From the Necessity of Film Closure to Inherent VR Wideness

Film is a “closed” medium, so narrative closure is a necessity; VR is a “wideness” medium, so narrative completeness is not vital. In this paper, we would like to analyse the purposes of narrative film closure in terms of the viewer and explore VR “wideness” effects within user emotions, to demonstrate that “wideness” eliminates the necessity of closure through continuous engagement and gratification. From this exploration we allege that VR narrative forms must grant less attention to closure and focus most on their new capacity for “wideness”.