I recently attended Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience in New York and one of the attractions was a virtual reality trip through the landscapes that inspired Van Gogh: meadows, wheatfields, forests, his room at Arles, and the village where he painted “Starry Night.” I’d never experienced VR before so it was quite exciting to me. As we “moved” through the landscape, sometimes quite rapidly, I felt the illusion of movement and gripped my chair with my hands even though the chair wasn’t actually doing anything and I wasn’t actually moving. The ride was about 15 min. long.

I got to thinking, why not recreate movie worlds in virtual reality, so we could explore the landscape of film noir, for instance and move through dark alleys, rain-drenched streets, dive bars, packed nightclubs, or the lobby of the Bradbury building to Philip Marlowe’s office or something? How about a samurai village, an old western town, or a Chinese Emperor’s palace from a Shaw Bros. movie? Or the lush natural landscapes of a Miyazaki movie like TOTORO or MONONOKE, the coastal city Kiki flies over on her broom, or the floating ruins of CASTLE IN THE SKY? Why not a ride through New York of the early 20th century, or Paris or London? Possibilities like these intrigue me much more than the kinds of popular franchises that would offer much greater commercial possibilities for VR.

I imagine some efforts have been made to do something like this with things like Avatar, Star Wars, Harry Potter or Jurassic Park. I tried googling the subject and came up with a reference to a VR film tied to THE MARTIAN and an animated film called “Lost” from Oculus Story Studio that looks inspired by THE IRON GIANT. Is there anything else like these?

Here are the only two relevant articles I found, neither of which offers much concrete info.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bennyha...h=383c495a6ea1

https://skywell.software/blog/virtua...of-filmmaking/

This is a shot of an "immersive" room at the Van Gogh exhibit, although not from the VR ride. This is just to give you some idea of what that exhibit was aiming for:

They have a 10-15 minute Star Wars VR “experience” in Las Vegas, where, instead of sitting in a chair, you walk around and are led to a few different rooms (which are probably re-used or loop into each other) and are given a blaster, which can shoot enemies. It’s for up to four people at once.

It’s pretty immersive, and when Darth Vader shows up, it’s legitimately like “oh shit, get us out of here!”

They have that in Downtown Disney in Orlando. It is awesome.

I went to the Van Gogh experience in Paris. Very cool. No VR at that though.

On VR movies… Tribeca had a bunch during the festival this year. https://tribecafilm.com/festival/imm...virtual-arcade

I think Robert Rodriguez directed a short one a few years ago.

It’s been about 20 years since I’ve been there but Universal Studios Isle of Adventure used to have a VR Spider-Man ride. For being so long ago, my memories of it were that the technology was pretty great.

I have to imagine the ride itself didn’t move more than 10 or 15 feet in any direction but it felt like you were swinging through the city, falling off of buildings, getting thrown around by (I think) Green Goblin, etc.

Thats the only VR ride I’ve ever been on but, without looking it up, I’d think there were probably a lot more nowadays.

They are having two Immersive Van Gogh exhibitions here. This one and another. I was mildly interested. The location for one, they are keeping a secret for now.

I never knew that. Will check it out soon. Sounds like fun.

There are some very immersive VR experiences with Oculus Quest and other headsets. The Anne Frank house is a powerful thing to do.

Check before you go... they rotate "experiences" between SW, Marvel and something else. When I was there for SEMA two years back, I went expecting SW but got the Marvel experience. It was cool but not what I was hoping for... that said, most agreed it was actually better that SW. I think it's at the Palazzo/ Venetian shopping area.

That was about the last time I was there as well, a pretty neat ride.

It makes me wonder in the future it will be hard to differentiate between a movie and say a video game in terms of interaction and what not. Or maybe an updated version of “Matinee” style immersion: you're watching the next A Quite Place sequel and an audience member talks, and one of the aliens hears said person and “attacks” by means of a realistic hologram or VR set.

Hate to burst your guys' bubble but The Void (the VR w/ the moving compartment walls and Disney licensed properties (Wreck-It Ralph, Star Wars, etc; )) went bust in March of last year.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/16/...e-loan-default

It was neat, but a bit outdated by 2019 (especially with consumer level devices like The Rift and Quest working so much better.)

There was an episode of Creepshow (current version) with Justin Long that touched on VR for classic movies. It wasn't a very good episode but I liked the concept:

Twitter

Yeah, bummer. Checking Google, Sandbox VR will be taking over the space. Might also be fun but none of their stuff is licensed except Star Trek Discovery

One of the things that worked really well with The Void was they would occasionally separate the people in the room - Like you'd have to stand on spots to proceed, once all 4 were on spots a door would close in the physical space separating it into two groups of two for a minute where you would then be firing at each other in the game. It gave a strong illusion of being hundreds of feet apart in the game.

And then they also piped in heat (for lava), smell (also lava, and cupcakes for Wreck is Ralph), and fans to simulate wind when necessary. Hopefully Sandbox does something similar, it really was a neat experience.

In terms of VR though, Vader Immortal I, II and III on Oculus Rift/Quest is much, much better than The Void's Secrets of the Empire.

The TOMS (shoes) store in Venice Beach had a VR documentary about their program in Africa. It was pretty cool.

I just got an Oculus 2, and am surprised at the amount of things for it. There are multiple Star Wars games, and one of the most popular games is "John Wick meets WiiFit" shooting/exercise game. There is a Jurassic Park experience with two Dino based worlds, etc.

Tons to explore, no pun intended.

Pistol Whip? Yeah, extremely popular. There's a VR headset thread, if you want to join the (light, but good) conversation.