At Sundance: Two Virtual Reality Experiences May Forever Change the Way We Watch Movies

The virtual reality scene at the Sundance Film Festival continues to expand every year, and in 2017 there were a slew of options for anyone interested in experiencing the VR revolution for themselves. 

Two of our favorite experiences began to paint a picture of what the future of moviegoing might actually look like. And sure, every few months there’s a piece written about how VR is the future of watching movies, but we never really get a sense of what that future will actually look like and feel like. This year that changed. 

From a chair that moves and vibrates in ways meant to enhance the VR experience, to a short animated movie called Asteroids (pictured above) that lets you interact with its characters while a story was unfolding, both experiences truly felt like the beginning of that next phase.

Check out our video tour below.

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The biggest obstacle right now for a virtual-reality movie theater is its disabling of that shared experience. Nothing beats laughing with a few hundred strangers or crying with them, too. So many of our most memorable moviegoing experiences revolve around being with a crowd that, like you, was feeding off what they were watching in a way that affected the entire theater. 

Can these isolated VR experiences somehow evolve to a point where they play directly into the shared moviegoing experience? That’s an issue we haven’t seen a solution for yet, but from everything we’ve seen this year and continue to see, we’re definitely getting closer to one. How would you solve it?

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