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[shino at panix.com (Rei Shinozuka)]

Douglas Barry wrote:
> My eldest aged 32 and my youngest aged 17 both saw the film separately 
> this week. Both declared it overlong and with a too simplistic 
> storyline. While they were glad to have seen it, both of them said 
> that they wouldn't bother looking at it again. That said it won't put 
> me off seeing it, but IMAX and me don't get on so it will be a normal 
> cinema screen.
storywise i think i'm sympathetic to the kids.  i liked aliens and 
abyss, but titanic and avatar less so. (i'm obviously in the minority on 
this planet). 

effects-wise, i think i'm sympathetic to you!  CGI by itself has the 
capacity to give me headaches and vertigo, combined with a very large 
screen and then eye strain from 3D... not good.
>
> I remember my first experience of IMAX and feeling nauseous during it. 
> It was over in Paris at the La Defense dome and I wasn't the better 
> for the experience for a while. Mind you it followed a couple of days 
> after I went on the Star Tours ride in EuroDisney. Don't know if any 
> of you have sampled that particular experience, but you get into a 
> "space shuttle" which is really a room that moves on hydraulic motion 
> supposedly in synch with a video in front of you to give the effect of 
> a space trip. Sadly there's a millisecond delay and that millisecond 
> is enough to make me very ill. I was in the horrors after that!
>
> Didn't effect my son or my wife, but, despite having enjoyed sailing, 
> motor & motorcycle racing, and mountain running - all of which hammer 
> the body - that millisecond of delay between eye reaction and actual 
> body reaction just makes me ill. Cannot hack it, but real 
> rollercoasters don't bother me.

I took Computer Vision in grad school (this was around the time that 
Lucasfilm/PIXAR's 60-second Genesis planet in Star Trek II The Wrath of 
Khan was wowing everyone).  Our professor liked to talk about nausea and 
how the eyes could exacerbate feelings of nausea.  he theorized when 
your eyes were communicating one thing to your brain and the rest of 
your body (such as inner ear balance) a different set of messages, it 
might be a sign that you had eaten bad food or funny mushrooms, and 
nausea the most appropriate means to rid yourself of what ailed you.   
when reading on a moving bus or train, your eyes see letters and 
pictures that are relatively still, while your body perceives large 
variations in motion, acceleration, and rotation.  and the opposite 
case, when viewing motion pictures of  flying or driving, you see 
apparent motion but  your body receives none of the accompanying cues.   
i definitely suffer from both problems.  so i don't take much public 
transportation, and i generally have a hard time watching "epic" cgi films.

-rei


>
> Douglas
> _________
> Douglas Barry
> Bray, Co. Wicklow
> Republic of Ireland
>