A Man in His 50s Goes to See Avatar

趣味・体験・その他/ Hobbies, Experiences & More

Less emotion, more experience.

Reading time: about 3 minutes

Who this is for

  • People wondering what to do on a rainy weekday off
  • Movie lovers who don’t get moved as easily as they used to
  • Netflix users who haven’t been to a theater in a while
  • Fellow people who worry about bathroom breaks during long movies (you know who you are)

Conclusion

Avatar is less about the story—and more about the experience.

Let me say this upfront:
Today isn’t a story about being deeply moved.
 It’s a story about the bathroom. (Seriously.)

To be honest, Avatar wasn’t a movie I was dying to see.
It was a weekday off, it was raining, and I knew that if I stayed home, I’d probably just waste the day.
That kind of low-energy morning.

Then I remembered Avatar.
I knew the name, of course—but I’d never really watched it.
Blue people, kind of reptile-like… honestly, not my thing.

Still, I thought,
“If I’m going, I might as well do it properly.”
So I chose 3D and paid a little extra for a better seat.

The battle with my bladder begins

Here’s the problem: the runtime is almost three hours.
For a man in his 50s, the battle with your bladder starts before the movie even begins.

I cut back on drinks.
I ate a light meal.
I went to the bathroom right before the screening.

“Perfect,” I thought.

And then—somehow—I felt the urge again.
Why does that always happen?
Seriously.

Becoming a strange man from the near future

I put on the 3D glasses—on top of my regular glasses.
The nose pads started to hurt immediately.

I glanced at my phone camera and saw my reflection.
There I was: a strange man from the near future.

“Well, whatever,” I told myself.
And the movie started.

More attraction than story

To be honest, I didn’t fully follow the story.
Too many names.
Too many unfamiliar terms.
At some point, I couldn’t even tell who was related to whom.
And everyone was blue.

The young romance didn’t really hit me either.

And when you’re thinking,
“If I go to the bathroom now, I lose,”
you’re clearly not 100% immersed in the story.

But still—

When the characters flew through the sky,
I found myself gripping the armrests.

The underwater scenes were so intense
I half-expected water to splash onto me.

The sound was loud.
The screen was huge.
It felt like my entire field of vision was being pulled into another world.

This wasn’t just a movie.
 It was more like an amusement park ride.

The movie theater as an experience

Even on a rainy day, without traveling far,
you can experience a completely different world at a local movie theater.

At home, this movie wouldn’t work the same way.
If it were on Netflix, I doubt I’d say,
“Alright, let’s watch Avatar today.”

At home, you pause.
You check your phone.
You lose focus.

That’s when I realized something important:
This movie isn’t meant to be carefully analyzed.

It only truly works
in a dark theater,
with overwhelming sound and visuals,
when you surrender yourself to the experience.

The biggest moment of relief

When the movie ended and I stood up—
the lightness in my steps as I headed to the bathroom.

That sense of relief might have been the most emotional moment of the day.

I wouldn’t say, “I was deeply moved.”
But if someone asked, “Was it worth going?”
I’d say, “Yeah, it was.”

A day that started with
“What should I even do today?”
turned into something slightly exciting
just by deciding to go to the movies.

Maybe that’s enough.

Sometimes, stepping out of the house
and letting yourself sink into the darkness of a movie theater
isn’t a bad idea.

Less emotion.
 More experience.

And that’s okay.

Let me ask you

How do you survive long movies?
If you have any good bathroom strategies,
please let me know.

Seriously.

See you next time.

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