Imax London UK Moot, 6th July 2002
Note: You can click on either of the two photo's below for a much larger version
The "gang of five" from the fan club boards (Sam Wood, Arwen75, The Young Took, fakoriginal and myself
irascian) met at my place and we walked to The Lavendar,
just round the corner from the Oval tube station, where we met Brian Sibley for lunch.
Brian introduced me to this eating establishment a
while ago and yet again I was reminded of how much I like their food, their very reasonable prices and their unobtrusive but efficient
customer service. There was only one problem - I'd forgotten my camera - doh!
There was lots of tittle-tattle about who we were, what we do,
the books, the Tolkien Society (Brian and Roz are members), current movie rumours (is Saruman going to be in the third movie after all?)
etc. I'm afraid I spent most of the lunch glowering jealously at Brian's stylish and extremely natty "LOTR WETA workshop" jacket.
We wantsssssssssss one my precioussssssss, yessssss!
At the end of the meal Brian autographed two of his books for Maria while Arwen75 and fakoriginal confessed to only having brought Decipher trading
cards as their overnight luggage bags were full - Brian signed these instead, LOL!
My thanks (yet again) to Brian, who was suffering from
a cold, for taking time out from a currently punishing workload to join us for lunch and a chat.
The Hole In The Wall pub. From left to right: Roz (Arwen75), Alice (fakoriginal), Darren (TheYoungTook) and Maria (Sam Wood)
I don't know where the afternoon went - we headed back to my place for snacks and "a movie" (but of course abandoned the movie and chatted
instead) but 6pm suddenly rushed up from nowhere.
We headed off to the IMAX where we had arranged to meet another Ringer and her
friends at The Hole In The Wall. Darren and I somehow managed to make just a pint last for an hour, remembering how long it would be
before we could find a loo if we didn't want to have to find the "rest room" in the middle of the movie.
At around 7pm we were joined by Sharon (Welsh Arwen) from Swansea, who had come via Reading where she'd picked up two friends:
Heather and (I think) Steph. Heather could talk for England but as she's a big Buffy, Angel and SFX magazine fan (me too!) this was appreciated, although I'm still
sulking that she doesn't think Farscape is one of the best sci-fi programmes ever made! (I didn't dare mention Dr Who!)
I was worried that I was going to fall asleep in the IMAX as it's been "the week from hell" at work with a lot of long hours and a
couple of sleepless
nights. It turned out that Alice (fakoriginal) had attended a hen night the night before and only had 2 hours sleep and Darren (TheYoungTook) had been
working shift all night, so I was in good company! After the movie we all 'fessed up to "almost" dozing off in Lothlorien - nothing to do
with the movie you understand, just the result of lack of sleep.
Back row left to right: Darren (The Young Took), Roz (Arwen75), Steph, Alice (fakoriginal)
Front row left to right: Heather, Maria (Sam Wood), Sharon (Welsh Arwen)
The IMAX itself was a pleasant surprise. Maria had secured us the best seats in the house I reckon (bang in the middle with the movie at eye
level) and although the opening battle scenes were a bit blurry, the picture eventually seemed to snap into focus in Hobbiton -
and it was stunning. I've seen the movie several times at The Odeon, Leicester Square (where the UK premiere was held) and this was
MUCH better! The sound was also superb - there were no back speakers and the sound all came from the front, but this screening had
the best "positioning" I've heard, seeming to use the whole width of the screen to place sounds.
I was all geared up to cough at the hobbit post-tumble "mushroom"
reference. For those who don't know this is the internationally recognised communications standard for identifying fellow "Ringers"
(movie fan club members) in the audience. I blame my fellow Ringers for the
rather embarrassed cough that we all exuded at the appropriate time - British reserve crept in I think, and if there were other Ringers
in the audience they didn't hear us (or we, them). Of course British reserve can be a good thing - I'm glad nobody else heard my
whispered "It's only a model!" when Sam expresses awe at seeing the great dwarf city of Dwarrowdelf, and that we didn't hear Heather
singing "Stop! In the Name of Love!" when the Argonath
statues appeared!
I think I speak for all of us when I say that the best bit was seeing the TTT trailer -
awesome on this sort of cinema system and thankfully it contained more previews than the officially released trailer from the web site.
Final impressions of the IMAX cinema: If you haven't been, but can do so before FOTR finishes (I'm not sure when it finishes) GO!
In honesty, I'd joined the
group because I felt as a board moderator who'd missed the first big UK meeting it was my "duty" to go rather than that I
particularly wanted to see the movie one more time (I should probably elaborate on this - the DVD is only 4 weeks away, I have a
good plasma screen cinema system at home, and I also feel you can have too much of a good thing and end up spoiling it if you're not
careful!) - but I'm so glad
I went as this was easily the best presentation of the movie I've EVER seen or EVER WILL SEE. I was impressed and suspect I will be
casting a regular look at future IMAX presentations!
There is not much else to report. I was impressed, as ever, with the dedication of those members I met - who'd come from as far afield as
Swansea and Bradford to see the movie as it should be seen, and felt again what a nice set of people Ringers in general are (Darren had
tried to tell us all ahead of time he was a bit "uncouth" - of course, he wasn't at all!).
Looking forward to our next moot, which will probably be the Extended Edition DVD (depending on how many people are thinking of coming!)...
and Maria came up with the idea of booking a London Eye "pod" for the Howard Shore concert in Februrary (it is just around the corner from
the concert venue) so stay tuned, as we try and plan for that once I get back from the August trip to LA. If you are attending the
February concert please email me so we can get a rough idea of whether one pod will be
sufficient or more required. The pod trip lasts about half an hour and we would schedule it for around 2pm on the Sunday of the
concert (which is at 3pm)
Ian a.k.a. irascian(moderator)on the official movie fan club boards
