3D cinema is dead but VR isn’t the saviour
I went to see Star Wars The Last Jedi at a 2D IMAX last week. I did my homework and this was the best format for the movie. A small amount of the movie was filmed with IMAX cameras but none of it in 3D. The digitally-faked 3D version messes up color balance, clarity and brightness. Sure enough, it was a visually rich experience and a lot of fun.
Filming in IMAX or 3D is expensive and the only movie released in 2017 that fully used these technologies was Transformers The Last Knight. This was shot 98% in IMAX and 3D. Plenty of other movies used the post production garbage 3D method to squeeze higher ticket prices out of audiences. With audiences still falling and Hollywood increasingly dependent on a narrow range of blockbuster genres to stay afloat, what will save our cinemas? Certainly not VR. Here’s why.
IMAX has been trying to figure this challenge out for some time. They have placed some bets on VR and installed a groovy new set of IMAX VR kiosks at the entrance to the theatre where I saw the Last Jedi. Curious, I paid $10 to try a Star Wars Droid Repair Shop experience. I stood in a room about 10' by 10' and got harnessed up. The VR Goggles had a pretty good resolution and I didn’t get any motion sickness — unusually for me. A cable from my headset to the ceiling restricted my movement but the room was small anyhow. so, fullmarks for the technology, VR now just about does what it is supposed to do back in the 1990s.
The problem was the experience. Once I had finished admiring the 3D realism there wasn’t anything left to enjoy. It felt like a 1 minute demo stretched out to 10 minutes. Just like every VR experience I’ve had to date. When 3D cinema was used in the 1950s it was fun having spears thrown at the audience to give them a shock. Today’s 3D cinema hasn’t come up with anything better, it just switched the spear for a spaceship, a flying superhero, or a dam bursting, etc. VR is in danger of being stuck like 3D as a one-trick pony. In the case of VR, it only offers a “wow I’m in a realistic computer space” feeling. To be successful, VR needs great stories with plot, characters, theme.. in fact, Aristotle’s 7 golden rules of storytelling from 2,300 years ago are just as valid in VR as they are in Cinema, theatre, musicals or any kind of performance.
Just like 3D cinema, VR could be great if it told great stories. The technology itself doesn’t make VR great. The problem we have is that great storytelling in VR may be impossible. Movie directors using 3D have enough trouble getting an audience to focus on the important bits onscreen when there are so many distractions. Stories began as the spoken word around a campfire, with a charismatic storyteller holding everybody’s attention. VR is kind of the opposite: who will listen to the storyteller when a herd of bison comes charging through the campsite, the heavens open up with lightning, and a nearby tribe launches an attack using.. spears?
