Here is a pdf file of the letter.

To AMC President,

This past Friday, July 12, 2002, I attended the 9:30 showing of Bourne Identity at AMC Fenway 13 Theater in Boston. I bought the ticket from cashier 9831 at station 003 with a credit card so you should be able to check your records to verify it.

Approximately 35 minutes into the movie, I suddenly felt hot all over and began sweating profusely. I was very worried since I am in excellent healthy. I left the theater to the restroom. As I started walking, I worried I was going to collapse and die in the theater. I felt a little better as I left the theater but I still felt so ill that I told the ticket attendants before the bathroom to look for me if I did not emerge in 5 minutes. I sat down in the stall for a moment and had diarrhea all the sudden. As I rested and felt sweat pouring down my face and arms, I grew very scared, fearing I had been a recipient of some chemical or biological terrorist attack, or maybe Ebola had somehow come to the United States. I was regretting not trying to decide if I should ask my friends to take me to an emergency room. I sat down in my seat to try and think, but then the symptoms started returning, with less sweating but dizzyness. Again I left my seat. I went to the rear of the theater and stood for a while. I gradually felt better and better, so I decided to sit on the floor and watched the rest of the movie from the ramp into the theater.

When the movie finished, I waited for my friends. They were curious why I had not watched. I told them what happened and much to my surprise one of the other members of our party had the exact same experience. It was kind of amusing because he had watched the movie from the floor on the opposite side of the theater.

At this point, I realized that there was some general problem. I was not subject of some terrorist attack. The air quality seemed fine in the theater. I thought back and remembered some of the things that had seemed to make the situation worse: I remember closing my eyes for a period during the movie because the camera was panning (circling) around the scenes. Then I remembered being annoyed about being in the front row. At this point I realized the problem: I was the victim of space motion sickness, induced by the visual perception of angular accelerations. Having worked in the manned vehicle laboratory at MIT I had read about space motion sickness. These effects were greatly accentuated/exaggerated by being seated in the front row, which is simply a matter of geometry: Something moving 3 feet across the screen seen by someone 10 feet away vs. 30 feet away in the same amount of time appears as if it has much greater angular acceleration. When I recovered and watched the movie from the rear of the theater I ceased to feel I was going to die and actually began to enjoy the last part of the film that I was able to watch.

Basically, I feel that AMC Fenway 13 is responsible for putting me through a near death experience. That is the only way to describe how I felt. I worried what would happen to my things if I died and how my family would be impacted. How is AMC Fenway 13 responsible? AMC Fenway 13 should have researched space motion sickness and built the theater to minimize th e possibility of its occurrence. 2 people in 1 sitting going through the same thing is enough evidence that AMC Fenway 13 should not have built the seats so close to the screen. I realize that the real estate is expensive and that AMC Fenway 13 wants to pack its theaters to maximize profits. This is understandable. However, AMC Fenway 13 charges premium prices for its movies and customers have a right to expect a premium experience in exchange. I am confident that AMC Fenway 13 theater design which required me to sit so close to the screen, caused me to be ill. As soon as I moved back and sat on the floor, I rapidly recovered, as did the other individual in the party.

I want several things from AMC Fenway 13 Theater. Despite the relief when I realized I was not going to die and could even watch the end of the movie, this was a terrible experience for me. I have never felt I was going to die before and it is the worst moment I have had in my life. I think to say that the sensations and my reaction and fear were unwarranted would be a false assumption: I am not prone to illnesses of any kind and have never felt space motion sickness before, so from my point of view this had to be something very serious. If the theater design with seats to close to the screen was a mistake then AMC Fenway 13 should not sell seats so close to the screen. Perhaps a compromise would be to treat the front rows separately and to warn customers in those rows of this possibility and the symptoms and sell tickets severely discounted in those rows. If I had been aware of those symptoms, I would never have thought that I was going to die. I like movies, so, beyond addressing the problem as some of the ideas above, for me personally a non-transferrable lifetime pass or something, would be a no-cost way for AMC Fenway 13 to compensate me for what I went through.

-- Thank you,
Tom

Thomas (name removed), (MIT ’93, 94, 00)
PhD student, MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics
Captain, USAF Reserve, Air Force Research Laboratory
Electromagnetic Scattering Computation
(phone number removed) (website address removed)

(mailing address removed)

Does anyone working for AMC know if this guy got himself a "lifetime pass"? This letter reads to me like someone just trying to scam free movies.

Hey Tom, if no-one else will say it, I will... Here's one for you pal... head!!!!!!
 

Here is an article I found about Space Motion Sickness:
http://www.sciencemaster.com/jump/space/motion.php

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"Asleep at the switch? I wasn't asleep, I was drunk!" - Homer Simpson
 

On the other hand, if I had to sit at or near the front of a theatre due to no other seats being available, I would ask for my money back anyway.
 

Maybe he had some bad chineese food or something? Were there other people in the front row that didn't get sick? What if they DO give him a lifetime pass and he gets sick again, would he want another and another? It's people like this that give us Thomases a bad name.

=TMP=
 

Besides, if he got space motion sickness, it is becuase he has the genetic tendency to get it, and that is not anyone elses fault but his parents.

Dave
 

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Find me online
AOL: Dexter Caldwell
yahoo!: dexter_caldwell

"It is the opinion of the entire staff the Dexter is criminally insane."
 

There are simply too many variables to blame it on the theatres design. Did the guy complain to the management when he left or did he just write in later? I'd love to be the manager who received that one.

Guy was probably too embarassed to conclude anything else (ie. drunk or ate too much damn food...) didn't want to admit it.
 

The bourne identity is a fine effort, but nothing to crow about. If you are filling up the seats this long after it has opened, then I tip my hat to you. You must have a good operation going.

But my opinion still stands. Even if it was sold out, I am betting he got there early enough to choose where he could sit. The front row is usually empty until the last moment, and if that was the case, tough luck buddy. But if he chose to sit there, and then had problems, he is truly a moron. Most people who are all beered up, as I suspect he may have been, don't really have the ability to tell how close they are until it is too late.

Dave

-Claude

For all of you people out there who truly believe this letter is on the level .....please send me $10..00 and I will mail you a deed to the Brooklyn Bridge. Don't worry it will be as ligit as the letter.
 

As others have said, someone with his "credentials" should have known better.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Anyway, I would have a tendency to get a bit dizzy or nauseous if watching the wrong type of movie from too close. It has happened on a couple of occasions, but I was able to look away from the image for a bit to avoid it being a problem.

If I did keep getting nauseous during a movie and I felt it were due to the way the movie was filmed, if it were in a theatre where I knew the manager, I would not ask for a refund or pass, but I would mention the fact that the movie made me nauseous and if a pass were offered, I'd take it. I talk to some of the managers on a frequent basis and some of them know me and know I would not try to scam them. Fortunately, I've never had a problem with a movie that moving farther from the screen didn't solve.

I avoided Blair Witch because I knew I'd likely have a problem in that one. A manager told me he had many people vomit because of that one.

At the IMAX Space Dome showing of "Wings of Courage", the views from the plane while flying made me dizzy and I had to look away for a while and I was OK.

The key is "be sensible". Don't exaggerate or keep saying "I felt like I was going to die". Being sensible and believable is very important when writing letters of complaint.

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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Information Site

quote:

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The letter actually had legitimate contact information on the guy and I looked around a bit on the internet to check up on him. Everything about this guy does indeed point to a Phd from MIT. Guess it doesn't mean quite what it used to.

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It could be the case of an egotistical person using his credentials/position for leverage hoping for a better outcome in his favor.

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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Information Site
 

As for me, I like sitting front row center unless I want to sit with someone who doesn't like front row center. I like to be able to feel vibrations from the center speaker being crammed up my nose. (this explains the picture) I like to see movies on screens big enough that when I'm sitting front/center, the movie fills my whole vision. I have never thrown up from a movie, but I thought I was going to after the bodyworks ride at Epcot (I think this is why they have food available as soon as you get off of the ride, so you can weigh down the bottom of your stomach as it trys to become the first live human organ in outer space minus it's owner).
 

I service this theatre. Sounds like he was in #12 or 13. If this wimp is so concerned with health and safety, then why in the heck was he sitting out in the aisle, posing a hazard to people could've broken their necks falling over him?! Further, if this is so common, and he's evidently an expert in the topic, why didn't he immediately recognize the symptoms?

No, this is just the ranting of a selfish, selfish person who probably didn't like the movie and wants something for nothing.

Besides, if he did have such a motion sickness episode, it wasn't because he was too close to the screen, it was because of the Cinemeccanicas!

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Better Projection Pays!