It’s Oscar season at the movies. The period between late August and Thanksgiving when studios release plot-driven movies that will become prime Oscar competitors come January.

Essentially, where studios focus more on pleasing consumers during the summer blockbuster season, they focus more on critics during the fall season.

But as the biggest box office hit and critical success of the 2013 Oscar season, “Gravity” is disproving the notion that consumers and critics still have divergent tastes.

The movie is about a pair of scientists stranded in space. Like most blockbusters, “Gravity” appeals to a wide audience because it’s a technological masterpiece, despite its superficial plot. Unlike most blockbusters in the past, it appeals to critics for the same reason.

Director Alfonso Cuaron’s science fiction thriller has made $199.8 million since its Oct. 4 release, and was No. 1 at the box office for its first three weekends.

“Gravity” is also the favorite for the Best Picture award. It was listed as the top contender in recent forecasts by IMDb, Indiewire and Grantland.

So when did highbrow movie critics learn to think like consumers? The answer dates back to 2009.

That year, with “Avatar,” director James Cameron utilized unprecedented stereoscopic imaging to create a movie theater experience like nothing that came before it. “Avatar” rode a record-setting box office run to a Best Picture nomination in spite of a superficial story.

Utilizing similar capabilities, “Inception” rode its box office success to a Best Picture nomination the next year, also in spite of a superficial story.

When “Life of Pi” followed suit in 2012, it became clear that the theater experience is just as important to critics and the academy as the story behind a movie.

This is because these movies are redefining the theater experience at a time when it desperately needs a transformation.

Attendance has declined in recent years because ticket prices have soared and consumers have realized that plot-driven movies play just as well on a television, laptop or tablet.

Directors like Cuaron and Cameron have responded by using the unprecedented capabilities of digital technology to offer a theater experience that we cannot get anywhere else.

To transform the industry, the academy should legitimize their efforts with Oscar nominations and eventual victories. If they don’t, the theater experience will become obsolete and take the cinema industry down with it.

There is an overarching trend at play here between movies and television. The divide is becoming less about movies versus television and more about the theater experience versus the story experience.

A story can be equally riveting through any medium. This helps explain the current golden age of television, when plot-driven movies are just as prominent as shows. A cinematic movie now has to be an experience, not just a great story, to be worth the price of admission.

It’s not hard to envision a future in which most movie theaters are Imax and most plot-driven films are released on premium or streaming channels like HBO and Netflix.

As much as the academy would loathe admitting this, it’s also not hard to envision an eventual fusion of the Oscars and the Emmys based on these trends.

But before we look too far down the line, let’s come back to the near future. If “Gravity” wins a Best Picture award in February, it will be the biggest affirmation yet that critics and the academy are starting to value the theater experience as much as consumers.

As the experience usurps the story, studios won’t have to worry about sacrificing earnings or acclaim based on when they release a movie. Essentially, every season will become Oscar season.

Jarrad Saffren is a senior political science major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at jdsaffre@syr.edu.

Published on October 30, 2013 at 2:10 am