Today I Watched...IMAX VR - Trials of Tatooine & Eagle Flight

IMAX VR – Trials of Tatooine & Eagle Flight

Review by Paul Preston

Welcome to Today I Watched…, a series of posts documenting my new challenge – watch a movie a day for the rest of my life. Keep coming back to TheMovieGuys.net to find out what I watch each day…and get my take on it.

When I see a movie that’s a new release in theaters or for home viewing, I’ll give it a proper review in the “Reviews”, otherwise, I’ll write about it here.

May 15 & 18, 2017 – IMAX VR – Trials on Tatooine & Eagle Flight

Across Fairfax Ave. from The Grove and Farmer’s Market in Hollywood has popped up a new kind of entertainment called IMAX VR, it’s IMAX’s attempt to provide virtual reality experiences to people at roughly $10 a piece. It’s about $1 a minute, so there are longer experiences around twenty minutes that cost more. This is a pretty cool idea and it soft-opened in February. With one of their premiere experiences being a STAR WARS virtual reality film, I can’t believe it’s still flying under the radar as something to do on a Friday night.

The great Michael McNutt from the NOVACon joined me and podcast contributor Mike J. Nichols to take in one of these VR films, only to return a couple days later to do another. We wanted the solo experience as well as the group gaming feel. Earlier in my “Today I Watched…” reports I talked about taking in Ghostbusters: Dimension in N.Y. I can tell you that VR event knocks it out of the park and all others so far are filing behind it. One of the big reasons is that Dimension had a multi-room experience with the virtual reality mapped out to the actual layout of the rooms. IMAX VR sets you up in a 15 x 15 or so “pod”, so movement isn’t all that extensive. Gotta admit, I missed the movement, IMAX VR can seem a little prohibitive when they go to such great lengths to show you an expansive VR world.

The first experience we took in was Star Wars: Trials on Tatooine. As a Movie Guy, I was happy this was more of an event that takes place in the world of Star Wars than it was a video game. Still, it’s more of a showcase for what’s possible than being an awesome experience on its own. Once the VR gear goes on, you’re surrounded by space. It’s everywhere and then the Star Wars logo appears, followed by the obligatory Star Wars crawl, which eats up $1.50. Then you’re on Tatooine. The Millennium Falcon lands next to you and the visual and audio effect of it is badass, not gonna lie. Han Solo (voice by the great Ross Marquand) then barks out some orders for you from inside the ship. What follows is fun just ‘cause it’s Star Wars, but the action entailed isn’t all that amazing, you actually perform some chores before an all-out action sequence commences. But because it’s Star Wars, it’s enjoyable.

Eagle Flight, on the other hand, is a straight-up video game. There’s no narrative and you’re even holding a controller during the whole experience (but as a result, it’s more exciting than Trials on Tatooine). This is basically capture the flag as you’re an eagle flying around future Paris looking for bird eggs and bringing them back to your nest, trying to best the other eagles of your group. This game the three of us played at the same time and you sit down for this one (no lightsaber to wield) and move your head to change directions, but other movements are controlled via the game controller. It’s fun and fast-paced and there are consequences for flying into a building, forcing you to attempt to fly well. Smack talking is an added bonus to this one.

After visiting IMAX VR, I want to return as they have a John Wick VR shooting game, which has to be bananas, right? There’s also an original DreamWorks animated movie that you can live in while you watch it and what looks like the best experience there is The Walk, based on the Robert Zemeckis film, where you walk between the Twin Towers in virtual reality. I watched people try and cross the fifteen foot “pod” with the VR on and they were FREAKING OUT. SO wanna do this.

Also after visiting, I realized that a lot of these experiences are available if you have virtual reality gear for your home gaming system! But I suppose, rather than dole out $500 for an Oculus Rift or $800 for the HTC Vive setup, $1 an hour is the way to go. I mean, how often would you go back to Tatooine and have Han Solo tell you to do the same thing again?