I saw the Force Awakens in San Jose twice.

First time I was sitting near the bottom of the dome and had to literally lie down on the base of my seat to see the screen. The curvature made it a nightmare to read the crawl. (Luckily, it was not my first time watching the movie). The second time I arrived an hour early and got great seats. Really, it improved the experience tenfold.

Overall, the film experience as one I was glad to have. Nothing at all like the prints of yesteryear, this modern day 70mm print only resulted in the slightest of increased color and contrast. Honestly, I wouldn’t travel the world to go see a print, as it looks very similar to the digital. That said, the fine grain, I found, improved the image, helping guise the effects and making Snoke and Maz Kanata blend in more with everyone else. Aesthetically, it gave it a tad more visual grit lacking in the digital projection I saw at the Metreon, San Francisco. It was also fun to hear the projector whir, and film dirt pop up every now and then.

Interestingly enough, a year ago, I saw a gloriously run-down 35mm print of that other space fantasy- Guardians of the Galaxy, which looked RADICALLY different than the digital release; the analog look made it seem a lot like a 1980s movie. But, that is for another thread…