List of things that have taken less time than the Newbury Cinema
I moved into the West Berkshire area in September 1997, near to the small town of Newbury. With a population of slightly under 30,000, the town is the largest to me outside of a 25 minute drive to Basingstoke or Reading. In 1997, Newbury had a 2 screen cinema; on Park Way, in what is now the LA Fitness gym & health centre. The cinema was closed in 1998, with the Lib-Dem run council promising a new one that would have more screens, better parking, and overall nicer facilities. The council then proceeded to waste a large amount of time and money fussing and fiddling about, doing absolutely nothing of any practical value. Meanwhile, everyone in Newbury and the surrounding area had to drive or take the bus to Reading or Basingstoke if they wanted to see a film - resulting in an hour long trip where previously it had been measured in a small amount of minutes. At the 2005 elections, the Newbury electrorate chose a Conservative MP for the first time in nearly 2 decades; and at the same time they kicked the Lib-Dem leadership off the town council, replacing it with a Conservative one instead. Finally, concrete results started to show. After a year or so of cleaning up the previous council's mess, a site was confirmed, building work actually begun and the new cinema started to take shape. Tomorrow, the replacement finally opens - 11 years after the old one shut down. The fact it's taken over a decade to do this frankly boggles my mind - and after reading a friend's Facebook post on how he was going to see a film at the new one when it opened, I started wondering when the old one shut. I then remembered about The Duke Nukem Forever List, a list of things that had taken place in the 12 years that failed project took. Although the cinema project has finally been finished, the idea had already been set in my head, and I just had to do it - my thanks in advance to Eli Hodapp both for making that list and for not complaining about me making this one - I hope. ;) So, dear reader, I present to you - a list of things that have taken less time than the Newbury Cinema. Enjoy!
--- Chris Douglas, 12th November, 2009
A brief overview of dates
The main problem I had when creating this page was figuring out the date when the old cinema shut. Because it had been so long since it happened, no-one can honestly remember the exact date - I thought it was sometime in 1999 before actually starting research but I couldn't honestly be sure. The internet has been far from forthcoming - several different sources have all pointed at 1998 however, a figure confirmed by the Newbury Weekly News when I attempted to get the date out of their archives (sadly the librarian was out on holiday for a week, and though very helpful, the lady I did get was unable to be any more specific than 1998). As I'm unable to go any more detailed than this (at least for now), I'm assuming the last active date of the old cinema to be the 12th of November 1998, for no other reason than it makes the time length a nice spot-on 11 years. I'm all but certain it was earlier in the year than this, but for now, this is the best I can do.
Historical items that have taken less time than the Newbury Cinema
- The Beatles formed, released all their albums, and broke up.
- World War 1
- World War 2
- The Manhattan Project - even the atomic bomb took less time to build than the new cinema.
- The building of the Titanic
- Caesar's conquering of Gaul
- The time between Kennedy's "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" speech and Apollo 11 doing exactly that.
- 14 Kings and Queens of England since 1066 have had reigns shorter than the gap between the 2 cinemas.
The following things have been accomplished between the old cinema's closure on the 12th of November 1998 and the replacement opening on the 13th of November 2009...
World & Political Events
- Bill Clinton finished his second term. George Bush completed his entire 8 years in office. Barack Obama was elected and a year passed since his actual election.
- 4 nations have aquired nuclear bombs.
- 19 wars have started, 5 ended.
- Britain has held 2 general elections. When the old cinema shut, Labour had 418 seats in the House of Commons, the Conservatives 165, the Lib-Dems 46. When the new one opened, Labour had 356 seats, the Conservatives 198, and the Lib-Dems 62. The Prime Minister in 1998 was Tony Blair, riding high on a wave of popularity. In 2009, it is Gordon Brown, who is widely expected to lose the upcoming General Election in 2010, after suffering Labour's worst results for 40 years in the 2008 local elections.
- The Euro came into force for 12 countries on the 1st of January, 2002. The currency has been in use now for nearly 8 years and now covers 16 countries.
Films that have not only been on cinema screens but have made it to DVD since the Newbury cinema shut
- Every single CG film apart from the original Toy Story
- The prequal Star Wars trilogy
- All 3 Lord of the Rings films
- 5 James Bond films
- The entire Matrix franchise
- Every Marvel film (All 3 Spiderman films, Iron Man, The Hulk, etc)
- The first six Harry Potter films
- The DVD standard was invented, and finalised
- The HD-DVD standard was agreed on by the DVD Consortium, had a brief battle with Bluray, and lost to it
- 41 of the 50 all-time grossing movies have been released since the old Newbury cinema shut. Worldwide they have grossed $32,500,780,274, or £19,648,618,700. Not a single penny of that has come from a Newbury cinema.
Television
- Family Guy had it's initial run, died, had incredible DVD sales and was brought back again - it is currently on it's 8th season at time of writing.
- Likewise Futurama has had a run of 4 seasons, died, had good DVD sales and had 4 films made, with talks ongoing for another season.
- Star Trek: Enterprise had its entire run. Voyager aired 3 seasons. Deep Space Nine aired a further season of 26 episodes, bringing the total aired between the three to 202 episodes.
- The Simpsons aired episode 209 on the 15th of November 1998. Episode 446 aired on the 15th of November 2009, the last before the cinema opened - 237 episodes have aired in the gap between cinemas, more than had aired at the time the first cinema shut.
- Lost has aired 5 seasons of increasingly dreary episodes. Its final season will be the only one outside the cinema gap.
- 7 seasons of 24 have been broadcast.
- 5 seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the entire series of Angel, and the short-lived Firefly were made and aired - and the movie Serenity, too.
- Top Gear's viewership withered away and the show was cancelled. It was then brought back in a new weekly hour-long format and successfully aired 13 series, with the 14th starting 2 days after the new cinema launched.
- Dr Who successfully relaunched, and has aired over 50 episodes, with 2 Doctors. The Eleventh Doctor has been chosen and will be taking over the role after the Tenth's final 3 specials, one of which aired 2 days after the new cinema opened.
- There have been 10 different sets of Big Brother housemates.
Technology
- In 1998, the newest and hottest PC operating system was Windows 98. Since then, Windows ME launched and failed badly, Windows XP launched in 2001 and replaced 98 on the desktop - and has held a majority share ever since - Windows Vista launched to a world of issues, and Windows 7 launched 3 weeks before the cinema opened, making a total of four consumer operating systems from Microsoft launched in the cinema gap.
- The average speed of a UK internet connection has gone from 56.6Kb to 2Mb - 35 times the speed.
- Apple Computers nearly died, were rejoined by Steve Jobs, who turned the company's fortunes around by selling millions of units of the iPod since 2001, proving once again that consumers will always go for shiny things over functionality and features.
- Linux has gained at least 10 times the popularity. The core kernel has tripled in size.
- In 1998, Macs were running on PPC processors while Windows ran on x86 boxes. Now all Apple computers run on x86 boxes and Microsoft is using PPC processors for the Xbox 360.
- Though existing in 1998, eBay, Google and Amazon were virtual unknowns.
- In contrast, a sizable chunk of the modern well-known internet sites didn't exist at all - Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, 4chan, YouTube and ThePirateBay were all years away.
- Napster was released, sued into non-existance, and came back as a legal music retailer.
- Mobile phone ownership in the UK exploded - there is now more than 1 mobile phone per person in the country.
- 2 Martian rovers were built, launched, landed on Mars, and have been exploring there for over 2 years.
- Voyager 1 has travelled 8.8 billion miles.
- SpaceShip One, the first commercial spaceship, was developed, built, tested, and launched.
- The International Space Station was launched in November 1998. As of May 2009, it was 83% complete, on a total scheduled build plan of 13 years. It has been manned ever since July 2000, meaning there have been humans in a in-progress space station for 9 years of the cinema gap. A space station.
Finally, since I'm somewhat of a video game fan and as a homage of sorts to the original Duke Nukem list, here's a list of videogames that have launched in the inter-cinema period.
Video Game releases
Games Consoles
- Dreamcast
- Game Boy Colour
- Game Boy Advance (in original, SP, and Micro form)
- GameCube
- Nintendo DS, DS Lite, DSi
- Wii
- PS One (Original PlayStation variant)
- PlayStation 2 (And PS Two variant)
- PlayStation Portable (3 variants, plus download-only PSP Go)
- PlayStation 3 (in at least 6 different varients)
- Xbox
- Xbox 360 (At least 15 variants)
Games featuring Mario
- Super Mario Bros. Deluxe (Game Boy Color)
- Mario Party 2 (Nintendo 64)
- Super Smash Bros (Nintendo 64)
- Mario Tennis (Nintendo 64)
- Mario Party 2 (Nintendo 64)
- Game & Watch Gallery 3 (Game Boy Color)
- Mario Tennis (Game Boy Color)
- Paper Mario (Nintendo 64)
- Mario Party 3 (Nintendo 64)
- Super Mario Advance (Game Boy Advance)
- Mario Kart Super Circuit (Game Boy Advance)
- Luigi's Mansion (GameCube)
- Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2 (Game Boy Advance)
- Super Mario Sunshine (GameCube)
- Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3 (Game Boy Advance)
- Mario Party 4 (GameCube)
- Super Smash Bros. Melee (GameCube)
- Game & Watch Gallery 4 (Game Boy Advance)
- Super Mario Bros. 3: Super Mario Advance 4 (Game Boy Advance)
- Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour (GameCube)
- Mario Kart: Double Dash! (GameCube)
- Mario Party 5 (GameCube)
- Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga (Game Boy Advance)
- Mario Golf: Advance Tour (Game Boy Advance)
- Mario vs. Donkey Kong (Game Boy Advance)
- Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (GameCube)
- Mario Pinball Land (Game Boy Advance)
- Dr. Mario (Classic NES Series) (Game Boy Advance)
- Mario Power Tennis (GameCube)
- Mario Party 6 (GameCube)
- Wrecking Crew (Game Boy Advance)
- Mario Power Tennis (GameCube)
- Mario Party Advance (Game Boy Advance)
- Yoshi Touch & Go (Nintendo DS)
- Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix (GameCube)
- Dr. Mario & Puzzle League (Game Boy Advance)
- Mario Superstar Baseball (GameCube)
- Mario Tennis: Power Tour (Game Boy Advance)
- Mario Party 6 (GameCube)
- Mario Kart DS (Nintendo DS)
- Super Mario Strikers (GameCube)
- Mario Kart Arcade GP (Arcade)
- Mario Party 7 (GameCube)
- Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time (Nintendo DS)
- Super Princess Peach (Nintendo DS)
- New Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo DS)
- Mario Hoops 3-on-3 (Nintendo DS)
- Yoshi's Island DS (Nintendo DS)
- Super Paper Mario (Wii)
- Mario Party 8 (Wii)
- Mario Strikers Charged (Wii)
- Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis (Nintendo DS)
- Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
- Mario Kart Arcade GP 2 (Arcade)
- Mario Party DS (Nintendo DS)
- Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games (Nintendo DS)
- Super Smash Bros. Brawl
- Mario Kart Wii (Wii)
- Dr. Mario Online Rx (WiiWare)
- Mario Super Sluggers (Wii)
- Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (Virtual Console (SNES))
- Mario Golf (Virtual Console (N64))
- Mario Power Tennis New Play Control (Wii)
- Dr. Mario Express (Nintendo DSi Ware)
- Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again (Nintendo DSi Ware)
- Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (Nintendo DS)
- Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games (Nintendo DS, Wii)
An honourable mention goes to New Super Mario Bros Wii, which launched on the 20th November 2009 - a week after the cinema opened. It's entire development time was inside the cinema construction phase.
Legend of Zelda games
- Ocarina of Time (N64)
- Majora's Mask (N64)
- Link's Awakening DX (Game Boy Color)
- Oracle of Ages (Game Boy Color)
- Oracle of Seasons (Game Boy Color)
- A Link to the Past (Game Boy Advance)
- The Wind Waker (GameCube)
- Ocarina of Time (GameCube)
- Zelda Collectors Edition (GameBube)
- Four Swords Adventures (GameCube)
- The Minish Cap (Game Boy Advance)
- Classic NES Series: The Legend of Zelda (Game Boy Advance)
- Classic NES Series: Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (Game Boy Advance)
- Phantom Hourglass (DS)
- Twilight Princess (Wii and GameCube)
Games featuring Sonic the Hedgehog
- Sonic Adventure (Dreamcast)
- Sonic Pocket Adventure (Neo Geo Pocket Color)
- Sonic Shuffle (Dreamcast)
- Sonic Adventure 2 (Dreamcast)
- Sonic Advance (Game Boy Advance)
- Sonic Adventure 2: Battle (GameCube)
- Sonic Mega Collection (GameCube)
- Sonic Mega Collection Plus (PS2, PC, Xbox)
- Sonic Advance 2 (Game Boy Advance)
- Sonic N (N-Gage)
- Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut (GameCube, PC)
- Sonic Pinball Party (Game Boy Advance)
- Sonic Heroes (GameCube, PS2, Xbox, PC)
- Sonic Battle (Game Boy Advance)
- Sonic Advance 3 (Game Boy Advance)
- Sega Superstars (PlayStation 2)
- Sonic Gems Collection (GameCube, PS2, Xbox)
- Shadow the Hedgehog (GameCube, PS2, Xbox)
- Sonic Rush (DS)
- Sonic Riders (GameCube, PS2, Xbox)
- Sonic the Hedgehog (360, PS3)
- Sonic the Hedgehog (emulated re-release) (iPod, Java-based phones, XBLA, PSN)
- Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (emulated re-release) (XBLA, PSN)
- Sonic Rivals (PlayStation Portable)
- Sonic and the Secret Rings (Wii)
- Sonic Rush Adventure (DS)
- Sonic Rivals 2 (PlayStation Portable)
- Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Wii, DS)
- Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity (GameCube, PS2, Xbox)
- Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii)
- Sega Superstars Tennis (PS2, PS3, Wii, 360, DS)
- Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood (DS)
- Sonic Unleashed (PS2, PS3, Wii, 360)
- Sonic & the Black Knight (Wii)
- Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games (Wii, DS)
Final Fantasy titles
- Final Fantasy I & 2: Dawn of Souls (Game Boy Advance)
- Final Fantasy Origins (FF1 & FF2) (PS1)
- Final Fantasy 3 (DS)
- Final Fantasy 4 (Game Boy Advance)
- Final Fantasy 5 (Game Boy Advance)
- Final Fantasy 6 (Game Boy Advance)
- Final Fantasy Anthology (FF4 & FF5) (PS1)
- Final Fantasy 6 (PS1)
- Final Fantasy 8 (PS1)
- Final Fantasy 9 (PS1)
- Final Fantasy 10 (PS2)
- Final Fantasy X-2 (PS2)
- Final Fantasy 11 (and two expansion packs) (PS2, PC)
- Final Fantasy 12 (PS2)
- Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced (GBA)
- Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions (PSP)
- Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (GameCube)
- Final Fantasy 7: Dirge of Cerberus (PS2)
- Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 (PSP)
- Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings (DS)
- Dissidia: Final Fantasy (PSP)
- Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates (DS)
- Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearer (Wii)
Others
- Every single Grand Theft Auto game after the original PC/PS1 release up to and including The Ballard of Gay Tony on Xbox 360. This includes the GTA: London mission pack for the original game.
- All 48 Sims games and Sims packs have been released since the original cinema shut. The first that's outside this window is the Sims 3 addon pack The Sims 3: World Adventures.
- Every Pokemon game. The first to be released after the new cinema opened was Pokemon Heart Gold & Soul Silver in early 2010 - a remake of Pokemon Gold & Silver, which were released 3 years after the old cinema shut.
- Every MMORPG apart from Meridian 59. This includes World of Warcraft, Guild Wars and all of its expansions, EVE Online, and the entire Phantasy Star Online series.
- Quake 2, 3, and 4. Unreal Tournament, UT2K4, and Unreal Tournament 3.
- Both Half Life games, and several expansions for both.
- Team Fortress 2, a game itself announced in 1998, that also suffered a huge amount of delays - yet was launched on the 10th of October 2007, a good 2 years before the Newbury cinema was finished.
- Metal Gear Solid 1, 2, 3, and 4.
- Halo 1, 2, 3 and ODST.
- Gran Turismo 2, 3, and 4 - possibly 1 as well if the cinema shut before the 8th of May.
- Not so much a video game, but over 100,000 unique Magic: The Gathering trading cards were printed between the two cinemas.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have some popcorn to buy. ;)
Brought to you by regionfreegamer.co.uk. Thanks to Eli Hodapp, CaptainPsyko, BonzoESC, n1ck, Fish, MrBrainsample, Skroob, stabby, Josh Taylor, v0idnull, wildfalkon, Joachim Blum, Mr.D., CellBlock, HeroinAllstar, Deathwind, minivanmegafun, mroach, Simon Howard, Pierre "Zacha Pedro" Lebeaupin, Premek, Robbie Schumacher, xkcd, Jetsetlemming and anyone else who contributed to the original Duke Nukem Forever List that I used as a resource while compiling this - please don't hurt me guys, I doubt my target audience for this is anywhere near the size of yours =P