Francisco Miraval
I was driving home a few days ago when I saw, at a distance, the sign of a movie theater announcing the movie “Jurassic Park 2030.” Because I have not been in a movie theater for a long time (they tell me movies are now in color), I was wondering why “2030” was included in the title of “Jurassic Park.”
I thought it was just a new movie in a long series, with the story happening this time 15 years into our future. After all, there are many examples of sequels and sequels of sequels happening (in the fiction) years after the original story.
Meanwhile, I keep driving in the direction of the movie theater and when I was right in front of the sign I could now clearly see that the sign said “Jurassic Park 2D 3D”. I misread the sign because, at a distance, I took the capital “D” for a zero and because there was no space “between “2D” and “3D”.
The sign, therefore, was not about a science fiction movie happening in the future, in a decade and a half, but about the movie goers have to decide how many dimensions (two or three) they want on the screen. And that ability led me to think how many other options we will soon add to the two options now available.
You see, a century ago or so, there were not even movies. Later, the only option was silent black and white movies. Eventually, sound was incorporated and it was color. But movies were still only 2D and you could only watch them at the movie theater.
But now, you can choose the number of dimensions in your movie and where and how you want to watch it. In addition, the traditional passivity of the spectator has been replaced by constant interaction between whatever is happening on the screen and the spectator, thanks to all kinds of apps for smartphones and tablets.
Perhaps, therefore, very soon we will add more options to the movie experience, such as holographic environments. And eventually we will add a fourth (temporal) dimension, where “movies” will be in reality time-traveling experiences. Instead of watching images of dinosaurs on the screen, we will travel to the time of the dinosaurs to meet them in person.
Obviously, that’s just my speculation. Yet, many of the elements we now take for granted in our everyday life were not so long ago just mere speculation.
Regardless, what’s the point of being able to choose between two or three fictitious dimensions if we, as Marcuse once said, are one-dimensional beings living in a one-dimensional society and thinking only one-dimensional thoughts? After all, fictitious options only create the illusion of freedom.
But why I misread “2D 3D” as “2030”? Because I was thinking about 2030, because, according to a new report recently presented at the National Astronomy Meeting in London, in that year the sun will “go to sleep”, thus creating a new ice age. Fiction or reality?