Well, at least until Disney re-releases "The tiny Mermaid" on September 13. The studio is actively encouraging kids to bring along iPads and play games as you move the movie is showing on the watch's screen.
Specifically, they're inviting that you participate Ariel's world because of their own app -- Disney Second Screen Live -- meant to let viewers connect to the film. It's essentially a youngster-friendly combination of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” karaoke, and video game titles.
The app will lead sing-alongs with the film's soundtrack, games according to events inside film, behind the curtain information, and also a competitive element played against fellow theater-goers. The app cost nothing, but perhaps caused by Disney's close relationship with Apple, Android tablets will not be supported.
Disney is rolling out slowly -- only 16 theaters nationwide is going to take part inside Second Screen Live experiment -- but it is still a radical departure from most theaters' policies, which urge viewers to silence or let down their mobile phones before a show starts since the bright light in the screens is very distracting in a very darkened theater.
Film buffs are obviously not thrilled because of the idea. Slashfilm derisively calls it a "second screen indoctrination tool for kids." Penny Arcade Report paints an uglier picture.
"Imagine a theater full of children, with everyone looking down with a bright screen rather then watching the movie," writes PAR editor Ben Kuchera. "Let's hope which the app is silent or you will end up managing hundreds of speakers all playing music with assorted timing, or at different volumes. Hellish."
The in-theater Second Screen experience is definitely an extension of Disney's tests that has a home-based Second Screen app. Two years ago, the corporation began testing the thinking behind offering bonus footage, concept art, filmmaker commentary and storyboard images for home video releases, issuing versions on the app for your Blu-Ray releases of “Bambi,” “Tron: Legacy,” “The Lion King” and “The Pirates of the Caribbean.”
Disney first tested the use of the app in theaters last fall with Tim Burton's “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” The business says the trials resulted in "positive" responses among viewers, if you certainly wouldn’t believe based on the 5-1 ratio of “thumbs-downs” to “thumbs-ups” around the trailer’s Youtube page.
