The Cinema experience

The geek in me really wants to go see the upcoming film Tron: Legacy. I never saw the original Tron beyond a few minutes here and there however the footprint it has left on modern cinema is kinda gigantic when you consider it was the first film to utilise CGI. Obviously a film was going to incorporate it eventually, however Tron didn't just add in CGI, it was fundamentally CGI.

The hype with behind Tron: Legacy, isn't what you truly expect film hype to be. Our TV screens aren't saturated with trailers and London buses aren't all plastered with Tron panels (although that would be kind of cool). Instead the hype is more like the world's worst kept secret, it's gigantic, you know it's there and those who are into the sub-culture of films and digital culture will tell you it's quite possibly one of the biggest releases if not the biggest this winter. However ask someone who isn't quite tech savvy or up to date with the latest cinema listings and they'd give it a fair nod and then tell you that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1 would be the largest and they're probably right.

It's remarkable how selective the advertising campaign is for Tron but I love it that way, appeal to those who'll enjoy it thoroughly and give them the feeling of greater reward for it.

Now this viral marketing has worked on very well on me and makes the geek in me want to fight the nerd in me. The nerd in me will want to crunch the numbers of going to the cinema and attempt to validate it. Afterall I'm sure whatever feature I'm going to view will be available on DVD or Blu-Ray for a lesser price and I'll also have the ability to re-watch it countless times over along with the special features. The geek in me however throws all this overrated logic and wants to just get my fix of sci-fi chic and get lost with some escapism for a few hours. So how is it that for some reason, going to the cinema is validated despite it making a meagre amount of sense to?

As a kid going to the cinema as I recall use to be this fantastic adventure, an entire evening that surrounded this one event. I would rock up to the cinema, spend a good 15 minutes gawking at the array of TV screens all showing the same trailer and then purchase my tickets and refreshments before killing time on an arcade machine nearby with some friends till the screen became available and the attendants let people in. I'd then go in, for 15 more minutes to half an hour of commercials and trailers and then the feature film would play. At the end of it I'd be in a daze because my mind was swallowed up whole by the film, all that would be left of me would be this zombie of a being wandering around with my friends till my mind decided to check back in.

That's gone now. I don't know what happened but the cinema has now become this kind of disgusting place where people are shuffled in and out like cows while we're milked for money. I'll rock up to a cinema, go in and perhaps don some 3D glasses that make me look like I belong in front of an 1980's computer. After that I'm immediately out, a slight daze but mostly just disappointed that my £10-15 of cash was just burnt in the space of two hours. What happened to cinema!?

The film studios must be realising they're losing a grasp on digital entertainment. Afterall Avatar, the most successful film tallied up $27m day-one at the global box office however Halo: Reach, a marquee console title managed $200m on it's day-one sales. I suppose the fading allure of the cinema itself is why advertising campaigns for specific films have gone off in a whole new way with our daily lives being bombarded with trailers and billboards. It must also be why they're so persistent with making 3D cinema become a pervasive part of our cinema going experience. They want to offer something no one else can.

Now I don't want to knock 3D cinema too much, I believe it has it's place but a lot of films seem to add very little to justify the mark up in price. The best two films I've seen with 3D are Avatar and Jackass 3D. The former because it was integral to the "experience" which it actually was, everything seemed vibrant and I was sucked in while my zombified self went on to infect others by word of mouth how brilliant the film was.

For Jackass, it wasn't a gimmick. It just enhanced what we loved. A lot of films have a storyline and lore you want to get lost in, 3D just distracts away from that when all you get is a flying rock going towards you, one second your in the world then you get shocked with "Oh hey look a rock!" and then your left scrambling for a second to get back into the plot. With Jackass it was more like "Oh man he's about to get hit in the nuts" and then it's "Oh hey look a rock!" followed swiftly on by "Oh man! Did you see that rock hit his nuts!?" It was just a part of what the film was about, not a gimmick thrown in.

So 3D can work, but more times than not I've found it disappointing. So what else could justify the extortionate cost of going? The refreshments? They're almost worse than the film itself. I experienced a world changing revelation in my first year of university, freshly inserted into central London. I walked through Leicester square on the way to university to see a pallete stacked with foam peanuts contained within cellophane. I thought, wow...someone's office cubicle is going to get owned.



This is not what happened. Instead upon further inspection, the foam peanuts turned out to be pre-popped popcorn. There it was just sitting there in all it's un-fresh stale glory. Now, I know I shouldn't be too freaked out by it all and that you can do whatever you want with food so long as all the numbers add up well, stuff like carbs/calories/fat/protein/vitamins/carcinogens etc etc. Should all the numbers add up to make something edible and not detrimental to my health in a catastrophic way, I'll be cool with it. But there was something nefariously wrong about having pre-popped popcorn as opposed to popcorn popped on-site. Maybe that's just a personal gripe, but in any case I highly distrust cinema refreshments now. I really don't want to know the journey the cinema hot dog takes...

So what is it? Why do I still want to see Tron in the cinema? The seats are comfy that's fine but I'd never pay to sit in a seat for just 2 hours no matter how comfortable it is...Maybe if it was super special comfortable and super "satisfying"? Moving on, the last true ace up the sleeve which cinemas have over home viewing. The screen.

This is what it's all about really, a titanic screen that you could even view the Titanic in! I never figured it to be a big deal but the big revelation came to me in the second year. I was invited around to a friends to watch Iron Man featuring Robert Downey Jr. Directed by Jon Favreau. I knew this household had an adequate TV, it was a 28" CRT if I recall. Ok so it wasn't quite like my 32" flatscreen LCD HDTV...But I was willing to put aside my pride for the social aspect of the viewing (back to this in a bit).

When I realised that we were going to watch Iron Man instead on a 17" Laptop screen, a bit of me died that evening. Really? We're going to put it on the coffee table and cram around the couch? This is not the way films are meant to be watched! I got physically angry, all my muscles tensed and my blood pressure was strong enough to crush submarines. This is what cinemas have over every other form of viewing, a collosal screen. I still to this day don't know what it is about having Chris Pontius' wang all in my face in all it's 5 metre majesticness but the experience was just better by having it on a big screen.

Does my head really value all the tiny bits of detail? I suppose so, that way I don't get irritated by missing the little things.

Hollywood, here's a tip to help out your cinemas. Make them bigger, louder, longer. I want to truly get my money's worth. 3D only if you can really make it integral to the experience, so incorporate it from the screenplay to the editing. I'd like to have a 120 arc curved screen at something like 40m tall and 90m wide. That's right. I want to leave the cinema partially deaf with a sun tan and a dose of radiation that gives me a healthy green glow in the night. The size of the screen is what draws us in, play at that!

Recently in the United States, Dallas Texas a new stadium opened and in it? A 1080p 60yd long HDTV

I want 4, one for each wall of my new "brain-melter" room

The only other aspect that endears me to the cinema going experience is definitely the social aspect. This is something else curious. I loathe people who talk to me during films. But I still want someone there. Is that childish? Yes but so is asking rhetorical questions. At the end of the film though, that nod on to each other that you had a good time does add some value to the cinema experience.

For a few hours going to the cinema is a fantastic time to create a shared experience, it's fantastic for friends and dates alike. I haven't met anyone who really hates going to the cinema although I know they exist as I've heard people on the podcast gripe about it. But I think it's more of a dislike of strangers in cinemas. Which I feel is in an immature way somehow validated. When you need to cross someone to get to your seat you do think, "Damnit...why are you such an obstacle, why are you here? My life would truly be better had you not existed." Whereas if someone crosses you it's more "Damnit...why are you such an obstruction, why are you here? My life would truly be better had you not existed."

Rude strangers aside, the cinema really is a reliable outing option if costly. At the end of the day, for me I still love going to the cinema, I love trying to grasp on to that childhood experience of having an adventure, making an entire evening of going to the cinema and coming out amazed and caught up in the tale I had just been told. For several hours my phone's off, no one can reach me on Skype/Facebook/email and any work that I had is going to have to take a time out while I let it all run away from me. I'm disconnected from everything that tires me and I celebrate a well told tale with friends. That's the cinema experience.

LINK DUMP:
Tron Legacy
60yd long HDTV
The inconvenient truth about cinema popcorn