Sth Bend, IN My Final Fantasy Experience

I believe the realization of it all hit me when the previews came on. Something was different. Sure, I had seen the preview for Osmosis Jones before - a cartoon meets live action adventure - but what immediately stood out is how bright and crisp the picture was. It was like looking at a sixty foot plasma screen. I picked the time and theatre on purpose: 8pm at the AMC Barrington 30. Twenty minutes north west of Chicago and over two hours from South Bend, to the common eye it seemed like an odd place to see a movie. But it was, in fact, the ONLY place to see this movie the way it was intended to be seen: digitally. The AMC Barrington 30 is one of only a dozen theatres in the US to use DLP, a digital projection system invented by Texas Instruments. Instead of projecting light through a film strip, DLP uses a computer and a video projector to project the movie. The result: A flawless recreation of the movie on the screen. No dust specs, mis focusing, warped reels, or aging film cells (which degrade in color everytime they are projected). I was so enamored by the quality of the previews, (Osmosis Jones, Monsters Inc., Max Keeble, and SPIDER-MAN) that I had almost forgotten that there was a 2 hour feature on the way.

The movie itself lived up to the hype that has been spreading on the internet. I kept hearing myself say "wow" repeatedly throughout the feature. I felt like my eyes were treading on ground they had never walked before. The graphics were state-of -the-art. Better than Toy Story, Bug's Life, and Shrek. Even though I had seen previews of how good the movie looked, It still took my breath away. The plot was typical action movie fair. No new ground tread there. There were a few times that I could spot jerky or unnatural movements from the human characters. But they were so trivial compared to the amazing fluidity during most of the scenes. Little things like hair, clothing texture, and skin pores made me forget for a while that I was watching a CGI movie. In the end, when the credits rolled, the movie earned an applause from the audience. I sat in my chair for a while, wondering how hard it would be to get a ticket for the next showing.

 

Sounds like it was worth the trip.

Did you say anything else to yourself other than "wow". Most of the time you say stuff like "get away from me", "stop staring at me", or my favorite "YABBA DABBA DOOOO".