It’s All Geek To Me — 3D or Not 3D
Pop quiz, hotshot. What do Avatar, My Bloody Valentine, and Jaws 3 all have in common? If you said they’re all paler copies of films that came before them, congratulations for taking the road less traveled. If you said they were all screened in 3D, congratulations on having read the title of this post. But even more than that, I submit that the 3D-ness of these projects was marketed to the public as a selling point as much as, if not more than, the content of the films themselves.
Gimmickry, of course, is nothing new to Hollywood. Do a little reading about the awesome William Castle movies of the ‘50s and you’ll learn all about the shock buzzers, piped-in smells, inflatable skeletons, and even insurance policies he used in the real world to enhance enjoyment of his schlock horror fests. I even have vague memories of a choose-your-own-adventure movie experiment in the ‘80s, when at certain points the film stopped and asked the audience to vote which way the plot should go, using controllers that were provided in each seat.
3D movies themselves have been around for more than half a century, ever since Robert Stack danced with lions in 1952’s Bwana Devil. During most of the peaks and troughs of its popularity, 3D has been touted as a major selling point, even being used as the raison d’etre for a 1981 masterpiece called Comin’ At Ya!. When I say masterpiece, I don’t actually mean masterpiece.
Recently 3D has been added to certain action, horror, and CG animated films as kind of a cool alternative, released in conjunction with normal 2D versions. In this way it hasn’t been force fed to the movie-going public as much. That is, until Avatar.
While James “King of the World” Cameron didn’t see fit to “sully”(heh) the actual title of his Smurfy opus with the term “3D”, so much of the pre-release press about the film centered on the revolutionary techniques he and his crew implemented and even invented during shooting that he may as well have. And now, since Avatar is poised to make more money than anything in human existence, Hollywood is scrambling to capitalize on its success by slapping that final dimension on anything that moves at 30 frames a second. The funny thing is that very few of these films, if any, will be using that sophisticated technology used in Avatar to better the experience. Yes, we’ve come a long way from the flimsy blue-and-red glasses, but for the most part these will all use the same gray-scale polarized method we’ve already seen.
It’s a process that works well, but there are many downsides to this new 3D craze, not the least of which is that ticket prices just leapt towards the stratosphere for the privilege of having Harry and Voldemort duke it out on your lap. The sudden rush to 3D has lead to the post-production conversion of several films that weren’t originally meant to be seen that way, like the now-infamous Clash of the Titans print which appeared blurry, colorless, and had all the disproportionate limbs of a Picasso. With studio interest in 3D kicking into high gear, new screenplays are being altered, and even rejected, based solely on the possibility of shooting them with 3D in mind. Do we really want the content of our films to be dictated by such surface considerations (even more than they already are)? The director of the Nightmare on Elm Street remake, Samuel Bayer, bravely stood up to New Line recently and refused to convert it as they wished, saying essentially that his film was shot in 2D, and that is wasn’t meant to be shown otherwise. Certain studies are also showing that extended exposure to moving 3D imagery can be harmful.
So what is the big deal? Is 3D more than just a gimmick? Does it truly enhance the movie-going experience to the extent that it’s worth the extra money? I’m not really sure. Avatar was certainly spectacular, but I couldn’t tell you how the new Cameron technology made a difference. If there’s a significant way in which we as the audience get that much more immersed in a film that’s in 3D, I haven’t picked up on it yet. Beyond being a child and experiencing something leap out of the screen for the first time, it’s a novelty that wears off pretty fast. Sure, there’s still that initial thrill when it hits, but 10-15 minutes into the running time, I forget I’m even watching something in 3D – though perhaps it’s working on me in ways I don’t realize.
What I actually find more of a rush is seeing films on an IMAX screen, which might hold a clue about a possible improvement for 3D technology. The thing that’s so effective about them is that the films encompass your entire field of vision, which tricks the mind into a sensory experience much more than seeing a story unfold with weight and shape but that’s still within the confines of a distant rectangle. I think the next logical step for 3D is to create a means to have the imagery surround us in the theater. Imagine little baby dragons running under your chair, or a disfigured psycho sneaking up on you from behind. How awesome would that be?
Until then, make sure to do your research into any films you choose to see, in any number of dimensions. We can’t all have James Cameron money. Unless he starts printing his own, which is a distinct possibility at this point.
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