What Is IMAX With Laser, And Is It Worth Seeking Out For Oppenheimer?
To offer a brief introduction: IMAX is a large-format film presentation process that involved not just 70mm film projection, but outsize screens and deep stadium seating. The original IMAX projectors didn't run film from top-to-bottom like most projectors, but from left to right, requiring a novel invention to take care of the "flicker." Most film strips operate with quick-moving dowsers that flip open for a 24th of a second and then snap shut, allowing each frame of film to "pause" ever so briefly in front of the projector lamp. Without the flicker effect, a film strip would look like a quick-moving smear. The horizontal 70mm film feed of an IMAX projector required a new kind of "rolling loop" technology to accommodate the enlarged film and screen. "Rolling loop" is difficult to explain, but needless to say, it allowed for a smoother projection process. The creators figured their invention provided the maximum amount of visual information to date, and the word IMAX became their brand. No, "IMAX" doesn't stand for anything. It's a made-up word.
IMAX movies began making the rounds, mostly at science museums, in the 1970s. The oldest IMAX theater in the country was built in San Diego in 1973 to provide planetarium shows. That theater is still operating to this day.
It wouldn't be until around 2002 that the IMAX format would start being used in earnest for mainstream Hollywood features. Some of the "Harry Potter" movies and "Superman Returns" had some of their scenes blown up into IMAX format. "The Dark Knight" famously shot scenes on IMAX cameras in 2008. It was at that time that IMAX started experimenting with digital presentation, leading hardcore film purists to cry foul. Also, some IMAX screens started shrinking to accommodate the "weaker" digital projectors, leading to the pejorative "lieMAX." But in 2012, working with Kodak, IMAX aggressively upped their digital projection game and began to pioneer a laser-based projection system.
Lasers!
The laser system used two projectors simultaneously (something IMAX was already doing for its digital showings as well as its 3-D movies), and was powerful enough to fill an old-school IMAX-sized screen. To give the illusion of greater image resolution, the two projectors' images are presented with a half-pixel offset, leading to a deeper, more dynamic image. If you see a film advertised as "IMAX with LASER," rest assured that it will be on a traditionally large IMAX screen and not a lieMAX "kinda bigger than usual" screen. A traditional IMAX screen is at least 118 feet wide.
Old-school projectors used xenon arc-lamps as their illumination source. IMAX with Laser uses, well, an enormous laser beam. The new projectors boast, according to IMAX marketing materials, 50% greater illumination and greater contrasts between blacks and whites. For many years, digital projectors struggled with presenting blacks without a certain degree of digital particulates appearing on screen. The new laser projectors remove the "digital haze." The laser projectors feature 4K resolution, which, it should be noted, is far less visual information than 70mm film. Visually translated, 70mm has 12K resolution (that is, 12,000 lines of visual information from top to bottom).
It should also be noted that IMAX laser projectors can present films at 60 fps. Modern projectors are becoming so advanced that old-world 24-fps movies are starting to look odd and "jittery" when presented at their original frame rate. Like "Avatar: The Way of Water," more and more movies will likely have to shoot at higher frame rates to accommodate the evolving technology.
Oppenheimer
Filmmaker Christopher Nolan brought IMAX into the mainstream in a big way with "The Dark Knight," so one might be thrilled to see his newest film, "Oppenheimer," in the same format. Nolan is famously a stickler for old-world filmmaking technology, advocating for film over digital. He has shot multiple scenes for most of his movies on large-format film and works with skilled cinematographers who know how to handle outsize cameras.
While IMAX with Laser is an impressive format, allowing for bright images and amazing clarity, as stated above, it's still not quite as ineffably gorgeous as 70mm film. The 70mm film provides a near-indescribable "earthy" quality to the image, allowing for both clarity and visual "texture." The muted colors of a Nolan film really stand out, and the deep, wide images really capture the moody lighting of cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema (who also shot "Interstellar," "Dunkirk," and "Tenet" for Nolan). To witness the visual fidelity that Nolan and van Hoytema constructed, the ideal format to see "Oppenheimer" would be on 70mm film.
Sadly, there are only 25 theaters in North America that offer 70mm presentations. A full list of those theaters can be found on Dextero's website. There are also three proper IMAX theaters in England, one in Australia, and one in the Czech Republic.
Of course, IMAX with Laser is nothing to sneeze at. Indeed, if we begin to intensely fetishizing one format over another, and begin refusing ourselves access to formats we consider to be less than ideal, then we're robbing ourselves of film experiences. Even a limp, average-screen 2K digital projection of "Oppenheimer" will leave audiences feeling deep, nuclear existential dread and a distinct loss of faith in the morals of humanity.