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Show HN: Get alerts for good seats at 70mm IMAX showings of The Odyssey
- andrewtorkbaker 3mo agoHey HN! 150,000 people bought IMAX tickets to see The Odyssey the first day they went on sale. I was not one of them. So I built a site to watch every 70mm IMAX screening in the US and alert me when good seats open up. More details on Twitter: https://x.com/andrewtorkbaker/status/2078540178713629119 https://x.com/andrewtorkbaker/status/2078540178713629119
- avidiax 3mo agoI was able to see The Odyssey yesterday in 70mm, and it had a preview of Dune 3. I wasn't planning to see Dune 3, but that preview made me want to see it. Can we monitor seat availability on Dune 3 70mm as well? Maybe a beta? I think right now it's just the 4 days of early release tickets, all 100% sold out of course.
- andrewtorkbaker 3mo agoYes!! I'd say I'm probably already 85-90% of the way there for a service that monitors seatmaps for other 70mm IMAX movies too. And I, too, will want Dune 3 IMAX tickets. Was already considering keeping this going for sure
- zulux 3mo agoI say this as a fan of Frank Herbert, and I've read all the Dune books: Thank god the Dune 3 movie looks like it isn't a strict adaptation of "Children of Dune".
- BoingBoomTschak 3mo agoYou're not implying that the two firsts were strict adaptations in any way or shape, are you?
- zulux 3mo agoNo I dont, and you're quite correct. I'm one of those weirdos who thinks The Lord of the Rings movies were better because they left out some things from the books, so I'm happy with both. Oddly enough, I sort of appreicated the David Lynch movie more after the recent movies because not what I'm older, I sort of undersgand how hard it would be to make a movie anyways.
- BoingBoomTschak 3mo agoWhat's sad is that you can't help but wonder what Lynch could have achieved with the same runtime/monetary budget as Villeneuve... (I like the first LotR movie and disliked the others btw; lost that "picturesque" quality and got too many battle scenes)
- globular-toast 3mo agoI found leaving out Alia way worse than leaving out Bombadil. Alia is one of the best things about the Lynch film, but for some reason precocial infant characters are a no no in Hollywood these days. I assume she will skip straight to being a teen played by an adult in part 3. (As I wrote this I realised I could just look it up, she'll be played by 30 year old.) Internal monologue is also a no no currently, which meant no banquet scene, which is one of the best parts of the book.
- globular-toast 3mo agoIsn't it Dune Messiah? The book is terrible and I've never managed to make it through a second time. Children and especially God Emperor I enjoyed quite a lot, though.
- zulux 3mo agoYes it is.. I'm glad that it seems that he's cherry-picking the good bids from a few books to give us a potentially good movie.
- gcanyon 3mo agoI read the main trilogy many years back; why would a faithful adaptation be a problem?
- zulux 3mo agoIn the book, Paul's nine-year-old son fuses baby sandworm larvae to his skin and becomes a worm-god-human-face weirdo. I mean, I've seen Apocalypse Now, but I suspect the movie of that would be... unique.
- globular-toast 3mo agoThat's in book four (God Emperor). Yeah I can't really imagine that being a good film. Messiah, on the other hand, despite being hard to read does have lots of action.
- suho-han 3mo agogreat work!!
- andrewtorkbaker 3mo agoThank you - let me know if you snag some seats!
- pauldavis 3mo agoThis is awesome - and I love the look. Can you add England/Europe listings? :)
- andrewtorkbaker 3mo agoOn the backlog! The first data provider I integrated with only supports the US. My advice in the meantime: Codex and Claude Code are much better at correctly reading theater and airline seatmaps than they used to be. If you've got a personal plan / one via your employer, I've had good results just asking them to set a schedule to watch a seatmap directly
- kilroy123 3mo agoAgreed. It would be nice if it supported London.
- swang 3mo agoI built my own script to get a seat near the middle and towards the back at the Metreon but so far I have not seen many available. My guess is checking 15 minutes is too slow. And also I've been getting rate-limited by Cloudflare. Not sure if I want to pour more resources into getting around it. The Metreon is running IMAX 70MM showings for 24 hours straight today started at 3AM, [half hour for previews, 3 hour movie, half hour cleanup], then 7AM, 11AM, 3PM, 7PM, 11PM and one on Sunday at 3AM and all showings are basically full. It is crazy.
- andrewtorkbaker 3mo ago+1 to the AMC Metreon being one of the toughest. Of all the theaters I'm monitoring, it's probably in the top 3 of fewest seats opening up. My best guess is that SF is just a market where demand far exceeds supply. But I am seeing a few every day, and I'm guessing it will get better after opening weekend too. My system checks every 10 mins leading up to 24 hours before showing, then ramps up to every 60 seconds. Re: Cloudflare - not sure if you're trying to hit AMC's site directly or an alternative. Either way, the first library I reach for in that situation is curl_cffi https://github.com/lexiforest/curl_cffi https://github.com/lexiforest/curl_cffi
- swang 3mo agoYeah I'm directly calling the GQL. For some reason it is only doing the check for today's seats. Very weird.
- andrewtorkbaker 3mo agoWill probably do a blog post / video about my setup at some point. In the meantime, DM me on Twitter and I can share more about what's working for me
- cinntaile 3mo agoIs this a very limited release or why not just give it a few weeks and you'll get seats without any trouble?
- andrewtorkbaker 3mo agoFor the theaters near me, 70mm IMAX showings even a few weeks out still had only crummy seats. Also, I'm impatient and want to see it soon!
- SirFatty 3mo agoFOMO.. it makes people do weird things like this.
- reactordev 3mo agoJust look at Labubu's.
- PcChip 3mo agoWhen we watched that South Park episode, my wife had to explain to me that those were real and not a made up thing for the show
- tclancy 3mo agoIs this weird? Helping others?
- crooked-v 3mo agoThere's only 25 theaters in the US that even have 70MM IMAX projectors, so it is indeed pretty limited.
- gcanyon 3mo agoThe IMAX screenings are pre-committed to future movies -- it might be the case that Spider-Man takes over in two weeks and the window for The Odyssey is closed, even if more people want to see The Odyssey in IMAX than Spider-Man.
- sajithdilshan 3mo ago[flagged]
- dominotw 3mo agodo i need to learn any ancient history stuff to make this more enjoyable. no rush to watch it. love exploring ancient history so can read/watch long documenatries and stuff if you have any recommendations ( hopefuly with no spoilers).
- grey-area 3mo agoRead the book, I hear it’s quite good. Here is a good translation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey_(Emily_Wilson_translation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey_(Emily_Wilson_translat...
- pettijohn 3mo agoPlease add Vancouver BC
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- andrewtorkbaker 3mo agoOn the backlog! My initial data provider only supports the US. I think there are only two 70mm IMAX theaters in BC, right? My advice in the meantime: Chrome + Codex / Claude Code are pretty good at keeping an eye on things for smaller data sets like this
- throw0101a 3mo ago> I think there are only two 70mm IMAX theaters in BC, right? There are a number in Canada: Scotiabank Chinook & IMAX – Calgary, AB; Scotiabank Edmonton & IMAX – Edmonton, AB; Cineplex Cinemas Langley & IMAX – Langley, BC; Cineplex Cinemas Mississauga & IMAX – Mississauga, ON; Cineplex Cinemas Vaughan & IMAX – Woodbridge, ON ;Kramer IMAX, Saskatchewan Science Centre – Regina, SK; Cineplex Cinemas Bayers Lake & IMAX – Halifax, NS; SilverCity Riverport Cinemas & IMAX – Richmond, BC; Cinéma Banque Scotia Montréal & IMAX – Montréal, QC Most of these theatres are run by Cineplex: * https://www.cineplex.com/movie/imax70-the-odyssey-the-imax-experience-in-7 https://www.cineplex.com/movie/imax70-the-odyssey-the-imax-e... * https://www.imax.com/en/ca/news/the-odyssey-in-imax-70mm-film https://www.imax.com/en/ca/news/the-odyssey-in-imax-70mm-fil... Except for one at the Saskatchewan Science Centre: * https://www.sasksciencecentre.com/the-odyssey-the-imax-experience https://www.sasksciencecentre.com/the-odyssey-the-imax-exper...
- Marsymars 3mo agoNot sure what your dataset is, but this is the most complete/up-to-date imax dataset I've found: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1cyI-fqsYDf8W5tX-uM8a96Dmhgv_vhw https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1cyI-fqsYDf8W5t...
- hiworld6543 3mo ago[flagged]
- add-sub-mul-div 3mo agoIncredible comment. The success of this movie is driving people insane. There was no reason this had to be a culture war.
- resoluteteeth 3mo ago> Waste of time to get these alerts for a movie that has no historical accuracy or value. The odyssey itself wasn't trying to be historically accurate; it's basically fantasy. Why would you expect that a movie adaptation would be historically accurate?
- slybot 3mo agoIn this context, the book itself is the history rather than the story as a foundational western narrative. The movie diverge in many grounds from the book, and it is sad that most people will only watch the movie rather than read the original work.
- ButlerianJihad 3mo ago> rather than read the original work. Look, given that the so-called "original work" is in ancient Greek, I don't think any ordinary American today is going to take the time and effort to actually "read the original work". Even if you were to learn the Greek language well enough to "understand" the original book, you wouldn't really understand it, would you? Because it makes so many intertwined culture references, to the landscape, to the gods and myths of the period. So, what is better: for people to sit down and try to grind through the book, or to make a living production as a modern adaptation, for modern audiences to enjoy? Furthermore, the Odyssey would have been performed by a singer or poet in its time. People in Greece wouldn't have been reading it on paper! That would be absurd even then! So, it would already be a performance, an interpretation, and it would surely be adapted by those performers to the place-and-time. There is surely a lot of space between the oral tradition that Homer originated to the written word. Personally, I have immensely enjoyed O Brother, Where Art Thou? as a modern adaptation to Americana. I cannot pretend to understand the original, or the intricacies of the Coen Brothers' adaptation, but I love the performances, the singalong songs, and the production values of the modern film, and it gives me more insight and appreciation for the ancient epic as it was.
- ano-ther 3mo agoI have seen a local theater advertising 70mm dual projection (but not mentioning IMAX) and another one IMAX. Will there be a difference?
- andrewtorkbaker 3mo ago[dead]
- globular-toast 3mo agoNo idea what "dual 70mm" is, but it's not IMAX. IMAX is a very specific and unique end to end capture and presentation format. It's quite an experience but I wouldn't worry about it too much. If you can see a 70mm presentation it will be stunning regardless.
- Marsymars 3mo agoThough to say with that description. Can you link the specific theatre?
- globular-toast 3mo agoThere are only 3 screens in the UK; I've accepted I won't be going. I'm glad I got to see The Dark Knight Rises and Tenet in the BFI IMAX, though. The latter was during COVID and we had a whole row to ourselves. I don't even mind that these aren't the greatest films. IMAX is more of a spectacle in its own right and a great film will still be great on any screen.
- Svoka 3mo agoCan someone explain why they don't just add black bars on the side and show in filmed format?
- kylecazar 3mo agoThey do. They show it in regular theaters (I saw it yesterday in one and was underwhelmed but that's another story). You do lose a lot of the picture as it was intended to be viewed by the director, of course. But closest IMAX was too far.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- Svoka 3mo agoWhy don't they letterbox it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letterboxing_(filming) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letterboxing_(filming)
- hiworld6543 3mo agoYou’re right, they COULD letterbox Nolan’s movie. They won’t. Nolan filmed in IMAX. It could just be reduced in size, as you suggested by letterboxing, for standard screens. But they won’t. They don’t want you experiencing the full size movie on a standard screen. They want you to go to IMAX because it costs more. It’s not about the experience. It’s about money. It’s no different than car manufacturers of the 1980s selling a base model vehicle with hand crank windows. They could have used the same assembly line to cheaply install machine powered windows for every vehicle of that model, but they intentionally did things to push customers towards more expensive models.
- Marsymars 3mo agoTo be fair, I expect audiences on average prefer fullscreen over letterboxing. Consider back when widescreen content was becoming common, but many people still had 4:3 displays - my experience was that people then generally defaulted to fullscreen 4:3 with widescreen content.
- ymir_e 3mo agoWhat a fun website. This feels like a sort of flashback to how the web used to be in some ways.