'Avatar: The Way of Water' Is the First Film I'd Want to Watch in a VR Headset - CNET

There was a moment, sometime successful the archetypal hr of watching James Cameron's newest film, Avatar: The Way of Water, that I turned my caput to the side. I don't cognize what I was doing. I deliberation I was trying to look astir the country I was in, a cavern the Na'vi were hiding in. I thought I'd spot the different details. I was successful a movie theater, of course. A towering IMAX surface successful beforehand of me, 3D glasses on. This has ne'er happened to maine before.

I conjecture determination are those stories of aboriginal film, radical who'd shriek astatine the oncoming train, reasoning it was real. I deliberation I recovered myself, successful moments of Way of Water, losing myself successful its reality. My caput began to pat into 3D experiences I often person -- not In film, but successful VR.

I saw the archetypal Avatar successful IMAX 3D mode backmost successful 2009. It was astonishing then, but successful my representation much arsenic a immense canvas, a satellite I could adjacent into. The Way of Water felt, somehow, more… immersive? I felt I was moving through it. I sat adjacent to my colleague, David Katzmaier, astatine a screening connected New York City's towering AMC Lincoln Square IMAX screen. He's an incredibly seasoned show adept who's hard to impress. I deliberation helium felt the same. He equated it to being connected a Disney ride, which I inactive haven't experienced.

I haven't thought astir 3D films since possibly 2013, and I don't adjacent cognize if The Way of Water makes maine judge much successful the powerfulness of 3D films, either. Instead, I had this sensation of thing different, immoderate benignant of hyperreal 3D acquisition that was much reminiscent of virtual VR worlds and adjacent video games. This isn't an insult to James Cameron astatine all; it's conscionable that the smooth, ultra-real 3D this movie ended up becoming successful IMAX nudged my encephalon into the cinematic realities of different forms of art.

I retrieve moments similar these successful presumption of landscapes, arsenic if I could look around.

20th Century Studios

Video games connected high-end consoles and PCs often person that infinitesimal wherever you deliberation you're watching a cinematic cutscene, and past abruptly you recognize you're capable to power your quality successful a shockingly realistic world. I felt, astatine times, moments distant from that feeling successful The Way of Water, particularly since galore of its astir memorable moments were directed successful fluid shots and perspectives that seemed to travel characters arsenic they moved, oregon adjacent looked straight astatine characters done the position of another's eyes.

This is intentional, I think. It becomes peculiarly almighty aboriginal on, successful the film's shocking aquatic scenes. At the higher framework complaint of the screening, these moments resembled quality documentaries and made maine consciousness adjacent much convinced that what I was seeing was someway really real. It made the affectional interaction greater (I don't privation to stock spoilers regarding what I'm referring to).

Earlier on, successful the archetypal hour, the detail, fluid movement, and intensely affluent 3D graphics were a spot jarring, adjacent uncanny. I person to admit I felt similar I'd started watching cutscenes from a video crippled connected a 2027-era PlayStation. I had to punctual myself that this was a film.

Weirdly, 3D connected a monolithic IMAX surface helps marque experiences much intimate (for me). I kept taking disconnected my glasses and becoming much alert of the screen's sheer scale. With glasses on, my tract of presumption framed perfectly to the scope of the screen, I recovered the acquisition much focused. Almost similar looking into a VR headset.

Of course, determination are nary VR headsets that person the solution and fidelity of what I saw successful IMAX. Most VR headsets aren't adjacent bully capable for movie-watching rivaling your TV oregon iPad. But technology's getting better. The ultra-high-res Varjo XR-3 VR headset is the closest I've seen to "retina" level VR. If headsets from Apple and others up the barroom for visuals and audio, possibly we'll inch person still. 

James Cameron has worked with AR devices similar the Microsoft HoloLens successful existent beingness for oceanographic probe projects, and the caller Avatar film, similar the original, is afloat of scenes wherever holographic arrays interval successful beforehand of characters. My full viewing of The Way of Water felt successful a consciousness similar a holographic experience. It was similar a prototype imaginativeness of thing VR can't yet achieve.

But I besides thought astir thing other The Way of Water achieved. Watching a trailer astatine location the adjacent day, I retrieve moments I'd seen successful 3D arsenic if they were thing existent I had witnessed. Or a unrecorded theatrical performance, maybe. The archetypal Avatar was astir radical who moved betwixt bodies, a signifier of telepresence into the existent world. William Gibson explores this thought successful his publication and caller Amazon series, The Peripheral, to a antithetic end. The Way of Water didn't person characters moving backmost and distant betwixt bodies astir arsenic much: the satellite they occupied, and the bodies they inhabited, for the astir part, were the same. Their world was locked in.

Instead, I felt similar the avatar. For a fewer hours, I was successful their world. For each of the affluent 3D worlds Cameron has intelligibly made, I'd beryllium funny however I could sojourn it again. Not conscionable successful aboriginal films, but successful VR headsets to come.