right eye seemed to be coated only in the center and if you eye spacing didn’t exactly match that, HORRIBLE double vision for the right eye. Not sure if they shipped them a whole new set of glasses, went through them and replaced all the bad ones or whether it was just total bad luck last time to get two of just a few bad ones or this time total good luck to get two of the few good ones (probably not this considering lack of any other recent complaints).
Anyway, it seems the Laser IMAX 3D is working well here now. (Now if only they would start spreading it to more theaters (and if only they would build some more true IMAX locations, there are so, so few, not one in all of northern NJ despite that being one the richest and more densely populated places in the whole country; sure NYC isn’t far BUT as soon as you are over the river it suddenly means a much longer and more expensive trip and something you just do all the time).)
granted with the screen being so super huge here, a few seats this way or that isn’t as far off center as on most screens, but it is still good to know, since if it was non-symmetrical and you already had to chose somewhat out, going one side vs. the other could start putting you somewhat more out there
Thanks, so I guess this is one of the rare symmetrical seats to screen auditoriums.
So nobody knows what seat is dead center in the renovated IMAX? (talking side to side not front to back and also talking about the rows that have the max number of seats across, so not the front few rows nor the very back row).
I forget, what seats are dead center in the renovated IMAX? Is it like 21-22 (although most theaters do not have screen and seats symmetrical, often the entrance pushes seats over to one side more) or more like 24-25?
Thanks. I was just wondering since a lot of Dolby Cinema screens suddenly pulled TLJ even though they had no new DOlby releases either. Jumanji takes over starting Friday. Seems strange to me, at least in one place, TLJ Dolby screenings have been jammed, even as recently as tonight and yet they still switch to Jumanji on Friday!
Wow, they pulled Last Jedi from Dolby here for Jumanji? Last Jedi Dolby was packed here every time I looked for tickets, even today still, every good seat sold out. Seems like a bizarre decision. Just like how they got rid of TCM Classics, all of the showings for everything, even though they had the best sales for sales of any theater in the entire region.
Speaking of TLJ, does anyone know how long it will play here on the IMAX screen?
“just one little note for people (like me) seeing The Last Jedi in IMAX here this weekend. While the film did use IMAX cameras for select sequences, it will be a locked scope presentation, and the screen will not be filled for any of those sequences.
Apparently, the director found the aspect ratio switches distracting when he was finishing the movie, and people who’ve seen the film in the UK mentioned there are no IMAX aspect ratio switches."
too bad they didn’t at least keep in one or two, in TFA, I thought it was spectacular when it expanded
Yeah it’s sad that Blader Runner didn’t do better business.
I’d say Jersey Gardens IMAX is the best (tied for largest and seems the brightest and crispest of all), then Garden State (this one; tied for largest), then Rockaway, then Clifton (smallest).
Saw Titanic and the Dolby 4K presentation is pretty incredible. It was a long time ago, but I don’t recall seeing nearly this level of detail back in 1997 when I saw it here. The Dolby screen is also a good deal larger than the largest screen they had back in 1997.
Lines a bit shorter though haha. They were insane in 1997 here! Week after week wrapped way around the outer mall, way back, on some days almost all the way around to the far end of the back, crazy. Nothing ever like that other than for Star Wars.
The HDR was pretty good too, I don’t think the film version had quite this ability back then. Maybe some of the dark scenes at the end had some brighter areas seeming a little too bright, but whatever. Mostly it was all spectacular presentation all-around every which way. Maybe those who saw it in 70mm back when had something beginning to be like this, but this seems way beyond what I recall seeing in the 1997 original film release or later digital re-release. It did make it almost feel a little like it was something you hadn’t seen before (although maybe for those who did manage to see it in 70mm the difference would not be quite as huge, by ‘97 70mm was already pretty rare).
I wonder if they fixed the 3D glasses here.
(oddly, the AMC that was doing super well with those re-releases, sometimes all but selling out their 300+ seat, 56' screen auditorium, way far out in the NJ suburbs, seems to have had recently had AMC pull the classic release series from them and now AMC seems to be mostly showing in the tiny theaters and ones where the series did not do half (or even, at times, 1/10th) as well, baffling and annoying decision)
@bigjoe59 – part of it is just 20th anniversary. Lots of movies have been getting a re-release for some anniversary. Just over the last year they have given semi-wide release to titles like: The Godfather, Breakfast At Tiffany’s, The Princess Bride, Dirty Dancing, Carousel, Pretty In Pink, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, E.T., Blade Runner and so on.
Sony Dynamic Digital Surround
@poland626 – that is not one I’ve been too in ages and ages. Didn’t they split the big screen a long while back?
@leowtyx – Yeah it’s not on digital (other than in the indirect way in that it let some theaters get away with dumping long time experienced projectionists, well sort of let them get away with it, although as it seems, maybe not quite so much).
And it was vibrating and rattling the roof and other parts of the structure like crazy.
I think they have the volume set way wrong at the IMAX here now (or at least on the day I saw Blade Runner) since it sounded way, way louder here than at the Jersey Gardens IMAX or even the Lincoln Square laser IMAX. There is no way the deep bass should have been much louder at Rockaway than at Lincoln Square! It was the loudest I’ve ever heard for any movie ever. So I think my comments about the sound for that movie that I wrote above were based on someone at this theater going nuts and just dialing up everything to 10 and way beyond the already very loud IMAX standards or something. It mean it seemed at least twice as loud as the other IMAX theaters, probably far more. It was nuts. Even out in the exit hall screaming at the top of our lungs we could not hear each other and that was just during the music at the end which wasn’t even as loud as some other parts of the movie.
I have to say digital projection has seemed to have become more random these days. Not so sure about at this Lincoln location since I’ve only been to the IMAX (which had a serious issue with the laser 3D glasses, at least last year, never did receive an update as to what they found and whether they truly fixed that or not, the AMC manager seemed to take it seriously, the IMAX techs only sort of) and the huge balcony screen (although even speaking of that screen there was some sort of bit of odd keystoning at the corners), but for instance at AMC Rockaway some screens are bright and sharp, others bright and 2k when they could be 4k, others now so dark they must be using a way, way underspec Xenon bulb or one months beyond the date it should have been tossed. At Jersey Gardens the IMAX and a couple big screens look great, but I saw something at a tiny, high numbered screen and despite the minute screen size it was still soooooo dark, Xenon bulb must’ve been months to years over used. They did fix the problem where two screens had had huge degrees of color fringing around every pixel, but they had it messed up like that for months, even a couple years on one screen until written complaints were sent to management by some.
Paramus AMC, from what I’ve seen, seems to be using decent Xenon bulbs, although I saw one screen where the projector was mis-aimed by over 5' so at least 5' or more at top had no image and at least 5' or more was projected onto the bare wall below the screen.
OTOH at the non-AMC theater near the football stadium in NJ, crisp, well focused 4k and bright, same at the few screens I peaked at the renovated Hanover AMC.
@Al Alvarez – the least people were at Jersey Gardens, more at Rockaway and Lincoln so it doesn’t fit audience size sound pattern at all.
I guess Rockaway must just have some of HS people who run the show going all Back To The Future and turning every dial to 10, calibration be damned. I mean it was crazy that it actually pumped out way more deep bass than even Lincoln and just overall was so much louder than at any other theater. Literally felt like I was getting turned inside out at some points the deep sound pressure was so intense. Even Interstellar at Palisades IMAX didn’t hit those levels. Even at the music at the end, even screaming at top of our lungs we could not even hear a word we were saying even part way down the exit.