Whose Faulty Vision

Movie Theaters Fight Back

So now that I have a plasma TV and a Blu-Ray player, it’s pretty hard to justify going to movies in the theater anymore. The price of two movie tickets comes close to the price of *buying* the movie in Blu-Ray, and renting of course is much cheaper than that. With my setup, picture quality for Blu-Ray movies is about as good as the theater (for good prints well-projected), or better (for cases where the print is scratched, or the projectionist is doing something wrong). And of course the overall experience is better–no waiting in line, nobody coughing all the way through, food that is both cheaper and higher-quality, and so on.

But just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. “Beowulf” looks like a good movie of the sort that I’d probably say “eh, I want to see it, but I’ll wait for the Blu-Ray.” But they’re offering it in 3-D. As far as I know, there’s no way to get a plasma TV to do the newfangled polarized 3-D, so my only option for seeing it in 3-D is the theater. And I bet it’s kickass–the Nightmare Before Christmas re-release had really impressive 3-D all the way through. So I may have to go see it in the theater.

I wonder if we’ll see more of this, as movie companies try to lure home theater types back into the movie theaters? I wouldn’t be surprised.