Last week, I decided to go to the cinemas to watch one of the highly-anticipated movie of the year, The Dark Knight. The cinema; GSC at Midvalley Megamall. The ticket cost RM12, pretty expensive to my liking, but hey, it's TDK. So off I go.
The advertisements went on and on for about 30 minutes. Damn, that took a while. No trailers in sight, so what the hell? I was expecting to see at least some trailers; all my previous experience had at least a couple of trailers and probably only 10 minutes of crappy ads. Do these companies pay top dollar for a slot with TDK?
Right, so the movie started. Hmm... Doesn't look that clear. Is it the particular scene? I hope so. But after some time, it's still blur. What the hell is going on? Something wrong with the reels? Fine. Give it some time.
An hour into the movie and it's still blur. 2 hours into the movie and it's blur! Bloody hell, I paid RM12 for this crap? I've seen better pirated copies online! Oh great, the movie's over. FINALLY.
Wait a tick, it doesn't end there. Why is the sound so compressed? Why are the explosions at the same level as the speech? Seriously, was the movie really made this bad? Soft visuals and highly-compressed audio?
After the movie ended, I left the theater having this empty feeling. What the fuck happened in there? Did I miss something? Was TDK really that bad? I certainly did not enjoy the movie.
Off I go, back to my house. I decided, no, this can't be true. The Dark Knight, this horrible, no way. So I went online and looked for a pirated copy. Wonderful, a very-badly recorded camera version is out. Let's see how it looks like. Lo and behold, it's ALMOST IDENTICAL! How can this be?
Not satisfied, I looked further. I found a 720p HD version of a documentary titled "Batman Unmasked: The Psychology Of The Dark Knight" by the History Channel. Downloaded it, and played it. Oh my god, the visuals are BEAUTIFUL! The audio were crispy clear and clearly distinguishable! Nowhere NEAR as tragic as my experience in GSC!
So I've come to a conclusion. GSC probably only bought a couple of master reels from the studios, and then made too many copies of the reels, thus resulting in ultra-soft, degraded, multi-generational copies, and worst yet, this is what they're showing to the masses. This is GSC trying to save a few bucks while at the same time SCREWING the Malaysian public, who unfortunately, couldn't tell the difference between a REAL cinematic experience from a butchered one.
I for one will NEVER pay the local cinemas anymore. They have conned me out of my RM12 one time too many. I would rather GIVE the money to the pirates, at least I KNOW the quality they provide, or lack thereof. Why pay so much for crap when you can get the same crap cheaper? So Malaysians, take a stand and stop giving to the cinemas and get your movies elsewhere; DVD, Bluray, or even that half-past-six low-quality broadcaster everyone's raving about.
So fuck you GSC, you have totally ruined The Dark Knight for me. You owe me RM12 and 3 hours of my life I'd never get back. I wish a Joker wannabe will come along soon and blow up your theaters. I'd pay RM12 to see that.
P.S. Wall-E must be blind. Pirated copies look better.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
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