Bigscreen's 'VR Cinema' Showing Interstellar, Star Trek, Transformers, & More This Month
Bigscreen’s ‘VR Cinema’ Showing Interstellar, Star Trek, Transformers, & More This Month
By
Paul James
-
Jan 11, 2020

Bigscreen has released the latest lineup of big-name movies premiering this month in its recently released ‘VR Cinema’ feature.


A virtual reality movie theater always has felt like an obvious shoe-in for VR, a sentiment illustrated by some of our earliest articles covering VR cinema pioneers and the apps they chose to build. Since then of course, VR headset owners have been given numerous ways to enjoy films alone or with others, but for the most part those movies were self-provided, with the VR headset merely acting as an immersive viewing vessel for you (and your friends).

Bigscreen announced in December that they were looking to help evolve the movie VR experience by licensing studio films and giving Bigscreen users the opportunity to buy and watch them together in virtual theatres (either in private or in public virtual form). Ticket prices range between $4–$5 and can be purchased from Bigscreen‘s website directly.

The company has announced which movies will be available this month:

January 10th to 16th

• 3D
  • Star Trek Beyond (2016)
  • Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
  • Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)
• 2D
  • Interstellar (2014)

January 17th to 24th

• 3D
  • Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)
  • Ghost in the Shell (2017)
  • Terminator Genisys (2015)
  • Top Gun (1986)

Think of the service like renting a movie from Amazon, but you watch virtually in a public theater in the style of the movie.

One of the biggest technical and experiential benefits of viewing 3D movies in VR though is the ‘perfect’ stereoscopy as each eye has a discrete view of its intended frame with no ‘cross-talk’ or dimming as is common with most passive 3D experiences in traditional cinemas. Granted, we’ve not yet tested the 3D quality available via the streaming service, so just how good the image is remains to be seen.

Up until now, Bigscreen software itself—which lets you join rooms with friends and share your own media or watch free media channels in public rooms with others—has been entirely free. The paid films are offered in partnership with Paramount; Bigscreen is putting special emphasis on its 3D films, as streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video typically only serve up 2D versions, even to those who have 3DTVs.

Bigscreen says its working on additional ‘VR Cinema’ content, including private movie rentals to watch with friends, more movies, a drive-in movie theater environment, and themed movie events like ‘horror week’.

 

WHY ISNT IT IN THE UK FFFSSS. Wish I could see DOTM on the big screen again

 

Odd that one of their choices for Transformers movies is the one that's pretty much universally considered the worst of the bunch.

 

The Paramount intern isn't paid enough to research which movies are actually good.

 

Yeah I was confused by that tbh, maybe because it was visually good?

 

Thanks for the headsup! Didn't know DOTM was going to be in 3D. Now if I could only get it to stream clearly on my Quest, I'd be all over that.

I have 25Gig copy of Alita in 3D that looks amazing, but it's actually copied into the Quest. Streaming has been a hit or miss for me.

 

Cool idea, but sounds like migraine city....

 

Seems like kind of a neat idea, may need to be refined a bit though.

Love how they picked the worst one.  

 

The Last Knight isn't a movie. It's just random scenes that make no sense stuck together.

 

Having seen it in theaters, I wouldn't go even if you paid me to.

 

Can we look back on this movie now and have a good laugh or is it still too soon?

 

How about if I give them $4 and they just kick me in the nuts instead?

It will always be too soon.

 

True, even with bumblebee, nobody is gonna see Tlk when it's shown again

 

Especially with Bumblebee

 

Shows what you know I like those movies I know other people who are not transformer fans but fans of movies that like them and watch them but they do not watch cartoons read comics play there games I will watch them again and bumblebee no one complaints about transformers cybertron , emergon series.

Unlike cartoons comics and video games I am thankful and great full movies have done impossible that comics cartoons and video games could never do make transformers popular again and took people who hated transformers and turned them into transformer fans you don’t see new transformer fans on this site that says a lot what new fans like and they don’t like cartoons comics video games of transformers talk to them you will know this

 

Hate to break it to you, but TLK wasn't liked, at all. You may like it, and cool, you do you, but the movie bombed and not nearly enough people want to see it to warrant this.

I mean the movie lost the studio 100 million. That's bad.

 

But it resulted in Bumblebee. That's good. I love it when stuff comes full circle

 

Would be really cool so see Dark of the Moon on the big screen again but I don't know if I'd bother taking the time to get it all set up with this.