What I Watched, What You Watched: Installment #142

The Seattle Cinerama is having a massive sci-fi film festival this week and last. They screened Metropolis with a live orchestra, a new 70mm print of 2001, 70mm prints of Tron, Ghostbusters and Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan and several other great sci-fi classics. Unfortunately my schedule wasn’t allowing me to get to the theater for whatever reason, but I was able to carve out a block of time for a 70mm print of Terminator 2: Judgment Day to mixed results.

The film began and the TriStar logo was bouncing all over the place and a few scratches were evident, but things cleared up nicely after that. However, every single reel change had problems, which caused for scenes to be missed and every time that happened the audience would groan. To be honest, the audience reaction became more annoying than the dropped frames.

Next there were some audio issues at times and near the end only the score was playing, which was when the audience decided they would fill in the blanks with sound effects or “comedic” lines as to what the actors might be saying. Personally it was just as interesting to watch it with the score alone, but the audience participation became unbearable. Then the movie cut out twice, showing only a black screen and that was when we couldn’t take it any longer and left, missing probably the final ten minutes.

Overall, I’m glad I saw it. At times it was great. I guess I assumed any audience interested in seeing a 10:30 PM screening of Terminator 2 on a Friday night would be a bit more respectful of the experience and not try and play “Mystery Science Theater” with it. But that’s just me.