Avatar in IMAX 3d, First Impressions

Casey and I celebrated our 20^th monthiversary on Saturday by going out to the IMAX theater in Columbus, to see Avatar in 3D. We saw the DLP version (instead of the film “Read 3D” flavor). This was the first 3D movie I had seen in a theater since I was 10 years old and watched Captain EO at Disneyworld. So I don’t have much of a baseline to compare this with, but the one thing that seemed to jump out at me (excuse the pun) was that there was a definite trade-off in terms of picture quality. Things were blurrier than I am used to seeing in either a theater, or my DLP TV at home. Having said that, it was a great experience; even though the film was 3 hours long, it didn’t feel like it. The story line moved along at a decent speed, and most of what was in the film was relevant to the plot. Overall, I’d say it was worth the $14 to see it, although I probably won’t be making another trip that long just to see a 3D movie again for a while.

On a side note, we had a pretty crappy experience, which had nothing to do with the film itself, but how AMC Easton handled a situation. At the climax of the movie (during the Na’vi / Human battle), the fire alarm in the theater went off. We had no idea what to do, because nobody came in and told us if it was a false alarm or not. Some people got up, and left while others stayed to finish the movie. After a few minutes, I and Casey got up to leave when people who had already left were coming back in to say it was a false alarm.  That really ruined things for us.

As we were walking out, disappointed by the experience, everyone was given free return passes, but in my opinion this was a poor attempt to make up for what could’ve been a dangerous situation.  After the fact, we called AMC and found out that their official policy is to turn the projectors off, and ask everyone to leave. This did not happen. The film just kept running, and the sound was so loud that you couldn’t hear what the emergency PA system was saying – in other words, complete chaos. I’ll probably go see other 3D IMAX films in the future, but I doubt it will be at the AMC Easton.

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