Imax made its name on gynormous, 70-foot-tall screens and a mind-blowing cinematic resolution, based on its use of an extravagantly large 70-mm film.

So it makes perfect sense that the company has now expanded to include … smaller theaters that lack the unique resolution and the screen size.

The new Imaxes have been creeping into the valley; I had my first experience with one at the Deer Valley AMC this weekend.

There are two ways of looking at it. Compared to a normal movie at a normal screen in the multiplex, it was better.

But compared to an Imax—a real IMax— it couldn’t compare.

But guess with which of those two alternatives the fake Imax shares the $14 ticket price?

It turns out that AMC has cut a deal with Imax to retrofit about 100 of its screens nationwide into fake Imaxes. They go in and cut out a bunch of the crummy seats at the front of the room, and then push a new, taller screen up closer to the rest of the auditorium.

As I said, a real Imax screen might be 70 feet high. The new ones I’ve read—and someone at AMC told me—are 40 feet, but the one I saw Avatar at in Deer Valley didn’t seem anywhere near that. I’d say it was more like 30.

The projection is apparently digital—I’m still trying to find that out. Even if it’s one of the next-generation Sony projectors, though, it’s still going to be significantly inferior to traditional Imax when it comes to conventional film.

I don’t know enough about the subject to know how this breaks down with contemporary digital animation or hybrid conceptions like Avatar. To my eye it just looked normal god digital projection—i.e., lacking the ooomph of a real Imax. (The sound, however, was excellent.)

The theaters now have big Imax signs outside … but nothing that tell people it’s not a traditional Imax screen.

You can read more about this in stories by Patrick Goldstein of the LA TImes here and here.

You’ll note that in the second piece, a scrambling Imax capo says he’s going to do more to let people know what they are getting:

[…] I asked [Imax CEO Richard] Gelfond why Imax doesn’t simply offer more truth in advertising. If the hot button issue is theater size, why not put up signage outside its theaters that tells consumers what size the theater screen is? […]

Gelfond initially hedged, saying “we’re thinking about doing that kind of thing.” He was concerned that simply identifying the screen size might be somewhat misleading, since in the retrofitted theaters, the first few rows of seating have been removed, allowing the screen to be closer to moviegoers, which Gelfond says provides an enhanced cinema experience. “The screen might only be 55 feet, but in that setting, it looks like it’s 80 feet,” he explained.

a) There’s no way the screen I was at was any where near 55 feet high. b) Goldstein didn’t call Gelfond on the utter nonsensicality of his last quote, which reminded me in some tangential way of that old Kids in the Hall skit about putting your fingers up close to your eyes and pretending to pinch the head of someone sitting across the room. I mean, McDonald’s doesn’t say, “Yeah, the new Big Mac is half as size, but we think you’ll find that as you move it to your mouth to take a bite it will seem just as big as the old one!” c) And here’s a guy misleading people saying he can’t stop misleading them because … it would be misleading them.

Upshot: Fake Imax is a big ripoff. It’s a nice theater. But:

a) AMC shouldn’t be charging people Imax prices;
b) AMC should be telling people it’s not a real Imax;
c) And the local press should be doing more disclosure about this as well.

p.s.: On a side note, as you read all the press about Avatar breaking box-office records, remember that its grosses are significantly boosted by the steep $2-to-$4 premium movie-goers are paying for 3D and Imax showings as well as increased ticket prices overall. I keep reading that it’s the second-highest-grossing movie ever, behind only Titanic. In inflation-adjusted dollars alone, however, it’s right up there with … Back to the Future and Animal House. And the 3D and Imax surcharges have probably inflated even that metric.#