![]() It features an original score by John Williams and the Boston Pops, and immerses viewers in 1980s Boston, with stomach-dropping aerial footage of the city and a Roger Clemens fastball coming directly into the camera.Īs the footage raced along the old Central Artery to a screeching halt in Storrow Drive traffic, the audience in the theater last week squealed with laughter. Recently, the museum dug it out again for the 25th anniversary. The five-minute clip, created for the 1987 opening of the theater, was played before Omni features for years before being retired. One afternoon last week, as school groups were streaming in for a showing of a film about dolphins, Rivers ducked in a side door and sat in the back of the theater to see something he has not seen in years, a short film called "The New England Time Capsule.'' "It feels like it's my grown-up baby that went on its own way,'' said Cherie Larson Rivers, who has since left the museum but continues to work as an IMAX consultant.īut Joe Rivers is still at the Museum of Science, still in the audiovisual department, and though his work is mostly elsewhere in the museum, he still finds time to swing by the Omni Theater, just because. And on March 21, 17 million visitors later, the Mugar Omni Theater turned 25. Jacqueline just got her driver's license. They were nursed in the back rooms as a recording of Leonard Nimoy's voice boomed through 50 speakers, explaining the technology and throwing in the fact that "he grew up three blocks from here'' in the West End.īut that was all a long time ago. Like many children in the Boston area, the Rivers children grew up going to the Omni Theater, but their connection was a bit different. It was the first IMAX screen in New England. The Mugar Omni Theater was an instant sensation when it opened in 1987. A few years later, they had a son, Eric, and then a daughter, Jacqueline. Larson and Rivers were soon engaged, then married. It was the film they had been making in Florida. It sold out every show for months 400,000 people came to see its first movie, "The Dream is Alive,'' about the space shuttle Challenger. It was the first IMAX screen in New England, and remains the only one to use the ultra-immersive 180-degree Omni dome screen. The Omni Theater was an instant sensation. Rivers and Larson were the opening night projectionists, performers of sorts in the open glass room, "The Bubble,'' where visitors could watch them load the massive spools of film. The theater opened in March 1987 to huge fanfare. ![]() Their relationship, and the Omni Theater, blossomed in ways that no one could anticipate. "Then he asked me out for Saturday night. "I wasn't sure if it was a date,'' she said. As soon as he could, he took a day off and drove her out to Concord and Lexington and Nantasket Beach, then to dinner. One day, she asked Rivers if he would show her around the area. The elevator attendant asked him if he would play something. ![]() They had the same birthday, which was a nice coincidence, and she remembers being in an elevator with him once and he had a guitar with him. ![]() Something was happening between them, but neither was sure what it was. He came around the projection room a lot, sometimes because he had to, sometimes just because. One staff member was young Joe Rivers, who worked in the museum's audiovisual department. Larson's first task was to train the staff on the IMAX equipment. So one of the first things Dodge did was hire a young woman to be her chief projectionist from an IMAX theatre in Seattle. And constructing a theater is a huge investment, with a lot that can go wrong. IMAX is a big process: huge cameras, huge projectors, huge screens. She had just helped create an IMAX theater at a Denver museum, and he decided to hire her to do the same at the Boston museum. After hearing Dodge enthuse about it, he was sold. The man she recognized happened to be the director of the Museum of Science in Boston, and he, along with several museum administrators, had been brought to Florida by the IMAX people to show off the new technology as they filmed the launch. "This head just popped up, and I said, 'Are you Roger Nichols?' '' JIM WILSON/GLOBE STAFF/FILE 1987/Globe Staff photo ![]()
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