First off theres like 4 different versions of IMAX I’m not gonna get into the nitty gritty of each one and just talk about the relevant one. “True” IMAX is a proprietary film standard that needs a specific projector, screen, film, and theater size to be properly displayed. The projectors are no longer manufactured and there are an extremely limited amount of true IMAX theaters in the world like double digits limited. The big draw for IMAX for someone like Nolan and viewers is how much detail on a massive screen you can get. As to why they dont make a new standard theres a meme you can search for that summarizes when you make a new “better” standard it just becomes a standard. 16:9 is afaik a middle ground standard that most industries have settled on. Aspect ratios are a complicated topic with a lot of subjective expression especially in the world of cinema. In my opinion the outrage is a nothing burger cinema is art if Nolan wants to display it a certain way its his prerogative if someone feels that it diminishes the experience for them imo just dont watch it. They can also complain its none of my business what people do I just find it a bit ridiculous to complain about.
the most common type of IMAX nowadays is “just” running two 4k laser digital projectors, overlapping eachother so you get double the pixel density, at a much better contrast, and at 60fps.
Unfortunatly, that’s still less than half the resolution of the “old” 70mm horizontal film projector. But it gets rid of the absurd arc-lamp they have in the film projectors, which would be the envy of ww2 searchlight operators.
First off theres like 4 different versions of IMAX I’m not gonna get into the nitty gritty of each one and just talk about the relevant one. “True” IMAX is a proprietary film standard that needs a specific projector, screen, film, and theater size to be properly displayed. The projectors are no longer manufactured and there are an extremely limited amount of true IMAX theaters in the world like double digits limited. The big draw for IMAX for someone like Nolan and viewers is how much detail on a massive screen you can get. As to why they dont make a new standard theres a meme you can search for that summarizes when you make a new “better” standard it just becomes a standard. 16:9 is afaik a middle ground standard that most industries have settled on. Aspect ratios are a complicated topic with a lot of subjective expression especially in the world of cinema. In my opinion the outrage is a nothing burger cinema is art if Nolan wants to display it a certain way its his prerogative if someone feels that it diminishes the experience for them imo just dont watch it. They can also complain its none of my business what people do I just find it a bit ridiculous to complain about.
The XKCD comic about standards in question
the most common type of IMAX nowadays is “just” running two 4k laser digital projectors, overlapping eachother so you get double the pixel density, at a much better contrast, and at 60fps.
Unfortunatly, that’s still less than half the resolution of the “old” 70mm horizontal film projector. But it gets rid of the absurd arc-lamp they have in the film projectors, which would be the envy of ww2 searchlight operators.