movie

Dec 14 2010

Skywalker Ranch

“Share it with someone you love, Daddy!”
— Lucy, spoon in hand, approaches her ice cream-eating Daddy

Last night I went to Skywalker Ranch in Nicasio, CA. to see a showing of the new 3-D movie, Tron: Legacy. Though I can’t say the movie will go down as a personal favorite, I was glad I went. I mean, it’s not very often that I receive an invitation to Skywalker Ranch.

I drove straight from work and traffic was brutal. It took about two hours to get to to Lucas Valley Road.

After eight miles of the winding road, I came upon a closed gate.

“Now what?” I thought as I drove up. However, in an instant the electric gate started to swing open. “Cool. I’m in!”

Though I couldn’t see much beyond my headlights, the grounds seemed very picturesque. I slowed down to watch a deer make its rounds.

Soon I found myself in a line of about twenty of cars, our speed at a virtual standstill as we dutifully waited to be noted and checked off of a guest list at a check-in point.

After getting checked off, I drove over a piece of road designed to look like a wooden bridge. I was off to the theater. Skywalker Ranch seemed pretty vast. I drove by different parts of the compound before I found a man w/ a flashlight who motioned me to park in a dirt lot next to the theater.

Once parked, I went to the theater lobby and was again checked off a list. Before the movie started, I grabbed a water at the open bar, chowed down on some hors d’oeuvres, and chatted with co-workers.

It wasn’t long before we were ushered into the theater. Everyone grabbed a pair of 3D glasses as they entered the room. My group was ushered over to a block of seats that’d been taped off for us. They were great seats, dead center, 8-12 rows from a screen that was flanked on either side by statues of what I thought looked like Sith warlords.

Here’s more info on the theater.

After the movie, the director came out for a round of Q/A. During his interview he remarked that “he wished every Tron: Legacy viewer could view the movie in this theater” because of its state of the art structure, sound and audio.

On my way home, my terrible sense of direction along with a GPS unit that kept mentioning it’d “lost signal…reacquiring” whenever I needed it, led to a longer than usual trip home. Before I finally made it back home, I’d found myself traveling over the Golden Gate bridge ($6 toll!) and through San Francisco. Luckily, I also stumbled across an In-N-Out Burger, so all was not lost.

By mike • by Mike, Geeky, Misc • 3 • Tags: kidspeak, movie, skywalker, tron