Mute the first 1:26 to avoid studio voice-over!!!!!!!!

Rating: Null/10 (1 December 1998)

At Worldcon (World Sci-Fi Convention) in Baltimore, '98, Dark City was run as part of the film festival. Since it was running in discrete 6-channel, the narration was totally localized to the center channel, so it was easy to flip off the amp until the v.o. was over (it ends just before you see K. Sutherland's pocket watch). The audience reaction was great.
If you can't kill one channel at home, muting everything just kills the slowly building ambient music - but it's worth it!
When I ran an advance screening of this in Westwood, I wasn't really paying much attention to the content of the sound during the first couple of minutes, just that it was there (and focus, etc.), so I didn't "get" the v.o. At the end of the film, I was greatly pleased and my friends (who heard the v.o.) were really disappointed that the v.o. (like the v.o. in '82 cut of Blade Runner) dumbed the film waaaaay down. We all assumed it was a studio thing... and we were right..
Here's whyÂ…
Here are the first comments from the Director Alex Proyas and gang track on DVD... rough transcription since I'm not sure who is who, but I think I've got Proyas right from the accent and I'm assuming the other two are the writers.
These are the very first three comments on the track...
Proyas: I feel that the opening voice-over in the film is a kind of an unnecessary addition. It was added at a late stage to, you know, help the audience's understanding of what was going on.
Other voice: The narration that opens the film was really the only studio imposition. I asked Alex when he finally finished making this film if he achieved what he set out to achieve and he said, "yeah, 90%", which was remarkable.
Another voice: Now, one of the things I like doing, and it's a style, and I know Alex likes doing it too, is no credits at the beginning of the film and just "boom", send somebody right into the movie. Just, you know, shoving the audience in to the middle of something and letting them figure it out, as opposed to spoonfeeding them. And it takes a good half an hour for the audience to get up to speed on this film...