William Castle was a gimmick prophet. D-Box movie theater seats (aka Percepto Vista) have debuted in the UK. If you’re not familiar with D-Box, it’s essentially theater seats that sync to the movements on screen. Think Star Tours at Disneyland or, for people who grew up in the Bay Area, Days of Thunder: The Ride at Great America. (Soon we may get Days of Thunder: The Ride at Great America – The Movie.) Our own Alex Katz did a write-up about Tron: Legacy in D-Box-o-rama way back you were just a twinkle in your parents’s eyes (December 2010).
The question is this: would you pay an extra £5.50 for a vibrating, shifting seat at a movie?
For me, the answer is no. That’s the equivalent of $8.60, four bags of day-old bagels (roughly eight bagels per bag), three falafels at Mamoun’s, or 45,275 Zambian kwachas. Perhaps I’m just jaded (and poor) and dismissive of the bells and whistles at movie theaters, especially when they come at such a high price and tickets are expensive enough already. Perhaps I’m also just hungry for bagels and falafel.
There’s something else this all reminds me of, at least a little. After the cut, the “See You Next Wednesday” scene from Kentucky Fried Movie.
[Via The Guardian]
