While the theatrical movie experience is still something that a lot of people love, the fact is that today, there are a lot of different choices for movie watching, and many of them don't require leaving the couch. Today's home audio video systems and massive televisions can create an experience a lot like what you get in the theater, so why leave home?
The solution, according to some, is new technology. While there's a lot that your home movie watching experience can recreate from the theatrical experience, there are still limits. Directors like Gemini Man's Ang Lee is one of those that is trying to push past the limits of what even the theatrical experience currently is, and Will Smith, who stars in Lee's newest film, thinks that's exactly what is needed to get people to go to the movies. As Smith tells Yahoo...
What is great about what Ang is trying to do with this film is give people a reason to go to the movie theater for an experience that your big screen television at home can’t give you. Over the last few years...home systems have been getting so good and television is so good that there’s a certain level of experience you can get in your house. [‘Gemini Man’] is a little bit more immersive of an experience. You’re experiencing it a lot more how your eye experiences the world.
When Gemini Man hits theaters next week, there will be a multitude of ways to experience it, but if you want the "true" experience according to Ang Lee, that will mean seeing the film in 3D, with a 4K resolution and a frame rate of 120 frames-per-second.
Add all of that to the standard massive movie screen, something that few people can recreate at home, though certainly it can be done, and you have a recipe for a movie that is unlike anything else you can find in theaters or on television these days.
Of course, many of these technologies, 4K resolution and high frame rates, are actually more common on televisions that in the theater, but then, that's sort of the point. Movies have always been 24 frames-per-second, except for those few which, like Gemini Man have opted for a higher rate. This makes a 120 frames-per-second movie in a theater a unique thing, and if you want to experience what that is like, you need to go to the theater. When you go home and watch the Blu-ray on your 120 frames-per-second television, it's going to look like everything else.
Of course, the one problem with pushing the limits of technology is that sometimes technology isn't ready. In order to see Gemini Man at "max specs" you have to have a theater at hand capable of showing it in that way. Certainly not every moviegoer will have that option at hand, and do for them Gemini Man might be enough to pull them off the couch. We'll find out when it hits theaters next week.
