3D film at the cinema worryingly dim with low colour

Soldato
Joined
15 Nov 2003
Posts
14,401
Location
Marlow
I went to see Avatar 2 yesterday at the 4DX screen at Wembley. From the outset I felt there was something wrong with the projection. The 2D features before the film even felt dim and had low colour, with the main feature being the same. And this was even with the 3D glasses taken off.

Now, I've seen many 3D films before, but not for a couple of years, so it's hard to gauge if there was a problem or not. That said I know 3D showings generally are not as clear and vibrant as 2D, but I don't recall it as significant as what I witnessed yesterday.


I think I'm going to phone up my local Cineworld, talk to a manager, explain I think there was a problem with the Wembley cinema, and see if I can simply pop in, and watch 3-4 mins of the film (in 3D) to compare. If it's brighter and more colourful, there you go. If it's not then it's probably just the way 3D is.

My main concern is, from my experience yesterday, I'd never go to a 3D showing again. And I don't recall having that feeling after other 3D showings...
 
Last edited:
There's a couple of screens currently not showing any films/taking bookings, so there's a good chance the 4dx projector has gone pop and they've subbed it out for one of the other projectors from one of the other screens, probably designed for a much smaller screen so doesn't have the brightness to cope with the size of the 4dx screen, nevermind the polarising plate put in front of it for 3d.

Cineworld are used to trying to do anything as a cheap fix to keep sales instead of cancelling shows, for weeks at one of my locals they had the centre channel sound using the right speaker and the right channelled through the sides to make up for the centre channel not working.
 
Why didn’t you say something at the time? No cinema is going to let a random person in to “check there was a fault at another cinema” by watching a few minutes of a film.
 
Many years ago when one of the 'recent' Star wars films came out there was a bunch of us single lonely men looking at one another because it didn't look 3D, I decided to go and tell the staff who then clicked a switch.
They rolled the film back about 20 minutes.
You should have said something at the time, it's like punters coming up to me at the end of the gig saying 'Your singer needed turning up a bit' - aaaaaargh.
 
Last edited:
Why didn’t you say something at the time? No cinema is going to let a random person in to “check there was a fault at another cinema” by watching a few minutes of a film.
Because I was with my entire family (kids included) so... But yes, with 20-20 hindsight I should have said something afterwards as leaving.

As regards "a random person" watching a film for a few minutes over a possible fault at another of their chain? I'd give it better than 50/50. I suspect with a polite request put well, it'll be no problem.

But if that fails, I have a couple of friends who are planning to see it (in 3D) so I'd tag along and watch it again - And that will be at Empire Cinemas so a completely different chain too.
 
Last edited:
Most screens are auto on timer now and just play the film, they are rarely 'setup' like they used to be, if no one went out to report it then they probably don't know about an issue.
Yeh, as a friend of mine pointed out - who is in the film industry - long gone are the days of dedicated projectionists, so there could well be a problem of some sort going unreported.

Then again, my just be me being over sensitive to it... Hence wanting to do a comparison.
 
One of the reasons I've stopped going to the cinema - increasingly been obvious there is little setup done, etc. one of the last times I went to a Cineworld cinema the screen was slightly (but noticeably) skewed down to the right - talked to one of the staff and the response was basically "no one else cares". Between that kind of thing and you always get at least one inconsiderate person I'd rather not be there.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom