Will Vision Pro revolutionize movie-watching? 

I don't plan to conduct specific film analyses as I usually would in this article. Instead, I want to talk about some broader issues, namely, the potential impact of technological advancements on the future of the film industry. I want to discuss this because I see many new possibilities in Vision Pro.

Can Vision Pro revolutionize the movie-watching experience like iPod did back in the day?

When I put on the VR headset, it feels like stepping into a whole new world! I genuinely believe it has the potential to change the movie-watching experience. It offers more surprises than 3D technology and is even more revolutionary than the transition from silent to sound and from black-and-white to color movies!

VR is not a new concept; for example, META, founded by Mark Zuckerberg, has already released three generations of Meta Quest. However, to be honest, aside from gaming, I didn't know what else it could do. That was until Apple's Vision Pro came along.

Apple's unique characteristic is its ability to integrate different technologies. Looking back, whether it's the iPhone or the earlier iPod, they didn't use the latest technology at the time, but they've successfully achieved the utility of these technologies. Vision Pro achieves the same goal; after its release, you can find a plethora of videos on its usage online, from face-to-face meetings to incredible adventures in various virtual worlds. The variety of apps is overwhelming; it feels like entering the world of Steven Spielberg's “Ready Player One.”

Among all applications, I most attracted to the feature that allows me to watch movies. Vision Pro can pull out a floating window for movie-watching, and both the window size and virtual environment can be customized. You can choose to immerse yourself in the virtual or real world. When you pull out the movie-viewing window, other pages automatically dim. Simply put, when you put on this device, a screen appears in front of you, and you can adjust the screen size and even the surrounding environment at will. As for sound effects, its simulation of the virtual environment is excellent; after selecting an environment, you can even distinguish the differences in sound reflections from different ceilings.

Even after taking off the headset, I still feel immersed in the virtual world, where the boundary between reality and fiction is greatly blurred. No matter how much I describe it, it's not as intuitive as seeing it with your own eyes. As such, I found two videos of Vision Pro’s user experiences; you can feel it for yourself.

According to my understanding, Disney currently offers the best support for Vision Pro. In addition to releasing more than forty 3D movies - most of them are very recent films - including my favorite Marvel movie from last year, "Guardians of the Galaxy 3," they even offer four special virtual environments. They are the Disney+ Theater, where it feels like watching a movie in a majestic theater; the Scare Floor, a key feature of the Pixar movie "Monsters, Inc."; the Avengers Tower, which overlooks downtown Manhattan; and Luke Skywalker's Landspeeder cockpit, on the planet Tatooine facing the double sunset.

However, even for Apple, launching a revolution is not that easy. YouTube and Netflix have chosen not to design a dedicated application for Apple's upcoming Vision Pro. As Apple's competitor in the streaming field, Netflix even mentioned in a statement that users interested in the device can watch its content online. As a movie lover, I'm deeply disappointed, but I believe that as more and more people start using Vision Pro, these companies will surely give in to their demands.

How will the movie world change when everyone has their own Vision Pro years later?

First, I believe that the number of people going to movie theaters will decrease significantly. You can see from Disney that both the scale of its virtual environments and screen sizes far surpass those of movie theaters, depriving cinemas of most of their experiential advantages. However, there is an experience that Vision Pro may not be able to replace, and that is interpersonal communication. From my experience, many a time, when I go to the cinema, it's not just about watching a movie; it's about interacting with people. I enjoy discussing the movies with my girlfriend, family, and friends after watching movies. If you consider these interactions as part of a smooth movie-watching experience, you will realize that movie theaters still have their value.

However, home theaters may not be so lucky. Yes, Vision Pro is big and bulky and often runs out of battery. Plus, it cannot be worn for prolonged periods as it may result in bloodshot eyes – which has already sparked a wave of refunds. But I think these issues will definitely be resolved with the subsequent release of newer versions like Vision 2, Vision 3... or Vision X. After using AirPods, wired earphones seem unnecessary; after using the iPod, CD players seem enormous and cumbersome. Similarly, when there are lighter and more immersive Vision Pros in the future, I don't see the necessity of building a home theater that would cause disturbances to the neighbors in the already crowded living room of a house located in a city with expensive property prices.

Second, when you put on VR headset, you can see the world in 360 degrees, which mainstream cameras cannot achieve at the moment. So, I think VR cameras may become popular in movie production. This thing actually already exists; its lens is spherical, and it can capture images from all angles: up, down, front, back, left, and right. But it is not yet widely used. When directors start using VR cameras to shoot movies, our experience of watching movies will be completely different from now.

Finally, the emergence of Sora may also make VR popularization easier. The manual transformation of images from 2D to 3D is very cost-consuming, but this process may be much easier with the use of AI. However, since Sora has just hit the market, it is too early to make predictions, so I won't delve into it here.

In summary, I believe that with the popularization of VR and AI, the entire film industry may undergo dramatic changes, and I am very much looking forward to the new world of movies to come!

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