The Los Angeles Times has run an editorial on the new push for 3-D cinema. There’s even a recounting of what sounds like an early version of Alien/Stitch Encounter:
Selected chairs were equipped with hidden vibrating devices. At the film’s climactic moment, the scorpion-like Tingler seemed to rip through the screen toward the audience, then the room went black and Vincent Price’s voice boomed through the speakers: "The Tingler is loose in this theater! Scream for your lives!" Cue the vibrators.
I had never heard of this before, but given all of the other gimmicks that were tried, it doesn’t surprise me.
Theaters are scrambling to install the special screens and projectors; Variety reports that there are only 250 3-D theaters in the world today, but 1,000 are expected by the end of this year.
They go on to tie in Disney’s recent deal with Robert Zemeckis before getting on to what they have to say about James Cameron.
Meanwhile, on Monday, Walt Disney Studios signed a production deal with director Robert Zemeckis for a slate of motion-capture 3-D films, a technology that Zemeckis soon will bring to the screen with "Beowulf." But the real impetus behind the 3-D revival is Cameron, whose "Avatar" will be the first wide-release, live-action movie made exclusively for modern, digital 3-D. By the time it comes out in 2009, there are expected to be 2,000 U.S. theaters equipped to screen it.
They don’t say whether they think this will become standard or not, but rather conclude by saying that story is more important that technology.