3D Movies

[beck_liz]

As some of you may know, Roger Ebert has been on kind of a crusade against the recent upswing in 3D movies. He's got a blog post recently about how dim many movies are these days, even if they are 2D. Apparently, there's a reason for that.I had Friday off, and was in the mood to watch a movie at the theater. However, there was nothing new out that

Comments

[killabeez]

I saw Avatar in 3D, and it was the last 3D movie I went to. I figured if it wasn't worth it for Avatar (and for me, it wasn't) then I wasn't going to support the trend.

[beck_liz]

I wondered. Everyone gushed about how wonderful it was, but I had my doubts.

[_thirty2flavors]

I severely dislike 3D and would be all too happy if this trend would stop. I find it distracting, the glasses are annoying, it gives me a headache, etc. There is no benefit at all for me. A 20-minute 3-D+effects thing like they do at Disney is one thing and that's fun, but a full 2 hour movie with painful glasses for no benefit? No thanks.

[beck_liz]

Well, and that's the thing. The glasses don't work all that well for people WHO ALREADY HAVE GLASSES. If they ever figured out the kind of hologram-like 3D that is currently only found in science fiction which don't need special equipment beyond the projector, I could go for it. But as it is, it's uncomfortable and boring and does nasty things to the picture quality.

[larissa_j]

I saw Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince in 3-D and only the first part of the film was in 3-D. I was so relived when they switched to 2-D. 3-D works as a migraine trigger because for some reason I can't reconcile the images. I see two distinct images just slightly out of sync. I spend a majority of the time trying to line up the images and missing the action. Plus, as you said, the image is washed out. It's incredibly annoying.

Plus, you can tell just by looking at the glasses that the image is going to be slightly washed out. They're grey which will affect the brightness of the image you're viewing especially since you're in a darkened movie theater. Who came up with this idea?

[beck_liz]

3-D was not quite a migraine trigger for me, but if I had already had a headache coming on, I'm sure it would have exacerbated it. As it was, I had to remove the 3-D glasses a number of times because of how it was bothering me.

Who came up with this idea?

Good question. What I really want is proper Star Trek: TNG type 3-D with holograms (or whatever) and no glasses.

[rahirah]

Special effects ALWAYS take second place to story for me. I wouldn't be surprised if eventually it becomes an industry standard, but it's not a selling point for me in and of itself.

[beck_liz]

Sometimes truly awesome special effects help a lagging movie for me, but for the most part I'm with you on that.

[bulleteyes]

I wear glasses and saw Avatar in 3D 3 times (husband wanted to go more than once).

The 3D was astonishing. It was also the first 3D film I had ever seen. Ever. In that particular new, state-of-the-art theatre it literally looked like things were whirling and moving all around me. I don't know if it would appear that dramatically in an older theatre.

Given the beauty woven all through the film I'd easily see it again without the 3D.

I'd also easily see it in a second run theatre for a more reasonable price.

I read a quote from Jeffrey Katzenberg when 3D first began. He said (paraphrase) "If the industry is going to give the public 3D films we had better make good ones or we are breaking their trust in our willingness to give them a good bang for their buck." That told me even then a major inside player could foresee the whole thing going downhill very rapidly.

[beck_liz]

That told me even then a major inside player could foresee the whole thing going downhill very rapidly.

Iiiinteresting. It sounds like a lot of times they'll convert to 3-D on the cheap just to get the extra revenue, and well. You get what you pay for, after all.