Yay, celebrate surviving the week with this Sci-Friday look at the wacky world of THX. Per Wikipedia – THX began in 1982, when George Lucas and his company, Lucasfilm, were preparing to release Return of the Jedi … when a major situation began to arise. They brought their film to test in a commercial theater to find out that much of the audio detail and quality they mixed for countless hours in the studio was simply missing when played back in the cinema. … At the time, many movie theaters all over the world had poor acoustics with mono sound.
“To fix the problem, Lucas established a quality standard for commercial theaters that would use the best technology to consistently translate filmmakers’ work to the theater. Four movie theaters in the United States fully installed THX sound systems, becoming the first THX certified theaters. To introduce the new system, James A. Moorer created an ear-catching sound called the Deep Note. THX was dedicated on May 20, 1983, and the first trailer and Deep Note premiered on time with the release of Return of the Jedi in theaters five days later.”
THX certification of an auditorium entails specific acoustic and other technical requirements; architectural requirements include a floating floor, baffled and acoustically treated walls, non-parallel walls (to reduce standing waves), a perforated screen (to allow center channel continuity), and NC30 rating for background noise You can watch the THX 2002/2003 demo disk below. Take a look:
Of course, THX became so meta that people started to make fun of it – check out this Simpson’s parody. To this day, THX and other eardrum-bursting sound technologies are the reason I get a migraine every time I go to the movies. But so what? I want to feel the rumble of the Millennium Falcon in my chest cavity, too. Earplugs for me, Sci-Friday for everyone.
Thanks to Wikipedia (Don’t forget to donate) for this background info on THX. I hope you enjoyed this moment of scifi and movie tech nerdery! Please feel welcomed to dive down the rabbit hole of every other Sci-Friday I’ve published in the past couple years. Have a great weekend!
