As this week comes to a close, it is time to reflect on our recent field trip in eComm to the MX4D theatre at B&B Theaters in Shawnee, Kansas. Overall, I honestly hated it. I felt like the 4D was too tacky, it took away from the actual movie and it left me with an overall bad movie experience. It took the one thing that movies should always be, comfortable, and threw it out in the dumpster.
MX4D itself is a different kind of movie theatre. It is a theatre with essentially airplane seats, with a small footrest and features inside the seat that made the movie interactive. It also has jets on the armrest that can emit things like mists of water, air, and even smells of different things. It is a very good idea, but nit executed well. The imbalance and awkwardness of everything inside the seat made for an overall bad experience.
Before I went and saw this I had seen a 4D showing of some Shrek thing at Disneyland a while ago, and that was the only real interaction I've had in the past with this kind of technology. But no, I would say that it definitely did not live up to my expectations, and the Shrek presentation was so much better. But I definitely feel that with constant improvements, in 5 years this will be so much better.
My favorite part though, if I had to pick one, would be the theatre effects like strobe lights and snow, and also fog. The strobe lights were probably the best executed part about the entire thing. They were always in sync and added a good 4th dimensional feel whenever they were activated. The snow and fog effects were also very cool, but very limited. The fog didn't reach past the first row and the snow was only in the middle, so the people in the front and also the back didn't feel any of it.
As far as my opinion for the whole movie, I'd say if MX4D did anything for my movie experience, it made the movie worse. The distracting features and effects took away from the movie and didn't let you fully focus on the movie. And a movie in a theatre should be a comfortable getaway to go see a movie, but this was not that. I wasn't comfortable once the entire time. It felt like I was on a plane with severe turbulence for an hour and a half.
If I get the choice next time between 4D and a regular 2D movie, I'm definitely choosing the 2D theatre because of the comfort factor and also no distractions caused by the actual theatre.
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