Thursday, December 17, 2009

How theatres are organic and AVATAR sucked almost...

I went to watch AVATAR premier show, bought tickets so enthusiastically, landed in the line seated in theatre, newly upgraded to 3d. The show starts and with or without the spectacles, the screen is blurry and split. The show goes on for almost ten minutes. Gradually, slowly people realize that something's wrong and its actually not 3d! Lol, low grunting ensues from different corners and then finally, the courageous 'somus' (the most popular name shouted around) got up from their seats to 'ghero' the projection room. We watched in mixed anticipation, thrill and a little panic, wondering what would happen next. The screening stops and then a trial of reprojection starts. Sometimes the sound went off, the other times the screen showed three different colored images etc. Lots of people start shouting 'cheating' and people around me vacate to eat some popcorn and get drinks. Suddenly, the film starts again, this time working well. All start shouting, 'rewind kar, rewind!' All don their glasses again, whistles and hooting. Funny how faces would change to mass childish euphoria at some 3d effect. The film sucked. I went expecting some super realism through three dimensions and amazing music and a relatively simple story newly told. But, as the mediocre simplistic colonial story unfolded I felt my enthusiasm and joy recede by every minute. All of us staring blankly at the screen and chorus 'ooh's' and 'aah's'. What amazed me was that when the 3d wasn't working, the way we as a crowd were reacting was something like you see in films. Hooting, clapping, protests, interacting with this new setup where they've come to experience something that they aren't yet aware of yet know roughly what to expect. Also, subjectivity of visual experiences and how it takes us sometime to realize and shout out that "it's not only me who can't see this 3d! The 3d is actually not working!" Lol. Very Magritte like, do you see the picture that I see?
Ps. Do not watch Avatar in any other theatre but IMAX. Trust me, I feel I missed out something, it can't be that bad.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOL, seems like your theatrical experience sucked so much, you forgot to write how you liked the movie.

Lily said...

@Zeba I usually try to avoid pure movie reviews because I am sure there are people who dedicate their entire blogs to those. :P Check Shivam Sharma's mytakeonflicks.blogspot for that. Btw,Welcome to my weblog! thanks for the following!

Ameya said...

Good writeup! Btw, can we know where this was?!

Prateek Khare said...

Just dropped by - random.

Glad you didn't like the 'experience' , scientifically, the introduction of z-axis makes x and y blurry !

dot dot dot...intriguing for sure !!

Lily said...

@Ameya this was in Shankarnag, Lido fame theatre, Bangalore.

Unknown said...

Thanks for recommending my blog :)