[captainsolo said:]
Hmm…that is strange. I don’t doubt you, particularly since the Egyptian is one of the best theaters in the world for presentation. I will say that I wrote that immediately after the screening and was not mistaken as to how dark the print was. I verified with the head facilities manager whom I’m friendly with that the Returns print was on Fuji stock and did not have the Dolby ac3 track. It had the 92 era logos and appropriate wear around reel changes, all indications that it was an original release print.
Did the one you saw have much damage? Any idea if the sound was Stereo SR or 5.1? If it was 5.1 it could have been one of the very, very few made for the small handful of theaters that had playback capability.
I can’t remember which sound was used. The print I saw wasn’t damaged much at all, just appropriate wear in the reel changes, definitely a release print. Don’t know what stock I saw it on, maybe Kodak. There could be any number of differences as to why it’s dark in one print, but not the other. Maybe it was printed darker on the Fuji stock or the projection lamp was dim.
The Egyptian was usually really, really good about screening well-kept, clean prints. I once went to a 70mm screening of Total Recall with Paul Verhoeven in attendance for a Q&A. They announced before the Q&A that the 70mm blowup print they were screening was actually brand-new in the sense that it was made back in the day and for whatever reason didn’t get put in with the rest of the 70mm prints in circulation. So we got to see a never before screened beautiful 70mm print. And holy cow did it look good. I see a lot of people saying the 70mm blowups of Star Wars probably aren’t that great because there’s still generational loss, but I’ve seen a lot of 35mm prints in my day and the 70mm blowup of Total Recall looked much better than your average run of the mill 35mm release print. I can’t even imagine what it was like seeing Star Wars or Empire Strikes Back in 70mm… Verhoeven actually stayed to watch the film, unlike most of these Q&A’s where the directors ditch the place before the film screens. He even had a seat reserved with a piece of paper on it that said something like “Reserved for Director Paul Verhoeven” haha. This was one of the only screenings I went to at the Egyptian where it was totally sold out and there wasn’t a single empty seat in the house, even in the uncomfortably close front row. The only other sold out screening like this I can remember was for a 70mm print of Vertigo. They had to add a second showing of Vertigo since so many people showed up for the sold out first showing that there was a line of people wrapping all the way out to the street (Hollywood Blvd actually).
The only occurrence I can remember that was bad was when I saw a 35mm double-feature of A Fistful of Dollars/For a Few Dollars More. A Fistful of Dollars looked great (probably was an IB Tech print). For a Few Dollars More looked good (probably a IB Tech) until around halfway in the movie when all of a sudden the print switched to a red faded Kodak print and remained red faded for the rest of the film. What’s funny is it didn’t even really bother me. I’d never seen the movie and enjoyed it a ton, even with all the redness. Actually kind of gave the movie a gritty, dirty feeling haha.
edit- Take a look about what I said about the darkness of Jurassic Park over in the Jurassic Park 3D thread.
