How shitty would it be to watch a movie "not formatted for IMAX" on an IMAX screen? They're doing a screening of Wrath of Khan in a few days in an IMAX theatre, but they're warning people the movie isn't actually formatted for it.
It’s fine. I watched Gladiator on IMAX, and even though it wasn’t formatted for the screen, it was enjoyable. It’s like watching a movie in letterbox. It’s still larger than what you’d get on a normal screen.
I've only been to an IMAX theater once. A friend and I went to Star Trek: The Exhibition when it was at the Detroit Institute of Arts, and they were showing the first nuTrek movie in their IMAX theater, so we did that afterward. I hated everything about the experience, but I think it was more that specific theater than IMAX in general. I'm not sure if nuTrek had an IMAX-formatted version of not, but it didn't matter. The DIA's IMAX screen, for some reason, is curved both horizontally and vertically, and shows a circular image. So, the corners were cut off, and that movie put all the location subtitles in the corner, so they were unreadable and I had no idea where things in the movie were taking place. Also it was kind of blurry and the colors seemed off. The only concessions available were Pepsi and Diet Pepsi in 20oz bottles (surprisingly reasonably-priced). There were like 15 people, and they crammed us all together rather than letting us spread out even a little bit. As we entered, a dude started randomly assigning people seats and seemed confused when we complained because we wanted to sit next to the people we came with. They were trying to do two seats on either side of the isle, but there was a group of three, and family of four with kids that wanted to sit without an aisle between them, so a manager had to get involved... The DIA is great and all, but I'm never going back to that theater. Anyway, the Wrath of Kahn thing will undoubtedly be better than that experience.
