3D and Cinema

How many of us enjoy going to the movies? I know I do. To me, going to the movies is akin to going to church. I love the moment the lights go dim for the first previews, and the second dimming for the feature presentation, which is followed by a hush.

Nowadays, there seems to be one trend that movie studios seem to be embracing: going 3D. It seems every big movie that is being released in this era of cinema is Three Dimensional. Features like this include Toy Story 3, Up, and the final Harry Potter films. And classic movies are being re-released in this same style, as well, looking at Titanic, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, or Finding Nemo. Alfred Hitchcock even experimented with 3D while releasing Dial M for Murder, common among 1950s cinema as they experimented with 3D, but the practice eventually disappeared. But I’m sure all of us remember screening the film which is considered to be the Citizen Kane equivalent of three dimensional films: James Cameron’s Avatar.

Now, I’m sure many of us would argue over the critical quality of Avatar’s plot, as it seems similar to a million other movies, such as Pocahontas, or Dances with Wolves, and I can only hope the second one isn’t a copy of Ben-Hur or Gladiator. But the fact remains that this film revolutionized the word of 3D cinema. Cameron had already changed the world of special effects when he released Titanic back in 1997, which won him three Oscars, including Best Director and Best Picture, but it’s hardly compatible with Avatar. This 2009 film separated itself from others that had flirted with 3D by including strong and emotional performances, in contrast to hokey movies such as Spy Kids 3-D or Journey to the Center of the Earth, both of which received negative reviews.

Cameron had also waited for an extensive period of time to begin production on Avatar, having originally written the script in the 1990s, but he refrained from filming, due to his awareness that the technology needed for this film was not available, and if he wanted to release it within a few years after completing the script, he would have to film with regular actors in blue makeup. But just like George Lucas and his revolutionary film Star Wars, Cameron decided to end the waiting process and create the technology, himself, by building new cameras that would finally bring the feature into production. Despite all the hype that surrounded the film before, during, and after its theatrical run, Cameron stressed that the attention should not be paid to the effects, but the story, saying: “The irony with Avatar is that people think of it as a 3D film and that's what the discussion is. But I think that, when they see it, the whole 3D discussion is going to go… technology is advanced enough to make itself go away. That's how it should work. All of the technology should wave its own wand and make itself disappear.”

            After the initial success of 3D in primary release and re-release, many others began to copy the methods of Cameron and company, including legend Martin Scorsese for his family film, Hugo, and Steven Spielberg for The Adventures of Tintin. Cameron also criticized the practice of re-releasing classic films in 3D, saying in an interview with Mike Fleming of Deadline.com: “After Toy Story, there were 10 really bad CG movies because everybody thought the success of that film was CG and not great characters that were beautifully designed and heartwarming… Now, you’ve got people quickly converting movies from 2D to 3D, which is not what we did.”

            There are many other filmmakers out there who have been resisting the movement towards 3D. Most notably is Christopher Nolan, behind his Batman trilogy and Inception, which he filmed in IMAX, rather than 3D. When presenting his justification for such a practice, he said: “I think it's a misnomer to call it 3D versus 2D. The whole point of cinematic imagery is it's three dimensional... You know 95% of our depth cues come from occlusion, resolution, color and so forth, so the idea of calling a 2D movie a '2D movie' is a little misleading.”

            Today, it seems that every major blockbuster film is being released in 3D, as one could imagine the producers are seeking to bring more people to the theaters to see their film, therefore bringing in a few extra bucks. I don’t condemn the practice of making a few extra bucks, sometimes you need to do that in order to pay for everything that you are doing. My personal belief is that this is a pointless practice, as I have not been impressed by 3D films as an adult, in contrast to when I saw 3D films at museums and aquariums as a child. I even remember seeing first two installments of The Hobbit and taking my glasses off for a few scenes because I felt like I was getting the better end of the deal by doing such a practice. What is to become of the future of cinema, in the light of this 3D revolution? It looks like the movie industry will continue with this practice, as it definitely brings more people to the theaters, but I just hope that this doesn’t mean that we are going to see the end of storytelling and the beginning of “effects only” cinema.

Wrenn, Eddie. "Avatar: How James Cameron's 3D Film Could Change the Face of Cinema Forever." Mail Online. Associated Newspapers, 26 Aug. 2009. Web. 23 Mar. 2014.

"Jim Cameron: "Avatar" A Dream Come True." CBSNews. CBS Interactive, 19 Nov. 2009. Web. 23 Mar. 2014.

"Christopher Nolan’s Dim View of a Hollywood Craze: ‘I’m Not a Huge Fan Of 3-D’." Hero Complex Movies Comics Pop Culture Los Angeles Times. N.p., 13 June 2010. Web. 23 Mar. 2014.