By I write freelance for this fine website, so it’s no surprise that I am fabulously, extravagantly wealthy. So wealthy, in fact, that I can commit to such extravagances as golden flakes in my cinnamon schnapps and motion-enabled seats in my movie theaters. Your peasant silliness amuses me to no end. At any rate, I spent my Sunday in a D-Box enabled movie theater with the film Tron: Legacy playing before my platinum-spectacled eyes.
You can get a good description of the D-Box effect courtesy of Xander, who reported on the newest thing just weeks ago. At its core, it’s like the Disneyland ride Star Tours, but stretched over two hours with the occasional pause for Jeff Bridges to say something with a vague zen twang. The seats have several settings, ranging from full power to off. My wife, viewing the film with me, was forced to reduce the intensity of her experience thanks to an upset stomach. I, being a hard-edged block of stone and testosterone, had that thing up to full blast for the film’s entire two hour and seven minute runtime. The very experience turned what would normally be a drab, merely okay film into the stuff of gods. Read below the cut to see just how deeply my life has changed as a result of this technology.
Tron: Legacy: The D-Box 3D Experience is easily the most experimental mainstream film in history. The D-Box experience promises to insert the viewer into the film like never before- just like the premise of Tron itself! The divine motion of the seats influences the various perspective changes implicit in the film’s layered structure. The film begins as we inhabit the body of the Invisible Cameraman, swooping with him through the Grid and through the streets of Los Angeles, confirming for us that the film will have a decidedly magical realist streak a la Wings of Desire. Throughout the film we return to his perspective at times, reminding us that the forces of our own machinations are ultimately at risk to that old liar known as sheer happenstance.
It is here that the film has its first perception shift, as we suddenly begin to follow the life of on Sam Flynn, a man on a motorcycle that likes to jump of buildings and show nice men a video of his dog. I’ll be honest, the details weren’t exactly apparent to me. I was too deep in the throes of an orgasmic delight I’d previously though impossible. The action slows, but the occasional jerk and shake from Sam/my movement was a beacon of light and love piercing the dark and reaffirming my faith.
Eventually, we find ourselves within the world of the Grid. The film briefly changes perspective again to that of Recognizer, a mere cog in the machine created by Clu. As the recognizer, we swoop aimlessly through the sky, hesitant to press onward into the terrible and wonderful world around us. Following this brief glimpse into the helpless thoughts of an automaton, the perspective shifts several times more, even entering the world of Clu’s fearless right-hand man Rinzler. His topsy-turvey world is echoed as he moves from place to place, gravity shifting uncontrollably. I would have stood, weeping, and cheered for his triumph over the adversities of gravity, but I feared that if I were to leave the confines of my D-Box chair, something would irreversibly change in my perception of the film, which had again and again proven itself one of the greatest of all time.
The rest of the film I experienced in what I can only describe as an existential blur. Constantly shifting perspective and focus, I was forced to question my very own perception of reality, accepting the fact that my very life is all but lines on the page of some Divine Writer, and all that is possible was to hang on, lest I find myself flung from the page. All living possibility seemed before me. As Sam finally reached his goal, I could feel a connection with the infinite that made me realize I am as the stuff of Gods, not the crude flesh we are taught life is composed, and our true nature can only be revealed through the lifting of the eternal veil of consciousness.
As I waited in the lobby, I locked eyes with another man. I could see he was openly weeping, and I only noticed then that the tears were streaming down my face equally. We strode towards each other and embraced- not as men, but as brothers. As family. I whispered into his ear, “It’s okay. We understand now.”
We understand now.
Overall Score: 10,000: Perfect (This experience literally changed my life forever.)