Wreck-It Ralph (non-spoiler review)

[tuftears]

boingdragon was in town and dracosphynx wanted to drop something off (eyes package warily) so I suggested we head out to a movie today.

We hit up the Century theater on Shoreline. Good news! This time the closed captioning device worked. This puts Century theaters up big over AMC theaters for me now because AMC theaters generally don't have closed captioning, but all the screens have closed captioning (as far as I know) in the Century theaters. This is a device that installs into the cupholder of your seat, with a bendy-neck so you can tilt the display to where you can easily see it, but it won't distract other people near you.

The Paper Man animation that opened the movie was pretty cute. I'm sure dracosphynx is thinking that I need to learn to throw paper airplanes like that now.

Wreck-It Ralph was surprisingly good, for a Disney movie, by which I mean it wasn't an obvious and predictable Hero's Journey, but instead, they threw a few curve balls. It was amusing how they interpreted the pixelated style of old video games as 3D animation as well, i.e. the Nice Land dwellers only had a few frames of animation apiece, and were sort of blocky in form. It's worth sitting through the credits, there are some really amusing pixel art pieces. Someone spent a lot of time on this stuff!

Comments

[dracosphynx.livejournal.com]

You must learn how to throw paper airplanes like that now.

I must seek a method to weigh you down with paperwork and send you to windy train stations.

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

Now that sounds like quite a neat solution! But how does it accommodate the different focal lengths involved? If you're looking at the screen, that's a lot further away than this supplemental display. Does that pass through a corrective system, as with DSLR viewfinders? Is it compatible with 3D viewings? (I saw Brave (yay!) at a screening with subtitles, which felt rather uncomfortable, as they were constantly at the same depth, whatever the scene. I'm not sure how it'd be done better, potentially, though perhaps if a metadata channel knew where the "focus" of a scene was, perhaps shifting the subtitles to that depth would feel correct?)

WIW I can't comment on, as I haven't seen it yet. Nor even Rise of the Guardians, despite Bunnymunde - it's just been rather a busy time. I might be able to squeeze it in on the morrow, though that'll also be a fairly tight proposition. Still, a fun thought. ^_^ (And if not, Thursday or so!)

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

I haven't tried it with a 3D movie yet! This was the first movie I've had it work on. Generally, I just glance down at the caption monitor, then back up at the theater, and I don't find it all that bad/distracting, rather, I'm glad because I can understand the dialogue better.

It's essentially a backlit LCD screen with three 'baffles' that extend straight out, surrounded by a case that prevents others not in direct line of sight to the monitor from seeing it. Nothing all that fancy.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

But... I'm fairly sure a large amount of magic was involved.

[dracosphynx.livejournal.com]

Better get out there and look for some magic, then!

[rowyn]

It's great that they have it!

Wreck-It Ralph was a lot of fun, too. The scene where Ralph destroys the Glitch's car felt heartbreakingly real, like sometimes your dreams really aren't what's best for you. Although I am just as glad that wasn't the ultimate resolution for the film. :)

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

'Tis true, 'tis true! They foreshadow the plot twist pretty well too.

[rowyn]

Yep! It's all there, but not so obvious that it's the first thing you think of. :)