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Everyone, it seems, wants to go check out the new “Avatar” film.
But the question is, which one?
“Avatar,” and probably every blockbuster from now on, will use new technology to create an astounding 3-D experience. But in Albuquerque, you can see “Avatar” three ways: plain old 2-D (who wants to see that anymore?), and two different 3-Ds.
There’s the regular 3-D and the fancy 3-D at Century Rio 24, which is the technical term for big and loud.
Although most theaters are offering the 3-D “experience,” as it’s called, only Century Rio offers XD, which means there are so many Ds in it they had to use a letter.
The new screen is fourstories tall and 70-feet-wide, and the sound comes from a 9,000-watt amp, said Michelle Reshetnik of Century Rio 24.
Unless you’ve lived in a cave the last 60 days, you’ve heard about “Avatar.” It’s James Cameron’s new blockbuster, a $400-million film that stars Sigourney Weaver and Sam Worthington. Cameron has said he waited to do “Avatar” until the 3-D technology caught up to his vision of the film.
So what is it? Well, the old days of the red and blue lenses are gone, but the same idea is still with us, according to RealD, the company that made “Avatar” 3-D.
Instead of the actual image on the film getting tweaked into red and blue ghosts so each eye sees something different and your brain perceives it as one image jumping off the screen, newer 3-D technology uses a polarizing filter on the projector and the camera lens, and the image is decoded by the glasses. A filter and projector costs $26,500, according to Wired magazine, and the filter spins rapidly, separating the color spectrum on the silver screen. And the screen has to be silver so that the polarized light can reflect properly. The new-style glasses (which cost $27 a piece for a theater) filter the light into your eyes in much the same way the old red-and-blue did, but with a full-color spectrum. Each eye still sees a different image, although the glasses make it look like the theater is full of Elvis Costellos.
The filter in front of the projector spins three times per-frame, fast enough so that you don’t get sick — which could be expensive, because Century Rio now has leather seating.
All 3-D theaters showing “Avatar” are using the RealD system, so you get to borrow the glasses no matter what. They’re designed to be washed and reused, unlike the old cardboard ones that were designed to get lost under your car seat.
Those leather seats and big screen in XD, though, come at a price. Tickets for XD at Rio are $11.50, versus $10 for the regular 3-D, and just $9.50 at Four Hills for the 2-D version.
