-=> Quoting Roger Fingas to Lee Jackson <=-
 RF> But is there one film or game in particular?
No. I don't limit myself this way.  I draw upon anything that I think is
good.
 RF> BTW, on a side note - do you ever listen to the THX start-up
 RF> noise with the volume cranked up?  I do.  
I had a remarkable experience along these lines many years ago, at a
theatre.  When Star Trek 4 came out, my wife and a friend of ours got
together to see it.  We lived in Austin at the time, and went to one of the
first few THX theatres in the State.  It was actually the second THX house
in Austin, still quite new, and the theatre company was quite proud of it
and all of its improvements over the first one.  The movie itself was so
popular that the theatre decided to pretty much show it all day long,
starting at around 5:00am.  We didn't make the first showing, but we did
make the second.
It was cold and rather dark when we got there, and we had to stand in line
for a while.  We thought it strange that it would be brighter outside after
the movie was over than it was when the movie started - it's usually the
other way around.  We also thought that coffee (which the theatre had,
thank goodness) was an unusual accompaniment to a movie.
Anyway, we went into the theatre, got seats in a good position to hear the
sound, and sat down.  A few minutes later, the previews started showing.
We sat through them, bleary-eyed and waiting for the coffee to kick in,
when the screen went dark.  The three of us had been in a THX theatre
before, so we knew that the THX intro sound was about to hit.  We had no
way to prepare for what happened next, though.
Apparently, the people who ran this theatre really wanted to show off their
new house.  Either that, or they thought that the crowd was a bit too
sleepy-looking and needed a bit of a wake-up call.  In either case, they
cranked up the levels, at what seemed to be the very moment that the THX
promo ran.  I mean they CRANKED the levels - violently, but not to the
point of distorting the sound.  They gave it every watt that their speakers
could possibly handle.
We knew that something big was coming when we could actually clearly hear
the very beginning of the clip.  It's usually very soft, or covered with a
little low-level distortion.  Not this time.  It built, then kept on
building, until it seemed like the bolts in the seats were shaking.
Finally, the trademark organ chord hit with a sound so massive that we
thought the screen was going to explode.  It was so full, round, and richly
beautiful that it made every hair on our bodies stand up and salute.
The entire audience went completely and totally wild.  Sure, like us, a lot
of them had most likely seen the THX bit before, but none of them had EVER
heard it like that.  I sincerely doubt that any of them have heard it like
that since - the three of us know that we haven't.
    -Lee
... "Why do little blue midgets hit me with fish?" - The Tick
--- Blue Wave/Max v2.30
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