Blade Runner 2049 was insanely loud, so I'd like to blame Hans Zimmer (same with
Inception years ago), who's participation in movies in general can only be described as an affliction. Likewise, it doesn't help that most big screen action vehicles almost always veer into Zimmer territory, which is now synonymous with "epic" picture soundtracking, lest they be seen or felt as anything but.
I wanted to believe that a full capacity theater might deaden the overall sound, but science says otherwise, I'm afraid (also, please take Hans Zimmer's subharmonic rack gear away from him already).
echorec wrote:I think it just comes down to having inexperienced people working the theatre controls---like getting a bad projectionist who can't see something is misaligned.
Sadly, this has gotten even worse as digital has taken over, as the program cannot be interrupted after it initially begins, at least for things like subtitles and (depending on the film/distributor) fixed-level audio. With most of the bigger chains, they're tied to their runtimes, locked-in previews, etc., so the window to correct something is even smaller than in the 35mm days. And as much as I'd love to see
Dune on a big screen, I'll just have to take some earplugs, maybe