Had vacation to burn so decided to take the day off (18th). Taking the wife to an 11am showing at a brand new Alamo Drafthouse that just opened in town. Cool thing is their lobby was designed with a Star Wars theme (see link).

It's not IMAX but it is Atmos so since there is technically only one true IMAX scene in the movie I can live with that.

I won't be watching it until the 21st at the earliest. Pretty much every even moderately decent place around me is sold out until Sunday, and I am going to be busy on Sunday. I took the week before and after Christmas off so I am thinking about going on the 21st while my wife is working and 16 year old daughter is in school.

She really wants to see it with me, but she hasn't seen any of the previous movies, and I don't see how there is enough time with her schedule to see them over the next week, even if we just focused on IV, V, and VI.

Most of our theaters are sold out for the first week - so I'm happy to wait until the crowds die down.

Scott

Yeah, I can wait, but I will probably stay off of Facebook and the like so that people don't spoil anything for me. I just want to make sure that I get a chance to see it at a large format theater (Have to drive about 1 hour and 15 minutes) before they kick it off to the "regular" screens. Although, being that it is Star Wars, I would bet that it would be in large format screens for at least a couple of weeks. Of course, then we hit Christmas and I will be out of town, and not in the right direction...

Lazors. Because, lazors.

The company my wife is an exec at is hosting a private screening on Dec 19th, so I will be at that. My youngest and I are currently watching the original 6 movies in Episode order 1-6. I have watched in both episode (1-6) and release order (456. 123) and I must say I enjoy the episode order more...in case any one wonders!

So much is lost with release order and so many oddities.

Machete Order is best. 4,5,2,3,6 (skip 1).

Machete Order Explained

Wow. Someone put a lot of thought into this. I'm gonna try it. Thanks.

Yeah, I may do that with my kids. I still think Revenge of the Sith is too intense for them, though.

Awesome, my theater made Wired's The 7 Best Screens in the US to Watch Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Cool video of the SW lobby theme.

Sweet! I'm going to be in Omaha visiting my brother from Dec. 21-28. It's probably sold out all the days, though.

That is brilliant. No matter which way (episode or release order) I watched them something still seemed out of sequence. Now I just need to find enough free time to watch 5 DVDs in a row then get out to the theater before it closes for the day

Change of position on this... We saw it today. My son came in from LA and we found room at a matinee showing. Then my boys tell me they saw it last night at a midnight showing! So they've seen it twice - I'm pissed.

Very well done, though - very much like 4/5/6.

Go see.

My local AARP has free screenings Tuesday night. Yes, I joined AARP at 50!

I'm waiting for the Blu-Ray...

TAM

Me too.

would I need to see the other ones first?

Certainly IV, V and VI. The others aren't as critical for the back story, imho.

Watched them all, in episode order (which is much better than release order IMHO) and today the new one....it was ok, nobody in my group (aerospace engineers) thought it was better than 7/10

Went to the IMAX 3D screening I bought tickets for in Spokane. Yeah, as has been discussed, it's not really the IMAX experience you want. It was fine, but not great, and for $17.99 per ticket after the "convenience fee," it probably wasn't worth the road trip. The company and the food we enjoyed there made it worthwhile, but the moviegoing experience should have been more wow. I'm still looking forward to seeing it at the Boeing IMAX at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle with the laser projection system.

Oh, and I did see it on Thursday, too, at the brand new local theater. They were going to open on the 11th, but the permits didn't make it in time. They made sure they were going to be open for Star Wars. It was on all screens on Thursday, of course, and it is now the nicest theater in town. Not that that's a great feat, but I'm glad they're trying. Leather reclining seats, snack trays, and I think the seats are a little wider than at the other theaters, too. Dolby Atmos, and certainly the most capable subwoofers around here, though they still can't pressurize that big space like my EP800s can my home theater area.

As for the movie itself, I won't talk about it publicly until some time has passed.

Ya I don't want to spoil the movie for those waiting a bit. I enjoyed it a lot but do have some critiques.

Any for the movie theater experience... was my first time going to an Alamo. It's definitely a little different than a traditional theater. The Star Wars lobby was pretty cool. We got to our seat early. They have a full bar and restaurant so I indulged for a beer. The Alamo doesn't play any ads before the movie instead they have 30mins of campy Star Wars crap which was overall pretty fun to watch. Bits of old 80's Star Wars TV shows, toy commercials even a bunch of clips from Asian movie rip offs.

The screen was clear (saw the 2D version) but not the largest ever. The theater I was in was suppose to be Atmos. I've only seen a couple shows in Atmos so far. Some have been good, others average. I was a little disappointed in this one. Not sure if its how they mastered the movie or the theater. Guess time will tell on that. All in all it was a pretty fun Dec the 18th for me and the wife.

That's the only reason I'm seeing it in an IMAX theater. I'm going on the 30th with the kids. Hope the experience is not disappointing.

Took the family over the weekend.
It lived up to my expectations and then some.
My only gripe was with the volume....too loud....
The 3D was nicely done but I'd like to see it without, gotta see it again either way.
Certainly worth the ticket price, a must see in the theatre IMO.

Well, the plot line surprised me a little, but all in all it was a great movie.

The laser Imax is quite impressive, but subtly so. I wasn't really gobsmacked by the increase in brightness for 3D or the detail, but both were evident throughout the movie. Shadow and dark scene detail was impressive.

Overall the 3D work was very good. There were only a couple of scenes at the beginning of the movie that were eye-roll worthy.

After the movie we found this amazing little (tiny actually) casual Indian/Asian restaurant on Adelaide St. called Ravi Soups. The main table was this huge 4" thick live edge slab. $50 for three of us is dirt cheap in Toronto and doubly so because the food was really, really tasty and very well presented.

Yep, the plot line surprised me too but I also enjoyed the film. It did remind me of the original three more than the prequels. Saw it at a local MJR Theater, 2D with Atmos, the film was supposed to be in Atmos but I did not hear anything exceptional. Not that it didn't sound great, it did, just nothing stood out. Really appreciated that the volume was reasonable, no ear ringing when I left the Theater. They did play a couple of Atmos Demo tracks. These tracks definitely let you hear the audio potential of Atmos.
My 2 cents, Jeff

OK, I'm gonna upgrade my impressidness level of Imax laser projection to Uber Impressed. I watched the last X-Men movie last night with my son. This is the first time I've thought the image quality of a Blu-ray movie on my projector. Where's the detail? Never thought I'd write that about my pj.

I've seen it twice now. First was 2D with Atmos the second was IMAX 3D.

This movie didn't really need the 3D. It was done OK I guess but I kinda liked it better in the 2D format. Thou the one scene that was filmed in IMAX was really cool to see that way.

Sound wise I also didn't feel like they mixed it in Atmos very well. Compared to a few other Atmos movies I've seen. The IMAX theater was quite a bit louder. Not sure which I would say sounded better.

As for seeing the movie a second time, I did enjoy it more. I think I was fighting expectations and over thinking it too much the first time I saw it.

Finally got to see this. Despite my distaste of 3D and wearing those stupid glasses, we went to the 3D version. As far as 3D goes, I found it to be better than any other that I've seen to date, including Avitar. I thought it was tastefully done, and without all the dumb "poke you in the eye" gimmicks.

As far as the movie goes, very entertaining. It reminded me of watching Star Wars in the movie theater as a kid when it first came out. Looking forward to getting the BlueRay.

We bought the bluray Star Wars complete set for our daughter.
Once we've finished watching them all at home, we'll go to see the new episode.
Got some VIP movie passes for a gift which gives prime seating in ultra luxury wide seats and in a licensed alcohol area.
http://www.cineplex.com/Theatres/VIP

I was happy with the experience at the Boeing IMAX at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle. It didn't wow me right away, but over the course of the movie, I appreciated it more and more, especially during the dark scenes, as well as the vibrancy of the colors from the lightsabers and blasts.

I would agree with most people that I'd rather have it without the 3D. Some of it can look cool, but it never looks natural, and the eye strain doesn't make it worth it for me. I want to see other movies at the Pacific Science Center due to the image quality, but the 3D is not a seller for me.

Tom, what did you think of your experience there?

If you're old school and hate what Lucas did to the origonal movies I highly recomended looking for the Despecialized Editions. Granted it's a bootleg but I already own the trilogy twice so it didn't make me feel bad getting them. Before the movie we just got done showing it to our girls. Wanted their first experience to be the same as ours. In fact I'd say theirs was better because those editions are very well done.