When did Regal Cinemas become cheap, lazy, and/or both?
 

Long story short:

Saw How to Train Your Dragon 2 in 3D on Tuesday night at a local Regal. Since it was in 3D, it was obviously in a smaller auditorium. Film is 2.40:1, but the projectionist did not "mask" the image and it was projected in 1.78:1 with black bars on the top and bottom. [Most Regal locations in Vegas have top-to-bottom masking.] Not a big problem, but now there's more light projected on screen thus deflecting from the 3D experience I paid <s>$30</s> $8 for. Also, if I wanted to emulate a home theater experience at home, I would've just waited for the 3D Blu-ray and watched it on my Lovesac.

Saw Chef at a different Regal location on Thursday night. Again, another small auditorium. Same issue again. Film is 2.40:1 and wasn't masked.

Is this a thing now? The other theaters I go to (AMC, Century, and independent chains) are able to mask properly. I get it in a circumstance like IMAX or a large format where the screen is natively 1.4:1 or 1.78:1 and there are no options for masking. However, in a regular auditorium? Are the projectionists in my city just lazy or is this now a common Regal practice?

Re: When did Regal Cinemas become cheap, lazy, and/or both?
 

Do they have reserved seating theaters in Vegas? Start going to those. You'll never have problems like that again.

Re: When did Regal Cinemas become cheap, lazy, and/or both?
 

they suck. The Regal here sends their toadies walking through the aisles with the orange lightsaber flashlight things usually wave in airplanes on a tarmac.

Re: When did Regal Cinemas become cheap, lazy, and/or both?
 

There's two that do (the Galaxy Theatres chain). Neither are near my house and both use outdated digital equipment. While they do have great, plush leather reclining seating, I prefer to have a better technical experience than I can provide in my own home.

Also, one of those don't even have proper masking. I love getting to see a film shot at 2.40:1 projected onto a 1.33:1 screen with the quality of a consumer projector. Example:

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I haven't seen that in years.

Re: When did Regal Cinemas become cheap, lazy, and/or both?
 

Ah man, what the hell!

Re: When did Regal Cinemas become cheap, lazy, and/or both?
 

Sounds like poor management and careless employees.

Re: When did Regal Cinemas become cheap, lazy, and/or both?
 

The Regal theaters by me have always been pretty good and still my preferred chain, although the ones near me have been some of the better ones in Irvine in Orange County or Mira Mesa in San Diego with IMAX, RPX, etc. Well, preferred short of the chain of upscale theaters that I prefer called Cinepolis.

Re: When did Regal Cinemas become cheap, lazy, and/or both?
 

cheap? haha - concession prices is the highest pricing of the chains in and around the DC metro area.

Re: When did Regal Cinemas become cheap, lazy, and/or both?
 

Does reserved seating magically prevent projection problems?

Re: When did Regal Cinemas become cheap, lazy, and/or both?
 

The two theaters that have reserved seating also serve alcohol. So maybe if you drink enough, you really won't give a shit on how the film is presented. Hell, you might just fall asleep in those comfy leather recliners.

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The other independent chain in Vegas removed all their film projectors for Barco 4K projectors earlier last year. Now they're in the process of upgrading the sound systems in most of the auditoriums where all will be able to do Dolby Atmos or 7.1 when available. While they don't have an awesome rewards program like AMC, I do make the trek there to see films (as they'll also be one of the 50 theaters to project Interstellar in 15/70 at the end of this year). While the seats aren't as great nor are they reserved nor is there booze, I'd rather see a film there.

Re: When did Regal Cinemas become cheap, lazy, and/or both?
 

Yes, because theaters with reserved seating are usually very nice theaters that don't fuck around with quality.

Then again I'm in L.A., so I know that they don't fuck around with quality in these premium theaters. That reserved seating theater he pointed out is an obvious exception to the rule, though.

Re: When did Regal Cinemas become cheap, lazy, and/or both?
 

With also 99% of the industry being based out of Los Angeles, there's usually no fucking around with quality period. Even the chains I've been to out there (AMC Century City, AMC Universal Citywalk, Regal LA Live, etc) are of higher quality than the rest of the country.

The worst LA theater I've ever been to was the one in the Beverly Center and that's now closed.

Re: When did Regal Cinemas become cheap, lazy, and/or both?
 

again. Regal are notoriously cheap in NOT updating their soundsystems to feature 7.1 - unless they are their premier RPX screens - and in turn, not installing Dolby Atmos on the new RPX screens is out right baffling.

Re: When did Regal Cinemas become cheap, lazy, and/or both?
 

To be fair, the newly installed 7.1 sound systems I've experienced sound better than my experiences with Atmos.

I saw X-Men: Days of Future Past in both Dolby Atmos (in Dolby 3D) and 7.1 (in 2D) and the 7.1 was a more fulfilling sound experience.

Re: When did Regal Cinemas become cheap, lazy, and/or both?
 

I've heard that it actually is at some theaters. They've decided moveable masking is an unnecessary expense, so they just do without it. The digital standard for scope movies is a joke anyways- the frame is natively 1.85 (or maybe 1.78) and scope movies are letterboxed on that. Many new theaters that do have masking have the screens designed bass-ackwards, so the top and/or bottom of the screens are masking the letterboxed picture, and when they were using film the scope lens was projecting a smaller image than flat. (Film of course had scope images squeezed, and then unsqueezed onscreen with the anamorphic lens.)

I saw a digital movie recently at a theater that did have a proper screen that was natively 2.35 (with side masking for flat movies), and it was painfully obvious that the digital projector was zoomed-in as it was projecting a bunch of light in the area under the screen. There's ways to set them so they don't do that, but they shouldn't have been that way in the first place. They should've either kept using anamorphic lenses or made the frame natively 2.35 and used side bars for everything else.

Regal has never given a shit about the actual movie anyways- I worked for them for a year (almost 13 years ago) and they caused me to give up on the theater business, which was probably in my best interest anyways since the pay was so crappy. 14 of the 16 screens at the theater I worked at had top and bottom masking for scope, which was bad enough, but they started forcing me to have the masking go up after the show ended so their stupid advertising slides could be shown on a 'bigger' screen, then have the masking come down when the film started. I refused to do that, so I quit. If you've ever seen "This is Cinerama", imagine the intro to that with the guy saying "Ladies and gentlemen..." having the fucking screen SHRINK rather than expand!

I'm surprised Regal hasn't tried putting commercial breaks in the middle of movies by now. Would give them even more "ad revenue" and give the audience time to go out and buy more of their overpriced food.

Re: When did Regal Cinemas become cheap, lazy, and/or both?
 

amen. yup, I agree with you.

Re: When did Regal Cinemas become cheap, lazy, and/or both?
 

I had the similar problem at the Cobb Village 12 during 'Mr Peabody and Sherman' - the image wasn't pulled back to fill the screen so there was black borders around the entire image -ohbfrank-

generally I don't have a beef with the AFI Silver - but seeing Khartoum in 70mm and the screen shrinking vertically to display the 2.76 aspect ratio was disappointing. it would have been cool with say a constant height screen to expand horizontally.

Re: When did Regal Cinemas become cheap, lazy, and/or both?
 

not to brag but i saw The Rover last night at the Cinemark in Arundel Mills. smallest room in the venue, full 2:40 projection, and piercing sound during shootouts, ie as good as it gets

Re: When did Regal Cinemas become cheap, lazy, and/or both?
 

Believe me, it's more than possible to have a shitty theater with reserved seating.

Re: When did Regal Cinemas become cheap, lazy, and/or both?
 

Not around here it ain't.

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Damn it, now I want to go see a movie!

No, no, no, no you rich fool, that is a PALACE. A CINEMA is where they show movies, not wine and dine you ;)!

Re: When did Regal Cinemas become cheap, lazy, and/or both?
 

I sent Regal emails after both showings. I just got a letter back from the first one after my 3D experience:



Included were two passes for 3D admission. Which will go to great use as I am also sitting on a $50 Fandango gift card alongside at least seven more Regal readmission passes.

It doesn't help that the next 3D films I want to see are both shot in 1.78:1 (Step Up All In and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes).

I wonder if I'll get two free passes from complaining about my Chef experience at their Green Valley Ranch location which referenced my previous complaint. I'll have a bank of free passes ready to go for when I quit MoviePass or the service eventually goes under.

Re: When did Regal Cinemas become cheap, lazy, and/or both?
 

Well done!

Re: When did Regal Cinemas become cheap, lazy, and/or both?
 

Ha ha, that's the same form letter they were using 13 years ago. And I can almost GUARANTEE they won't do a fucking thing about it.

I once got passes from Century Theatres for an unbelievably bad experience, and when I used one of them they managed to ruin the movie again (it was "Chicago", a musical, and they had the fucking volume so low you could barely hear it, plus they still had only analog sound.) I complained and they said they'd send me ANOTHER pass for that, but it never came.

Also got passes for a UA theater (before Regal took them over) because of another unbelievably bad experience, which included among many other things them turning the fucking CLEANING LIGHTS on during the end credits. When I used the pass there, they turned the cleaning lights on again! That time I said "Fuck you, I'm done with you forever."

Re: When did Regal Cinemas become cheap, lazy, and/or both?
 

I always got the impression that when they said they would forward your comments to the proper department, it meant your letter or email was forwarded straight to the waste basket or Trash folder. Near as I can tell nothing has ever been done to correct issues that I've pitched a bitch about. Seems to me like people don't give a shit about anybody or anything these days, except to maintain the public facade that they actually care.