Once in a great while, I have a dream in which I can fly like Superman. When it happens, it\u2019s extremely vivid. I feel wind, gravity, and a fearless thrill of soaring high over the city and then swooping down to tease the rooftops or the treetops or the surface of the ocean.<\/p>\n
Nothing in my waking life creates quite the same feeling.<\/p>\n
Well\u2026 it hasn\u2019t until now.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve never been interested in, or impressed by 3D. The technique has never impressed me. It\u2019s felt so\u2026 artificial. And layered.<\/p>\n
But this\u2026 this is exhilarating.<\/p>\n
U2 3D <\/em><\/strong>is Mark Pellington\u2019s 3D movie of U2 playing a concert before 80,000 fans in Latin America. Seeing it last night on an IMAX screen six\u00ac\u2020stories tall<\/em> gave me a charge I\u2019ve only felt once or twice in a theater\u2026 that sense that I am seeing the world of moviemaking transformed, and nothing will ever be the same. I staggered out dizzy and breathless. And, because it was a U2 concert: uplifted, inspired, full of joy.<\/p>\n Captain Eo<\/em> this is not.<\/p>\n Floating suspended over this vast and enthusiastic crowd of Latin American concergoers, I understand what it must feel like for a seagull to soar over a turbulent ocean during a lightning storm. Descending onto the stage in between Bono and the Edge, I can now say I know a little about what it\u2019s like to be up there performing with the best band in the world. Soaring up through the light and the fog, I felt like I was caught up in a once-in-a-lifetime dream. This isn\u2019t just a breakthrough concert film. It\u2019s the liberation of the moviegoer into a whole new freedom. Instead of merely focusing on anything at the director\u2019s whim, we\u2019re placed in a vast environment, exquisitely detailed, lifelike. And our attention can roam freely. Having been in the front row of a U2 show (Elevation 2001), I can say, without exaggeration, that it feels like being there again\u2026 except that this time you can rise up from the crowd and fly around the stadium.<\/p>\n Even during my dream-come-true concert experience, I didn\u2019t have the freedom to get up and walk around on the stage study the drum kit, chase Bono around, or look over Adam Clayton\u2019s shoulder into the surging waves of fans. In fact, this is better in other ways too. The sound is perfectly mixed. The band sounds fantastic, and the crowd noise is an effective part of\u00ac\u2020the immersive, convincing experience without getting in the way of Edge\u2019s searing guitar solos.<\/p>\n I can hardly wait to see what a Pixar movie will be like when they get behind the wheel of this technology.<\/p>\n And yet it frightens me to think that James Cameron\u2019s playing with the same powers for his next sci-fi epic. Like any advance in technology, there are as many dangers here as delights. Most breakthroughs in media technologies are very quickly employed to indulged our baser appetities in ever more intense ways. And I suspect that we\u2019re going to see this technology employed for the elevation of spectacle over substance in 99 out of 100 cases.<\/p>\n