SEATTLE — Tragedy struck today at a 4D screening of Avatar: The Way of Water when local man Mitch Edison drowned during one of the movie’s several immersive underwater sequences.
“We pride ourselves on creating a fun, interactive experience,” said Louis Moody, owner of Moody’s Roadside 4D Cinema, Bowling Alley, and Rifle Range. “This is the first time we’ve had a death here in 40 years of 4th dimensional entertainment, though we did see a lot of injuries when we showed that Volcano movie that had Tommy Lee Jones and Anne Heche in it. Lots of burns.”
Director James Cameron commented on the tragedy after hearing about Edison’s death.
“Am I happy a man died watching the movie? Of course not. All death is an affront to Eywa the mother tree,” said Cameron from the set of Avatar 3 or 4 — he wasn’t sure which. “But does this prove we’ve created a truly immersive version of Pandora that could kill a human being? You bet your ass it does. That’s what Avatar is about. These movies will fucking kill you.”
Edison’s family were heartbroken at his death, though they did find it fitting as he was an Avatar superfan.
“Mitch lived and breathed Avatar and the story of the main guy and the woman alien. Was his name Jack? Or John maybe,” said Stacy Edison, Mitch’s widow, who plans to get around to watching the series when she has the time. “He watched the first movie everyday, learned the language and everything. I don’t really get it, but when we died, we did exactly as he asked, which was to put his naked body into the fetal position and leave it by a really big tree. I think he wanted to be absorbed by the tree, but instead some garbage men came by the next day and took him.”
Moody’s Roadside 4D Cinema, Bowling Alley and Rifle Range has been closed since the death, but are hoping to be open in time for Oppenheimer, when the theater will excite viewers by setting off a nuclear explosion.
