When Jaws came out in 1975, the nation screamed in terror. We went to the theatre in droves but we avoided the beach. The Great White Shark came into our lives and it changed movies forever as the first summer blockbuster.

If you rent the movie now, it’s still scary but hardly believable. It was a big mechanical shark and it moved liked a big mechanical shark. As a moviegoer, we wanted to believe it was real. We wanted to go there with Spielberg.

Think back to Jurassic Park in 1993. Most of you probably saw it. I don’t know about you, but those dinosaurs looked real. They were roaming the earth and I was in awe.

If you rent the movie now, it’s not too believable. It looks like early computer animation. The dinosaurs look fake, the background looks fake, it all looks fake. Except for the Jurassic Park waterfalls, which happened to be real.

Now we have Avatar and we’re all falling for it again. Oh sure, it is stunning and looks like nothing we’ve ever seen before. But in another 15 years will this 3-D technology look dated? Who knows? For now, I’m buying it.

The point is that we want to be transported. We want to believe. The reason that magic is so powerful has very little to do with the magician and everything to do with the audience. I want to believe what’s possible. Don’t you?