House Willis

A New Level of Immersion

Toni and I were able to get out by ourselves and have a date night last night. Our neighbor, Carole, agreed to come over after we put Porter and Fallon down to bed and watch them while we went out to see a movie.

We had been trying to see Avatar in 3D for the past couple weeks. Our attempt last weekend was unsuccessful after we discovered that the theater we had chosen here in Issaquah wasn't showing it in 3D. We were both really disappointed, but, since we had already bought our tickets, we decided to see another movie: The Book of Eli (which turned out to be a fairly good movie: great, really dramatic fight scenes and an interesting premise).

Last night we were deteremined to see Avatar in 3D. We drove to Bellevue in order to see the 9:00pm showing at Lincoln Square. Needless to say, we were both more than a little irate when, as we entered the packed underground parking garage, Toni noticed a sign stating that Avatar was sold out. We couldn't believe it. After all, the movie has already been showing for the last month or so.

We decided to try our luck and hope that the 10:45pm showing wasn't sold out. After parking way down on the fifth level of the garage, we made our way back up to the surface and through a series of escalators to the theatre on the third floor. There were no lines so we simply walked up to the ticket agent and asked whether the 10:45 showing was still open. He responded that all four of the IMAX showings were already sold out, but that the regular Real 3D showing was still open. This was fine, since I had no desire to see the movie on an IMAX screen.

We bought our tickets and breathed a sigh of relief, happy that we would finally get to experience what everyone else was talking about.

We passed the next hour and half nearby at The Cheesecake Factory, where I watched Toni eat most of an incredibly huge slice of cheese cake and drink and giganitc cup of coffee. I was still full from dinner at home so I had only a mediocre non-alcoholic brew.

We got back to the theatre at about 10:00 and a line was already forming for the movie, inside the theatre. After about 20 minutes they let us in and situated ourselves in a nice spot in the middle of the theatre.

Toni got a big laugh at how nerdy I looked with the black-framed 3D glasses. She especially liked it when I then began shaving off a rough edge on the injection-molded frame where it was to rest on the bridge of my nose, using my house key.

The movie finally started and we were, after a small build-up, almost immediately immersed in the astoundingly beautiful and very real-looking world of the Na'vi. Much of the scenery seemed indistinguishable from reality; and the 3D effect added immensely to the experience.

It was definitely an "experience"! Though we both thought that the Na'vi culture's over-done similarity to stereo-typical African tribablism severly reduced the story's "immersivity", the realness and beauty of the scenery and action easily overcame any story short-comings.

I think that both of us felt that the movie was somewhat of a historical event that was sure to change the movie industry for all future pictures, as the bar had clearly been risen to a whole new level. In addition, I can imagine that the experience we had might have been similar to what audiences felt when they watched the first "moving pictures". It really was amazing.

I wonder if also, similar to how we can't imagine how rudimentary the first movies must have been, our kids (and possibly even Toni and I) will look back forty years from now and remember how amazed we were by this rudimentary 3D movie experience.

This morning we went to Seattle to have Dim Sum with a friend of ours from Tampa, Lori Martini, that was visiting for a wedding. Fallon ate tons of noodles, while Porter gobbled down tons of little pieces of barbecued pork. We had a really good time visiting with Lori and the newly weds joined us too.

Of course, Avatar came up as a subject and we all talked about how incredible it was. She mentioned recent news reports on what's being called Avatar Blues. Apparently, some folks find coming back to reality disappointing after "living" in the virtual world of Pandora for a few hours. I can only imagine how this type of effect might be magnified as newer technologies and production techniques continue to raise the bar over the next decade. Again, this ought to be pretty amusing to recall ten or twenty years from now.

It was nice to get out with Toni and have a date. Getting back at 2a.m. in the morning did take it's toll on us today, but it was well worth sharing the experience.