John Doe chimes in:

Listen, I've gotten to be pretty good friends with our local IMAX Projection Manager. He did a quick run-through just to make sure the film was assembled correctly, and he passed along the following pre-Halloween goodies for me to share with you. He advised that it's a tighter, leaner and better movie, and these are just his best recollections since it all goes by so fast!

Here's a list of some of the changes he noticed:

- The "Sound of Music" meadow scene is gone. The whole thing, including the Shaak-riding scene.
- The library scene has been completely removed.
- Part of Anakin and Nat's first arrival on the island resort has been cut out. He thought that the part where Anakin touches Padme's back was not in there, but adv'd that it went by quickly, so he may have just missed it.

- The fireplace scene was shortened (just a bit, he thinks - we'll have to check this!)
- The conveyor belt scene seemed shorter to him - it seems that Nat got to the molten container faster.
- The end credits are markedly different: after the initial cast credits, it switches from rolling credits to FULL-SCREEN WITH LOTS AND LOTS OF WORDS credits (non-rolling) for the technical credits. He also notes that the soundtrack has been edited to fit, and interestingly, it ends with a fade out of the love theme (which I think is a great change).

- The Coruscant chase appears to be 100% intact, according to him.
- He noted that it appears that Lucas may have done a lot of digital recompositing to fit the IMAX screen. For example, the scene where Anakin is talking to the Jawa, remember how the orig scene was spread across the entire frame? Well, it looks like the middle has been digitally reduced so that the effect is still the same, even though the screen is not quite as wide an aspect ratio.

- Running time: 1:59:36 (approx).

In general terms, he feels that this movie is *much* more intimate - you are allowed now to be drawn into the details, of which there are so many that George put in that it's hard to believe! For example, using the same scene as above (with the sandcrawler), he said that you can actually see Jawas moving around *inside* the crawler now, and that the incredible level of detail is consistent from scene to scene. He also said that a lot of the close-ups really have a way of drawing you closer to the characters - you can see the tears well up and roll down Anakin's face in the confession scene, for example.

The Kaminoans are apparently just *spectacular* in their details. It just goes on and on - you can see the hairs on Nat's arm and every single one on Yoda's head, etc. The background details become functional instead of just being "background" - he says that you'll probably spend more time watching them than anything else, because we've never been able to see them this clearly before!

He did note that there was some tiny amount of pixelation due to the resolution of the digital cameras used to capture the original stock. But, he said that it was only in a few places, and that the DMR process really took care of most of it. You really don't notice it unless you're looking right at it. He also noted a couple of spots where the picture is digitally panned, but he said that in the few instances where this occurred, it looks 100% natural, looks great, and you'll never notice it, again, unless you're looking for it.

And even though he didn't have a chance to run the sound at the level he's going to have it set at for the showings, he adv'd that it's just *amazing* in it's clarity. [Homer Simpson] Ah.... uncompressed audio.... [/Homer] So, I just thought you guys might like to know about this. :)

Thanks for the scoopage John Doe! Just 2 more days for fans to experience Star Wars in a whole new way.