UCI Cinemas

Background
UCI Cinemas (also known as United Cinemas International) is an international cinema chain formed in 1988 as a joint venture between UIP, United Artists Communications and AMC Theatres to operate AMC's 200 screens in the UK and Ireland with 3 new cinemas operating in West Germany as well as CIC's cinema operations in the UK. However that same year, AMC withdrew from the UK market and sold its UK assets to CIC/UA, and was renamed to its current name. In 2004, Odeon Cinemas Group merged with UCI after both chains were acquired by private equity firm Terra Firma and UCI's Brazilian branch was later sold to Paramount owner National Amusements, UCI's Japanese branch was later divested. In 2016, AMC acquired Odeon Cinemas Group and re-entered the British and European cinema markets once again.

1st Logo (1989-1990s)
Nicknames: TBA.

Logo: The intro begins with the earth looking from outer space while text appears such as "No Smoking", "Aisles Clear", "Valuables Secured", "Silence Please", "Activate Surround Sound", "Refreshment Centre Open", "Projection. Lights. Action", "Emergency Exits Illuminated" with a green check-mark symbol placed on the right of the text. The earth later zooms closer and it first shows a bridge in a river-like setting with an explorer fighting a ninja. Then it fades to a city with a green monster scaring the audience. After that, it fades into a woman dressed in a skirt, then a detective smoking and then the cameramen. After that a projector is shown while the ball that holds the projector turns into the earth zooming into Europe with UCI's locations at that time. After that, the globe fades into an animated forest with critters and a woman sleeping. After the frog jumps into the lake, he later gets chased by a shark. The water later pans up to a military base with aircraft flying by it. Then, the small orb rises from above the scene transitioning into a giant orb, then the small orb spins around the "UCI" wordmark while the text "United Cinemas International" fades in at the bottom of the logo. The small orb later stops spinning and the byline "A Paramount (with the Paramount text being in its iconic font type)/Universal Company" appears on the bottom of the UCI text, while a line starts spinning through the ring until it hits the small orb and shines until it fades to black.

FX/SFX: A nice mix of live-action footage, traditional animation, and CG animation, all done by Cinema Concepts.

Variants: TBA.

Music/Sounds: TBA.

Availability: Extinct in theatres and on foyer tapes.

Editor's Note: TBA.

2nd Logo (1990s-2000?)
Nicknames: "The Spinning Ball of Doom", "The Ball Goes BALListic", "More Of An Experience", "The Great Escape"

Logo: In a black background, a light flashes through a sphere and reveals a dark, misty background. The sphere is revealed to be inside the "C" of the UCI logo, now with "CINEMAS" in between two thin rectangles on it's top and bottom, with all the text being in silver with reflections going from right to left. A light blue ball also spins through the letters similar to the last logo, albeit with no ring. The ball whizzes for a bit until it starts to go a little off-track, spinning farther to the left. It then starts to get even more intense, going closer to the screen and twisting it's angle slightly. This gets more twisted in the next spin, which sees it disappear to the bottom-to-center-right of the screen until it pops up again the center-left, passing behind the UCI logo before going straight at the middle of the screen and crashing onto it, leaving a dark red explosion with lots of particles which fly then disappear. When they do, all that's left is a black background with "MORE OF AN EXPERIENCE" in silver letters shining the same way as the UCI logo. The text then fades out.

Variants:

FX/SFX: The ball spinning and going off-track the logo shining, the slogans appearing.
 * Later on in the mid 90s, UCI changed it's slogan to "THE GREAT ESCAPE", and the bumper was changed accordingly.
 * A shorter version exists which was seen at the end of adverts for UCI, which showed various aerial shots and POVs. The bumper was seen at the end, but the ball doesn't go nearly as off-track as in the normal bumper, only two spins then coming back to it's original place after leaving a trail and forming "MORE OF AN EXPERIENCE" at the bottom of the screen, then staying close to the UCI logo while spinning around it like it did at the start, and the DTS & Dolby Stereo Digital Spectral Recording logos can be seen on both of the bottom corners of the screen respectively.
 * A looped version of the logo exists at the end of one of UCI's foyer tapes, filling the rest of the space left in the tape before it ends. The logo loops back to the light flashing over and over in the loop.

Music/Sounds: We start off with a single synth note which then develops into a five-note theme. The ball whooshing can be heard throughout, and an explosion sound is heard when the ball crashes onto the screen.

Availability: Common at the time, but extinct today. It was seen on UCI's advert/trailer reels at the time of it's usage, but was replaced with the next logo in the beginning of the 2000s.

Editor's Note: This might unsettle younger viewers, especially in cinemas, but this is still a really good logo with a nice moody atmosphere.

3rd Logo (2000-2004)
Logo: TBA.

Variants: TBA.

FX/SFX: TBA.

Music/Sounds: TBA.

Availability: TBA.

4th Logo (2021-)
Nickname: "We Make Movies Better"

Logo: It is essentially the same as the 13th AMC Theatres logo, but it is shortened to 30 seconds, all instances of the AMC logo are replaced with UCI, there are subtitles for Nicole Kidman's dialog, and a clip from A Star Is Born that is not in the AMC version is shown. The final screen shows the UCI logo on a backdrop of blue lines, with the white text "WE MAKE MOVIES BETTER" below. The logo shines.

Variants: Some even shorter 15-second variants exist. Both the 30 second and 15 second variants can show different movie clips, TBA.

FX/SFX: Same as the 13th AMC Theatres logo.

Music/Sounds: Same as the 13th AMC Theatres logo.

Availability: Current.

Editor's Note: Same as the 13th AMC Theatres logo.

Extra Logos - Brazilian TV Spot Bumpers (2000s?)
Logo: TBA.

FX/SFX: TBA.

Music/Sounds: TBA.

Availability: Extinct, these logos were seen at the end of TV spots for upcoming movies which aired on Telecine during the early 2000s.