July is the month we say goodbye to writers who are retiring or moving on to new adventures, and this is Jordan’s last post. He has been writing with us since August 2019.

After driving in a car for ten hours from Des Moines, Iowa to Denver, Colorado, I drove in a movie theater seat for another 145 minutes or the runtime of the new installment in the Fast & Furious franchise, F9.

We accidentally purchased tickets to the 4DX showing of the film’s opening night. If you don’t know what 4DX is (good for you), it’s a film format in which the theater is equipped to bombard audiences with various practical effects, such as wind, water, scents, and, most prominently, the multi-directional movement of the theater’s seats. So while I was not literally driving the theater’s seat, I was meant to feel like I was. 

4DX films are meant to immerse viewers even deeper within a film. It’s named 4DX to suggest that it’s a step up from 3D film technology, the last major push towards deep immersion in multiplexes. Our showing was not in 3D, however, so it’s not like our film added another D on top of the existing three Ds to warrant the label of a fourth D. I’m not complaining though— even without stuff popping out of the screen, there were more than enough Ds.

Despite its various tricks and gimmicks, 4DX is still fairly limited as to what it can do to immerse a viewer. In a film like F9, its major utilities are wind and motion—I didn’t pick up many smells distinct from the various smells of a public space where many people are eating popcorn, and it only sprayed water once. But there was one tool in the 4DX toolkit that changed the viewing experience the most significantly—a small knob that punches out directly in the back of your seat like a tiny boxer. 

This effect is far more specific than the others. Whereas wind and motion from a jerking car are environmental effects that simulate what is happening around a character, a punch in the back represents something happening to a character. This means the back-punch is the only 4DX effect that can reliably create a point of view. When you see a character take a shot to the back and you feel it too, you are that character for a brief second. 

The back-punches in the 4DX F9 experience mostly put the audience in the villain’s shoes. I doubt this was intentional because 4DX has not exactly swept the nation (yet!) and directors are not directing films with the format in mind, unlike films that have been shot for one less D. So whoever is programming these effects really just has to work with what they’ve got, and in Fast & Furious movie it’s the villains who take punches from behind or fall onto their backs from high heights.

Having periodic clarifying moments that no but actually you’re the villain in this story—yeah, like, you are the bad guy—wasn’t more distracting from the film’s story than having your chair shake the shit out of you every fifteen minutes, but it was weird. And really, until 4DX finds a way to make me feel as yoked as the Greek gods that grace the silver screen in the great tradition of the Fast & Furious saga, I will never feel truly immersed. 

In conclusion, I guess if you’re going to go to a 4DX movie showing, it’s important to remember your 4 Ds: 1) Don’t drive for 10 hours before doing so, 2) Do be ready to be the bad guy, baby, 3) Don’t throw up?, and 4) Uhhhh Diesel, Vin would be funny to hear in a roll call.

Jordan Petersen Kamp

Jordan Petersen Kamp graduated in 2017. He works as the controller for Trellis, a certified Herman Miller furniture dealer located in West Michigan. In his spare time he enjoys talking about the books and albums he looks forward to reading and listening to someday—the ones that he’s definitely heard of but not heard or read yet.