The IMAX theater at the MN Zoo invited Minnesota Aquarium Society members to go to an advance screening of the new "Ocean Wonderland" 3D film that they held today for promotional purposes. I only got the full details on this event this morning...otherwise I would have tried to get TCMAS involved in this as well. (I think they probably found MAS by way of their web site, but I'm not certain about this...an argument for having a decent club web site perhaps!).
Anyway, I went this morning with my family and the film was terrific. Lots of wonderful 3D views of coral reefs, both Indopacific and Caribbean....including big schools of fish appearing to be swimming in the room with you, some wonderful views of huge schools of small
green chromis darting into and out of Acropora coral heads, huge table Acroporas, ocellaris and skunk clownfish in huge anemones (Heteractis magnifica, if I am recalling the latin name correctly), bat rays, sting rays, lots of very familiar-looking corals (familiar from our tanks) growing in the wild, a big stand of a beautiful blue-tipped coral (Acropora as I recall), etc....
Other than not being in the ocean with the taste of saltwater in your mouth, the effect was almost like being there.
And the narration wasn't bad either...entertaining but not totally trivial or hokey (and I'm a biologist who tends to get bothered a by the narration of a lot of these sorts of films). I did not notice this myself, but my wife mentioned to me after the film that in the credits they gave two names for the people who put together the script...it read something like: "Written by _______ (the name of a scientist), and interpreted by _____________ (the name of another person)". We found it amusing that they essentiall had an "interpreter" tanslate the scientist's script for the audience. The end result was quite good.
If I recall correctly, they will start showing the film in a few days (Jan 8 perhaps?). I think members of this group would enjoy it a lot.
Bill
