A Theater Tried to Make 30 ‘Interstellar’ Fans Forget the Movie With Hypnosis. Did It Work?

Ask me if I’d like to sit in a theater and see Jurassic Park or Terminator 2 for the first time again, and my immediate answer is yes. Of course. Ask me if I’d be willing to give up the memory of seeing either one to get that feeling back? That’s where you lose me.

IGN’s post put this one on my radar. On November 9, the Dutch cinema chain Pathé tried a version of that idea with 30 movie fans in The Hague. The shortlist included The Matrix, Se7en, La La Land and Interstellar. They went with Interstellar. Participants had an individual hypnosis session online, then a group session at the theater just before the lights went down. The hope was that a familiar movie might feel new for an evening. An actual memory wipe would be a pretty fucked-up price to pay for a ticket.

So did it work? Sort of. One fan who’d seen Interstellar four or five times told the BBC’s Global News Podcast, “There were some scenes that I could still remember, but most of the scenes I did forget.” He remembered the ending. What surprised him was how strongly he felt the shock of certain scenes again. Another fan, on his sixth viewing, said he felt calmer watching it but still knew the plot.

Would I love to sit in a theater and feel what I felt the first time I saw Jurassic Park or Terminator 2? Fuck yes. And I get why somebody would want to see Se7en again without knowing what’s in the box. But the longer I think about what I’d have to forget to get that first viewing back, the less I want to do it.

When I think about Jurassic Park, I remember who I was with, what it felt like to be in that theater, the high I was still riding after I walked out. And then there was the whole obsession that followed: collecting whatever I could get my hands on, fighting to rent the damn thing at Blockbuster, finally getting my own copy, and being able to watch it whenever I wanted. That’s part of what I’m getting back every time I revisit one of these movies. I love remembering how much it meant to me just to own the tape.