(no subject)

[the_rck]

I have now watched Black Panther. It was a perfectly good MCU movie and was doing things other movies haven't.

Sadly, my main takeaway had zero to do with the movie as a work and rather a lot to do with my own disabilities. There were a lot of scenes that I couldn't watch because my eyes and brain couldn't process the movement. On a smaller screen than our TV, I might still be able to, but it's confirmation of something I'd suspected for a while but hoped wasn't happening.

The first time I noticed this sort of problem with a movie in a theater was watching The Last Emperor in college. The last movie I watched in a theater was the first Harry Potter movie. That left me in bed with a migraine for three days.

The last year or two (definitely at least since we got Wonder Woman), I've been less able to get myself to watch superhero DVDs and TV. I'd realized that some of it was that I lost track of what was happening very easily. I just wasn't sure if it was me not paying enough attention or me protecting myself by not paying attention. (Which is a distinction that may not make sense to everybody but is a real thing.)

Watching Black Panther, there were a lot of times when I just had to shut my eyes because the speed of things on the screen hurt. I deliberately left the room during some of the fight scenes.

Watching the movie on my laptop might help since going smaller generally has in the past. There's a limit though as things on my phone screen tend to be too small for me to follow. I don't know. Scott bought the Blu-ray, though, because he wanted the extras and because he perceives a difference in how Blu-rays look/sound that I simply don't.

Given the past progression and the fact that TVs keep getting bigger, I expect I don't have more than a decade left of watching anything on a screen the size of our TV. Even things that are relatively static will probably get to a point of overwhelming me. Wearing an eyepatch in movies bought me a few years of movie watching, so I'll look into getting one.

Comments

[evalerie]

That sounds really frustrating!!

For whatever it's worth, I cannot follow the action in most modern movies. My teens can. They think that any movie that *isn't* paced that way is old, slow, and boring. I'm much better at following modern movies if I watch them at home, with captions and the ability for me to repeatedly pause the movie and ask my teens to explain what just happened. Being unable to understand ordinary movies makes me feel very old. I don't think it's just me, though -- I've heard a lot of adults complain about this. Frustrating. Anyway, it sounds like you are contending with this issue combined with others, and that has to make movie watching extremely difficult.

[the_rck]

For me, it's a knowing that, probably, five years ago, I'd have followed that sequence that I just can't even look at now. Some effects have always given me trouble-- I used to get dizzy at points when CGI animation bordered older styles of animation because there was a wrongness in the seam that my brain couldn't smooth out.

My suspicion is that this is the same problem that made me not ever drive. There's a point at which movement, relative to me, is just too fast. When Cordelia was eleven months old, that was about 15 mph. I suspect it would be less than that now. I can manage to watch out the bus window for the sign for the stop right before mine, and I can register landmarks I know, but beyond that-- I try very hard not to have to because it will give me problems.

[lunabee34]

*hugs*

That's so frustrating.

[fred_mouse]

Sympathies. For me, it is when the camera pans sideways -- happens too fast for me these days, and triggers my vertigo (I have issues when other people control the scroll on a web page that we are both reading too, because other people seem to like continuous scroll)

[the_rck]

Yes. I know both of these. Scott likes scrolling through his database of photographs (mostly of Cordelia) to find specific sorts pf pictures. When I sit next to him, I keep looking because those are memories for me, too, but I also end up feeling really sick because I can't keep up.

[lady_of_mists]

I had that issue with Captain America on the big screen. We were too close to the screen and a fight scene broke out that was intensive on the action and jerky movements. Add to that the fact that I had eaten too much delicious, greasy movie theatre food and the fact that I was expecting E and ... well, let's just say that S was kind and handled the cleanup on aisle four issue.

[the_rck]

Oh, dear. Sympathy for you and S on that.