Tuesday, February 5, 2008

10 Stunning Ultra-geeky Home Cinemas

1. indiana jones cinema
this amazing indy-themed room was designed by home theatre expert doug charrois for larry and colleen halliday in canada. the room even features ‘replicas of the holy grail, a jacket, hat, whips, torches and more—including the idol from the opening of the original movie’.

2. the batcave
above is possibly the sleekest home theatre i’ve ever seen. it was created by canadian-based experts ‘elite home theater seating’, who, as the name suggests, specialize in hand-made, custom home theater furniture for ‘high-end’ clientele. and bruce wayne.

3. the enterprise ncc-1701d cinema
based on starship enterprise ncc-1701d, this stunner consists of a cinema, bar area and apparently ‘one of the largest kaleidoscope hard-drive based storage systems (..) in a residential installation. at last count, there were eight servers with 3,816 dvds’. there’s even a red alert button which brings on red flashing lights and appropriately tense music.

4. the bridge
trekkie gary reighn decided to cut out the middle man and design & build his home cinema himself on a relatively small budget of $15′000. his basement was cleared to make way for the creation and from start to finish took 2 years.

5. evergreen ultimate theater
apparently ‘one of the most technically and structurally advanced private theaters in the united states’, this phenomenal star trek home cinema even contains motorised sliding doors, as requested by the unbelievably rich client who paid around $3′000′000 in total for the transformation.

6. titanic
the ceiling dome in this titanic themed set-up contains 1′230 fiber optic light strands in order to provide the artificial night sky and entry to the luxurious bar next door can be found behind a motorised bookcase. the whole project was designed by donny hackett of ‘casa cinema design’.

7. the death star
it doesn’t get much cooler than this. the 10-seat death star home cinema was designed for vic wertz and lisa stevens and includes, amongst other things: automatic doors, a twinkling fiber optic star field and a thx sound system. the best fact? the room was designed by doug chiang, lead designer on episodes I & II.

8. the nautilus
this beauty was built as a result of film geek randy moran’s love of the nautilus submarine from the film 20′000 leagues under the sea. he hired ‘dillon works inc’ to build and fabricate all the trusses, wall panels, screen frames, and portholes and ‘acoustic innovations’ to supply the plush red seating.

9. the pirate cove
the pirate cove was created as a result of avs forum user pkonold’s love of the pirates of the carribean disney ride and movies. to make the atmosphere as authentic as possible he and his wife ensured that when seated ‘you feel like you are floating down “the bayou” at night. to accomplish this we have built a star field in the ceiling, complete with real constellations and shooting stars!’.

10. the sci-fi cinema
ok, so the screen isn’t the biggest and the seats are slightly lacking but inside dr. david winn’s home cinema can be found: a hydraulic alien bursting through the wall, a talking robbie the robot and both the predator and the creature from the black lagoon behind bars. the cinema, including all collectibles, cost approximately $100′000.