Interlude for geeks

I’ve been watching Star Trek in its various incarnations since approximately the first day it aired on TV back in 1966. But I’m one of those fans who’s had ups and downs with the whole thing. Face it, some of the original series episodes were downright stupid, many of the movies were pretty terrible, and Voyager was way too uneven to care much about no matter what it may have had on the good side.

Anyway, I was at first pretty ambivalent when I heard there was a new movie in the works, though I was encouraged when I found out who was in charge of it.

I managed to catch it in an American theater the night before I returned to Beijing from my last trip, and enjoyed it quite a lot, even if the plot seemed to exist primarily as an excuse for the young Kirk to get beat to a pulp. I always liked Spock better anyway, and this time, Spock gets the girl. Gotta love that!

I thought it would be fun to go see it again in a Chinese theater, so one evening I walked up to the new multiplex at Sanlitun Village. They’ve got something like 12 screens, basically patterned after the big multiplexes we have in the US, with a couple of differences. First, it’s underground. The entrance is on level B1 of the shopping center, and you go down one more level to get to the auditoriums.

Second, check this out:
Sarting from the top...

The theater is called Megabox, which pretty much sums it up.

The Chinese name of the movie is 星际迷航 (Xingji Mihang), which surprised me, since I always thought Star Trek was 星际旅行 (Xingji Luxing, literally Star Travel). You can look that up in an online dictionary. The title they’re using for this new movie actually translates pretty much to Lost in the Stars. I don’t get that – what was wrong with the original title? And it’s not like they’re actually lost at any time in this movie.

Next line is the date and time, nothing noteworthy there.

The next line is my seat location. 4厅4排17号(Auditorium 4, row 4, seat 17). Yes, it’s a reserved seat. Every movie I’ve seen in China has had assigned seating. Whether people actually sit in their seats is another question entirely.

Next is the ticket type and price. 成人 70.00 (Adult 70RMB, which is about US$10). In spite of the Chinese economy and average income, it costs exactly as much to see a movie in Beijing as it does in Seattle.

And there’s a barcode for validation.

At the bottom is standard stuff about how the ticket is good only for the stated date and time for one person, and complaints or questions can call this number.

See, I can geek out over a Star Trek movie without even hardly mentioning the movie itself!