The HabForum

Its been a long time since I've had Huntsville on my mind, I guess its funny how life goes by so fast. Not to long ago I went to St. Louis, where they have an Omnimax, and it seems like the old memories came back quick. Well long story short, I'm back in the loop with everything USSRC related and booked on the August Alumni gathering (Hope to see you folks there by the way).

But back to the real question at hand, I was supprised that none of the Space related Omnimax movies but the brand new ones are playing anywhere. I don't know if you guys remember, but I sure remember Hail Columbia!, Destiny in Space, The Dream is Alive, etc, in the Omnimax when I was a camper. So I started searching around the country and I can't find anyplace that still plays them. I thought, at least, the Omnimax at the USSRC must still play them for campers, so I gave them I call. The girl at the office had never even heard of the movies, to my suprise.

I ended up breaking down and buying all of the movies I remember seeing back in my days as a camper on DVD. So it looks like I'm gonna have to get a chair right up next to my HDTV, turn up the surround sound to max, and pretend I'm back in the dome! Its kind of funny what we do to relive the memories (or maybe I'm just going nuts, could be either).

In closing, I was thinking it would be really awesome to get some of the old movies back to the Omnimax. And it would be even sweeter if they could do that for the re-union... hint hint. I doubt it will happen, but maybe someone knows of a Imax that still plays older features.

I completely remember all of those! I'd love to see them again too.

And it's also great to hear you'll be at the camp in August. I'm going too so it'll be great to finally meet someone from on here!

I remember seeing Hail Columbia, To Fly (I think that's the one....the one with the guys who do the acrobatics in the bi-plane) and The Dream is Alive (my all time favorite IMAX movie) when I was at camp. I want to say we watched an IMAX movie every night when I was at Level I (summer of 1989). Or maybe it just felt like it.
I know we watched at least one movie each time I was at Level II (summers of 1990 and 1991), but I don't remember which one.

I have The Dream is Alive on DVD. And, while it's still good, it's not quite the same. I would love to see that on the gianormous screen again.

Let's see... of the top of my head, I've seen:

The Dream is Alive (probably 5-6 times, and at least once outside of camp)
Hail Columbia
Destiny in Space
Space Station
Cosmic Voyage

And in addition, the not-so space ones:
The helicopter one
The Blue Angels one
The one with the simulated combat operation

And I've seen plenty others outside of Huntsville... pretty sure I've seen Everest at least 3 times, and a few other random ones, plus I saw Apollo 13 back when transferring movies to IMAX was new.

I need to go see some IMAXes at our local museum. I hear Hurricaine on the Bayou is good... should have snuck in while I still had a USSRC badge.

Well when i went to camp way back in the stone age i saw
The Dream is Alive
Hail Columbia
Blue Planet
Speed

Now one thing to rememeber IMAX has exploded in popularity in the last few years. New movies are coming out all the time so most theaters arent showing the older ones anymore. IMAX theaters have popped up all ovr the country now and arent as rare as they once were more movies are being made many now first run blockbusters like Spiderman and Harry Potter.

Great News!! For the summer we are showing Dream is Alive and Hail Columbia. Watch for them while you are here!

Nobody's mentioned L5: First City in Space yet. I've seen it several times at KSC. Though it is by far not my favorite movie, I thought someone should mention it.

P.S. CastAway, I hated Hurricane on the Bayou.

alumniandi wrote:Great News!! For the summer we are showing Dream is Alive and Hail Columbia. Watch for them while you are here!

Cool! Any idea how long "summer" lasts? I won't be down there until adult ASA the first week in September.

alumniandi wrote:Great News!! For the summer we are showing Dream is Alive and Hail Columbia. Watch for them while you are here!

is that all that's showing this summer? i was hoping to catch one of the newer flicks i hadn't seen yet.

Definitely a sign of the times, but I remember an IMAX film that was brought in that was about the fires in the oil fields in Kuwait after the first Gulf War. Geez...that certainly dates me.

gt0163c wrote:I remember seeing Hail Columbia, To Fly (I think that's the one....the one with the guys who do the acrobatics in the bi-plane) and The Dream is Alive (my all time favorite IMAX movie) when I was at camp.

I'm with gt0163...those are the three I remember best throughout all of my sessions in the late-80s. Were there any others? I think we caught an IMAX every night...which means there would have been repeats...

i don't remember any repeats during my '89-'94 tenure.

back then, you had enough to fill a week:

Hail Columbia ('82)
Dream Is Alive ('85)
Blue Planet ('90)
Destiny In Space ('94)
Energy ('75)
Fires of Kuwait ('92)
Speed ('84)
To Fly ('76)

...i may even be missing one or two.

I just bought Space Station for camp (my private collection now). They are all available thru Amazon (course you can't see them IMAX but the video quality is very good.

I'm thinking of getting The Dream is Alive.
I love that one.

Btw, per Space Canada's recommendations I showed them the Apollo 15 section of From the Earth to the Moon which is a 4-6? collection of DVDs.
Those are great as well. I look forward to seeing them on some marathon.
The 4th maybe.

--desr

by the way if you have never seen space station in a 3d imax you need to its mind blowing. As for From the Earth to the Moon its a great series and Discovery Science Channel is running it now though with some editing for comercial time.

I have three or four IMAX films on DVD at home. They are great even when they are not on the big screen.

I remember seeing L5 at KSC as well. I have often thought about ordering that one on DVD, since I remember it being entertaining to me when I was younger and my Brownies may like it for our space day.

Otherwise, Apollo 13 on IMAX was quite the experience too. They re-mastered it and I do not think I will ever forget the experience of hearing the Saturn V launch and some of the other special IMAX effects they added to the film.

IMAX is really interesting (Canadian) technology.

Boomerang wrote:by the way if you have never seen space station in a 3d imax you need to its mind blowing.

I couldn't agree more! I'll always love "The Dream Is Alive" and "Blue Planet" but "Space Station" is an experience not to be missed in 3D. It was awesome!

I've never seen Blue Planet, but I met a guy who was in it ( Bob Springer )

Andy,

Great to hear that they plan to play Hail Columbia and Dream is Alive this summer! Please post the hard dates the movies will run. I am hoping that I won't miss them for the August 2nd-5th gathering, or I might have to make a short trip sooner.

All,

I agree with the statements that Imax's popularity has grown greatly. It seems to some extent that the dawn of the many flat screen Imax's all over have commercialized the whole thing. You never used to see widescreen films in Imax because the audience that Imax was filming for was people who went to science/history related museums where most Imax's used to be (due to the high cost of omnimax). Now we have movies in Imax from almost every genre, which is nice, but I hope the company stays true to its roots.

Now I'm pretty sure when I went to SC and SA that I saw a movie every night...and I remember seing a whole lot of different movies too. Seems like the choices have gone down from years past.

alumniandi wrote:Great News!! For the summer we are showing Dream is Alive and Hail Columbia. Watch for them while you are here!

Just make sure the counselors have the orange flashlights (think airport tarmac) to help guide Columbia at the beginning of the movie.

...or to help spot Spacedome PDA