> we still feel that color is hard on the eyes for so long a picture
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9807E2DA153EE432A257...
I love THX theater sound. SDDS. All of them. However, those tools can be very much abused by certain practitioners, and that's not the tech's fault. Basically I think that improvements are welcomed but gimmicks never last. Is VR a new gimmick in the grand context of entertainment? We're about to find out it seems.
It's both – if the film had been in black and white, the comment would not have been made, nor if the Technicolor portion of the film were shorter (e.g. in The Wizard of Oz, which the reviewer had seen some months prior).
One thing this discussion does bring up though is that if VR can only be worn comfortably for 20-40 minutes, will it have a viable mainstream future?
I'm not saying it's a great correlation, but some of the excitement regarding VR reminds me of other fancy, tech-oriented entertainment innovations that sounded interesting, but didn't quite pan out. Specifically the one where the movie audience was supposed to be able to have an effect on the story[1].
>"In another year, you'll see the pistol grip plus a seat with gyroscope motion control," Mr. Bejan said. "Two years after that, it will be virtual reality, with the goggles and gloves." (1993)
The purpose of mentioning such a whiff is as a reference point for my personal belief that people tend to like their entertainment simple and relatively easy to access. Great advancements in tech and media - successful ones/profitable/etc - seem to have been more about delivering traditional content in an 'easier' method of convenience. Netflix didn't revolutionize the business of making films, but rather the distribution. People are funny when it comes to art, no doubt.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/13/movies/when-the-film-audie...