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Comment by tux1968 | Hacker News Reader

tux1968

I'm guessing we'll return to the continuously showing movie. Well, more like the starting-any-time-you-want movie. As individual VR headsets are available in every seat, you could start the movie synchronized with just the people in your own party. Of course, there will have to be technological and/or social advantages over doing the same thing in your own home.

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I very much doubt that will happen.

Mostly, because if you want that experience, you can already have it in the comfort of your own home. Why go to a cinema for that?

As is the case today, movies can be released in stages, where early access is provided to businesses like these. Also, there may be technological innovations in AR/VR that don't make sense for every home owner to buy. And the cherry on top is the social occasion that can be cultivated, where everyone meets out of the home, for a shared event.

> where everyone meets out of the home, for a shared event

Yet almost all of the shared experience is removed. Some of the most interesting experiences I had in a movie were when the entire audience reacts to something happening on screen. Can't have that if each group is desynced inside their metaphorical fishbowls.

> the entire audience reacts to something happening on screen

I've always been surprised by this sort of anecdote. Is it a thing that happens a lot in america maybe? Here living across a few places in northern europe, people are just deathly quiet in the cinema. I think its seen as nobody wants to be inconsiderate to one another

In the UK, most serious films would have the audience quiet, but that's relaxed for comedies and horrors where the audience is expected to laugh at the funny bits and maybe gasp at the jump scares.

Context plays a part. When I go to a “regular” movie theatre, people are quiet. But they react a lot, laughing, cheering, and clapping, when I go to a theatre which is many decades old to watch a film as part of a festival.

Yes, apparently in some places in America (I'm told not everywhere) it's acceptable to cheer or even clap during movies. In the places I know in Europe, this is seen as very rude and you're supposed to be fully quiet, or maybe whisper to your neighbor at most.

It's also similar in public transportation. American tourists are often quite loud while locals speak more quietly in buses, trams etc.

Depends where in Europe. People do laugh in cinemas and sometimes clap in the UK or Germany, for example (less than let's say in California, though).

I have been living in Germany for over 20 years now, and never once have I seen somebody clap at a movie. I mean, it makes more sense to clap after your airplane lands, at least that will make the pilots and flight attendants feel good, but who are you clapping for in a cinema? The projectionist (who's probably not even there anymore?).

Having said that, there is a kind of "continuously showing movie" in Germany where the audience is very much encouraged to react during the film: there is a cinema in Munich that has been showing The Rocky Horror Picture Show continuously for over 40 years (not non-stop though), where people sing along, throw rice, dance etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_Lichtspiele https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/museum-lichtspiele-wie-...

Maybe it is the type of movie or whether it was a dubbed or orginal version of the movie (changes audience mix)? Definitely been in cinemas in Germany with clapping.

Germans also clap when their plane lands in Mallorca.

Is that still a thing? I remember this was a thing when I was a kid in the 90ies, but I haven't experienced this in a long time.

I'm an American, and have never understood why others cheer or clap in movies. There are neighborhoods where loud comments on the movie in progress are not unexpected for discouraged. On the other hand, it was in an upscale movie where the guy behind me wanted to narrate Ed Harris's Jackson Pollock movie--sotto voce, but far from inaudibly.

It's mostly quiet, but you'll definitely hear gasps at a jump scare, chortles as jokes, etc. Muffled, automatic responses.

Audience reaction to an Indian movie called RRR:

https://youtu.be/ExxZBNp6jy4

This is at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in LA :) so as American as it gets

I'm from Germany.

Also, note my wording. I was not saying "this happens all the time", but "those were some of the most memorable moments".

> Can't have that if each group is desynced inside their metaphorical fishbowls.

That's only a limitation of the technology as it exists today. It will be much more immersive in the future, and with AR, you can maintain contact with your party, as well as with whatever experience you're sharing.

Hell, it might even be much greater interactivity than today. Say a dinner-theater like murder mystery, with a dead body lying in the corner virtually, and a common goal of finding the culprit.

Yes, that's possible. Though in that case I expect people to use them together in relatively small rooms and all starting at the same time, instead of big movie theatres.

Why would early access of films go to physical location businesses and not digital businesses?

For the same reason most movies are first released in theaters today. Another revenue stream for the studios.

By the way, at least in America, most movies are digital businesses today. Movie theaters don't receive rolls of movie film that they load into projectors. They receive digital files, that are played on the big screen.

The reason for that is regulation and contracts.

What regulations? And what contracts?

And even if there are contracts, why were they signed in the first place? Presumably because they were in the best interests of both parties. And, why do you think the contracts would change, due to the media becoming digital?

On top of which, you seemed to totally ignore the point I made, that movies are already digital. And yet, they are released to movie theaters first.

I think you don't fully appreciate the situation as it exists today. Nor have you given any reason why you think it would change in the future.

I think you’re being kind of dim if you think that the digital nature of film has any relevance to physical distribution vs. digital streaming distribution tbh.

There is an obvious reason why studios have a vested interest in releasing directly to consumers and that is to cut out the theaters as a middleman.

Which is the entire reason we have the Paramount decrees to stop vertical integration of film studios and film distributors. Which is now being evaded by streaming services.

The contract I have in mind is Scarlett johansenn suing Disney for releasing Black Widow to streaming when her contract stated that would not happen.

I don’t think you fully appreciate the context as you haven’t seemed to acknowledged some basic big moving pieces like Netflix doing films that have substantially smaller theater presences and much higher direct to streaming outcomes. Not to mention the trajectory of film from movies to long form streaming television.

> I think you’re being kind of dim if you think that the digital nature of film has any relevance to physical distribution vs. digital streaming distribution tbh.

Now you're just being an asshole. You were the one that started this conversation by positing that the digital nature of the media meant that physical locations were irrelevant. I was simply pointing out that the current reality already proves you wrong.

And since you didn't see fit to answer my question about what contracts and "regulation" compel studios to release today's movies to theaters first -- and yet they continue to do so -- means this conversation isn't likely going to get any more productive than it already has.

Let's agree to disagree. The future will unfold for us both to witness.

I am being an asshole, yes. You seemed pointlessly aggressive.

I cited both the judicial ruling, the Paramount decrees, and the lawsuit from Scarlett johansenns contract, and the easily observed trends of how things are changing.

> As individual VR headsets are available in every seat, you could start the movie synchronized with just the people in your own party.

I’m very put off by the idea of feeling the moisture of the previous user’s sweaty brow or having residual eye crusts flake into mine (think pinkeye).

> I’m very put off by the idea of feeling the moisture of the previous user’s sweaty brow

Already today, each movie goer gets their own pair of complimentary 3d glasses for movies that need it. They ask you to kindly return them, so they can be recycled. It wont likely be much more of a problem to have a per-viewer covering fitted over the AR glasses and earbuds.

At the very least, they put those 3D glasses through a dishwasher. That’s not possible with a VR set, and the turnaround to replace one-time liners on 100 sets would be unfeasible in an in-out setting of a movie theatre.

Idk man. On one hand it seems like a neat idea. On another hand, it’d be kind of jarring to have one group of people laughing because they are at a fun scene in the movie while me and my friends are in a suspenseful part of the movie.

Or worse yet, me and my friends are watching a scary horror movie, but another group of people are watching a comedy and they are constantly laughing.

Lol, indeed. But I doubt the same form factor of a common theatre hall, would endure. More likely there'd be individual showing rooms, with concession items delivered to the seat after order, etc.

This could work if you base the format on something other than theaters: make it an experience similar to a karaoke room, escape room, or even Top Golf.

You'd have a private or semi-private space to share with a group of friends, get food and beverage service, and view/participate in the VR experience simultaneously as a group.

The price point would be higher than a typical movie, but would support the greater hardware, facility, and service costs.

The continuously showing movie was a vestige of early 20th century nickelodeons where you might see a some newsreel and then a series of relatively short movies. It was effectively a constraint imposed by the format rather than an aesthetic choice.

I think live virtual worlds, mmrpgs, etc are the closest analogue we have now to drop-in-anytime communal entertainment

Yeah, that's all I was saying, really. And that I can see community centers for such events being the movie theaters of tomorrow.

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