Wellington Journal

Monsters vs. Aliens

Megan & I went to see Monsters vs. Aliens in 3-D last night and it was great fun.  Not exactly Pixar-classic, but certainly better than most of the tween-aimed drek available at your local cineplex these days.  And the 3-D technology was pretty impressive; if you’re going to spend the money to see it in the theater, I’d recommend seeing it in 3-D.  That’s not something you’re going to be able to watch at home.

Which brings me to the point of this post: How is that going to work at home?  The theater we went to (the only one in Wellington, I believe, showing the movie in 3-D) did not charge for the special 3-D glasses, but they did make a point of letting us know that if we didn’t return the glasses, or if we broke them, we’d be charged NZD $75.  That’s probably just an annoyance charge, and not the retail price of the glasses, but let’s say USD $40 just for sake of argument.  That would mean that if I wanted pairs for my whole family to watch at home in 3-D using – I suppose – our special Blu-Ray 3-D disc, we’d need to pony up a couple hundred bucks.  And if we needed some extras for a sleepover?

Normally I’d just assume this is an in-theater gimmick, and that the average home viewer would simply watch it in 2-D, but there seems to be a trend developing: the next big Pixar film, Up, is also going to be in the Disney Digital 3-D format.  And Disney, you can be sure, is all about selling the DVDs.  Eventually, people are going to insist that the movie they’ve bought for their home is as good as the one that they saw in the theater.  And if MvA is any example, that means 3-D.

ps Completely apart from the 3-D question, I have to throw in a little NZ trivia: around here, they assign you seats at the movie theater.  The first theater we went to, the Empire in Island Bay, is a quaint little theater/cafe with wine, beer & comfy two-person seating, so I had assumed that the seat assignments were part of the quaintness.  Not so!  Last night we went to downtown Wellington’s biggest multiplex, and the same was true there.  Frankly, this is so much better than the first-come-first-served way we handle movie seating in the states, that I can’t imagine going back.  Give the kiwis a point on the NZ vs. US score track for this one.

pps Katie’s friend, a Kiwi but also long-time Indonesia resident, tells us that assigned movie seats are the norm over most of Oceania.  So maybe it’s not just New Zealand per se.  But we’ll give them the points if only because the US way of doing things is so inordinately stupid.

Labels: US vs NZ

posted by Dug @ 11:12 AM