Thread: The case against 3D in movies and the case against the case against 3D in movies.

Author's Note:

The long title is intentional. Wrote this recently after watching my first 3D movie in the theaters. Once again it's completely unedited work. Suggestions are welcome, edits are highly appreciated.

This is going to be one of those issues that I cannot bring myself to sit on either side of the fence. Hence I find myself sitting on the nasty place that I have so often criticized the occupants of. I am speaking of course about the issue of the latest in entertainment technology - the realm of three dimensional entertainment or 3D.

The world today is being gripped by the 3D phenomenon ever since it became accessible to the public. Movies have gone 3D almost across the board, television is starting to move towards that phase now in trying to bring 3D straight to your couch, the world of sports is trying to figure out how to adopt the 3D concept, pretty soon we’re going to be immersed in 3D culture from head to toe.

I used to mock the whole idea of a 3D movie. I remember having those 3D ‘movie experience’ gimmicks at theme parks where they’d sit you in this dome and plonk those terrible blue and red plastic spectacles on you and have random clips of things being hurled towards you purely for the effect of it. There was not an actual story or plot to any of it, so it was, by my definition, a complete gimmick.

Skip forward a couple of years and literally every movie is now in 3D. I continued to mock the idea as being nothing more than a gimmick, a tool to straddle deeper into our wallets and grab our cash. I firmly believed that the entire 3D ordeal added no extra entertainment value to any movie and if a movie wasn’t good on it’s own, 3D wasn’t going to make it any better and in the same respect, a movie that’s good won’t be made worse by the absence of it. A movie was driven by the characters and plot, the story and the fantasy, the conflicts and the climaxes, none of which would be enhanced in any way by the novelty of 3D.

These views were made out of pure ignorance. I’d never watched a 3D movie before and refused to do so based on these principles. I wouldn’t pay money for a gimmick. I was paying for entertainment. And since they added nothing to the entertainment factor, I would do without them while the world was foolishly shelling out more money for something that wasn’t worth it.

But then I did. For the first time in my life, I actually paid the extra dough for something which I had classified as utterly useless. While I do retain my original opinions regarding the new wave of 3D movies, I found myself making the case against the case I had originally made.

At first glance, sitting there watching the film with those new bulky 3D goggles on, the effects were superb. They were almost seamlessly integrated into the movie and certainly the idea of depth on the silver screen did seem quite amazing. Thirty minutes into the film though I had completely forgotten that I was watching it in 3D. My eyes and brain started to adjust to the look of the 3D film and I was still attracted to the story and the characters and stuff rather than the effect itself.

While this at first seems to solidify my earlier arguments, I began to realise the nature of the 3D gimmick in movies today. It just isn’t a gimmick any more. It’s just like every other technological advance that we’ve grown accustomed to now like surround sound or Dolby Digital. Or colour. Or sound.

And each time one of those new pieces of technology made it’s way into the world, they certainly raised the cost for producing them and in turn increased the cost of purchasing the entertainment they graced. While some may have made a larger impact on the way stories are told on the screen, some are certainly on the same par of purpose as the 3D addition. And we’ve embraced them and they’ve just become an integral part of the movies we watched.

And sure enough, you still have people today who say that the only real movies are in black and white because they don’t have anything to distract from the story. It’s story telling in its purest form. It does sound very similar to my argument regarding 3D.

The world will continue to move on. The extra cost will be paid, not because it’s a gimmick but because it has become the new addition to the parts that make up a film on the silver screen. There will be bands of resistance with people like me who simply cannot accept that the world has moved on to the next level, but not one of our opinions will matter. 3D will just become an integral part of our entertainment and we’ll just have to learn to accept it, even if we do have to grumble about it every now and then.

“Remember the good old days when television was in two dimensions?”

I remember a 3D movie or two in the '50s, but I was not aware of any being produced today.

Too many directors or producers are still stuck in the "Oh wow we can throw things at the audience with 3D!" mentality. Thus the effects are bland and gimmicky. Then you have movies like Avatar which, while not being groundbreaking plot-wise, used more of a diorama style of 3D as opposed to a pop-up book. As such, combined with the quality of CG, it was hailed as one of the best-looking films in recent history, or depending on who you ask, ever.

I've formed the opinion that 3D shouldn't be used to pull the world of the film out into the audience, but rather pull the audience into the world of the film. It's supposed to be about immersion after all, isn't it?

As for edits, I didn't catch any glaring errors aside from your use of "literally" in the beginning of paragraph four. Literally is becoming a nonsense word because people insist on using it incorrectly, and it literally makes me cringe every time. Pet peeve of mine, I know, but please never do this.

Well spotted ODaly. I've found this to be a bad habit of mine. Still takes a while to stop myself from doing it though. I'll swap it out for 'practically' or something.

Cheers.

Hi K3ng,

Humble suggestions:

This is going to be one of those issues that I cannot bring myself to sit on either side of the fence.
This is one of those contentious/difficult/? issues, with two points of view, and I cannot decide which side of the fence I am on.

Hence I find myself sitting on the nasty place that I have so often criticized the occupants of.
Hence I find myself sitting in that nasty place, the occupants of which I have so often criticized.

The world today is being gripped by the 3D phenomenon ever since it became accessible to the public.
The world has been gripped by the 3D phenomenon.

Yes I agree, like the music industry with digital/techno music, the film industry must learn to "play" this new instrument called "3D".

Thanks for a really enjoyable and most interesting essay.

Ian (smile)

Hey thanks for the edits Ian, greatly appreciated. It's stuff like that I'm really horrible at.

Cheers.

Originally Posted by ODaly

I've formed the opinion that 3D shouldn't be used to pull the world of the film out into the audience, but rather pull the audience into the world of the film. It's supposed to be about immersion after all, isn't it?

Speaking of Avatar, I watched it twice, once in 3D and again on a regular format.
Didn't really notice too much of a difference. I honestly spotted three short bits that 3D projection was being used, the rest was more or less the same. The extra money and looking dorky with thick glasses definitely wasn't work it.