Poll: Why do people hate 3D?
- Thread starter Olas
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Alright... so my problems with 3D.OlasDAlmighty said:
1. Manipulation. Tickets to see a 3D movie are significantly more expensive in my region than tickets to see the regular version of the same movie. A friend of mine is a manager of a local theater, and he admits that they've been making money hand-over-fist since they cut down on the number of standard showtimes in order to get people to pay for 3D tickets. Every theater in my area has followed suit.
2. Manipulation, Part 2: Electric Boogaloo. Everyone seems to point at Avatar as the champion of modern 3D films. Yet, when Avatar came out on DVD/Blu-Ray you couldn't get the 3D Blu-Ray for it. Why? Because the film distributor had a deal with Panasonic at the time. The only way to get a 3D Blu-Ray of Avatar (other than auction sites and whatnot) in my region was to buy a Panasonic 3D TV. If you bought a Sony, you were shit outta luck. I have no idea if the 3D Blu-Ray for Avatar is more readily available in retail stores now, but that was a business practice I really wasn't too fond of back then. Especially when I had to explain it to customers at my Best Buy who would inevitably be angry about the situation.
3. 3D TVs. I don't know how much this has changed, as I haven't been following the technology since I left Best Buy, but the 3D TVs we had really weren't very good for anything but 3D movies. They also forced you to buy the glasses, which were incredibly expensive for such a flimsy item. If you were going to have company over, you better hope you have enough glasses, or someone's gonna get stuck watching a blurry mess, because the TVs themselves don't come with very many pairs. They were also pretty prohibitively expensive, despite the fairly small selection of movies that actually were made for them.
4. Motion sickness, vision problems, etc. If theaters start phasing out standard showtimes, or relegating them to the "off hours," people that get ill or physically uncomfortable from watching 3D movies are going to be stuck either dealing with it or just abandoning going to theaters all together.
5. 3D Re-releases. This one might be seen as kind of petty, but I can't stand it when older movies are re-released into theaters for 3D. In many instances it sounds like the 3D either wasn't very good or simply added nothing, and was likely just an excuse to bleed more money out of fans. The biggest example I can think of for this is when Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace was re-released in 3D. There's a midnight showing review of it by the Cinema Snob that goes into quite a bit of detail about how obvious the movie was as a quick cash cow.
There's probably more that I can think of, but I'm supposed to be working right now, so I should probably pretend to do some work for a little bit.
Every instance of 3D I've come into contact with, be it the 3DS, a Best Buy setup of Avatar, or sitting through The Avengers in theatres, has given me the most MASSIVE of headaches. Now normally, I never get headaches or migraines but I can't even sit through 10 minutes of 3D. Not to mention 3D is really expensive, poorly instituted, and doesn't add any kind of immersion.
Oh by the way, I had to sit through the entirety of The Avengers 3D without my glasses because of the aforementioned reason....it was horrible.
Oh by the way, I had to sit through the entirety of The Avengers 3D without my glasses because of the aforementioned reason....it was horrible.
'eh, I can't say I'm particularly big on it. Right now it just seems like a gimmick people want to charge extra money for, if it becomes affordable (like colour did), I'd probably start seeing movies in 3D, otherwise I'll just hang onto that extra £5...
Actually, on the subject of colour, I can't help but notice a lot of films these days are basically just different shades of brown, surely we could just compromise on colour entirely and just watch them in red-cyan vision. It'd save on fancy TVs and electric glasses and whatnot... but I guess that's kinda the whole reason people are trying to sell 3D nowadays...
Presumably the driving force behind this technology is calling it "3D" because their target audience has difficulty with multisyllabic words...
Actually, on the subject of colour, I can't help but notice a lot of films these days are basically just different shades of brown, surely we could just compromise on colour entirely and just watch them in red-cyan vision. It'd save on fancy TVs and electric glasses and whatnot... but I guess that's kinda the whole reason people are trying to sell 3D nowadays...
Actually, it's not 3D at all, it's Stereoscopy (2 spaced images, think how stereo headphones have a seperate speaker for each ear, it's basically the same thing), "3D" implies the image actually has 3 dimensions (like holograms in sci-fi movies), which "3D" movies don't.Daystar Clarion said:
Presumably the driving force behind this technology is calling it "3D" because their target audience has difficulty with multisyllabic words...
Hate is a little strong but I generally dislike it yes. Why? Well...
- A 3D movie costs more yet often it's not optional.
- The glasses annoy me. (lenses too small, too dark...)
- Many people simply can't process it without going sick. Should they just be left behind?
- Even for those who can process it it's very tiring for the eyes. I'd rather not have my eyes hurt after a movie.
I'm sure there's more but that's all I can up with right now.
As for why people think it's a gimmick...
- There already was a 3D fad a few decades ago and look how that turned out. The technology may be better now but the basics are still the same.
- 3D was being hailed as the perfect answer to piracy but it's not stopping squat. This also ties in to a whole different story about ever rising cinema prices despite all sorts of "sacrifices" by the customers (like more and more commercials)
- A 3D movie costs more yet often it's not optional.
- The glasses annoy me. (lenses too small, too dark...)
- Many people simply can't process it without going sick. Should they just be left behind?
- Even for those who can process it it's very tiring for the eyes. I'd rather not have my eyes hurt after a movie.
I'm sure there's more but that's all I can up with right now.
As for why people think it's a gimmick...
- There already was a 3D fad a few decades ago and look how that turned out. The technology may be better now but the basics are still the same.
- 3D was being hailed as the perfect answer to piracy but it's not stopping squat. This also ties in to a whole different story about ever rising cinema prices despite all sorts of "sacrifices" by the customers (like more and more commercials)
My biggest issue with 3D is the eye strain it causes me, which leads sometimes to headaches, other times to severe migraines. The worst migraine of my life happened because I sat through Avatar entirely in 3D. For some reason, ever since I got my corrective eye surgery, that hasn't been as bad as an issue though. When 3D isn't giving me migraines, I only think it's appropriate to add visual depth or when it's used creatively to help evoke some sort of emotion out of a viewer (only example I know of is Coraline). When it's treated as a gimmick, it just takes me out of the experience.
Firstly, I feel the need to address the OP and say that re-releasing The Lion King in 3D did not make sense. It wasn't made for it, and there were several instances where the 3D undermined the intent of the original shot composition: Some shots using objects in the foreground (trees, rocks, etc.) to frame the action suddenly had those objects seem like the focal point in three dimensions, and other shots intended to feature multiple characters in equal amount suddenly had one character centered over all the others.
Aside from that, my problem with 3D, from an artistic standpoint, is that it undermines the idea of a film (or games for that matter) creating their own reality. When you look at a flat screen, you recognize that this is a universe separate from your own, and become wholly engrossed in it, leaving yourself behind. I remember trying out Ocarina of Time 3D and just feeling like more like I was looking into a diorama than being engrossed into another world. When we see a continuation from the world we inhabit into the world of the screen, it's more likely to feel like a fictionalized construct than it does when it exists entirely on its own plane.
Aside from that, my problem with 3D, from an artistic standpoint, is that it undermines the idea of a film (or games for that matter) creating their own reality. When you look at a flat screen, you recognize that this is a universe separate from your own, and become wholly engrossed in it, leaving yourself behind. I remember trying out Ocarina of Time 3D and just feeling like more like I was looking into a diorama than being engrossed into another world. When we see a continuation from the world we inhabit into the world of the screen, it's more likely to feel like a fictionalized construct than it does when it exists entirely on its own plane.
3D just paves the way for unnecessary scenes to be created just to show the 3D off a little so people think the extra three or four dollars they spent got them something. The majority of times these scenes just look awkward and even more so when viewing them at home, on a normal television. It disrupts what should be a fluid experience and takes me right out of the movies world.
Any time I see people complaining about 3D films, all I can think about is the introduction of color and surround sound.
I mean, what's the difference between "3D is a gimmick that works in action movies but not serious films. I mean, most of the time I don't even notice it!" and "color/sound is a gimmick that works in musicals but not serious films. I mean, what would you use it for if not people singing/big dance scenes with elaborate sets?" or "surround sound is a gimmick that works in action movies but not serious films. I mean, what are they going to do, have some guy talking behind me?"
For those who aren't well educated on how surround sound works, even serious movies with nothing but people talking are pretty heavily improved by it. While it doesn't have a lot of cars and spaceships flying behind you, it does have a lot of room ambience -- the echoes in a big room come from all around you, crickets chirping in outdoor scenes do the same thing, etc. Well done 3D is the same way. You don't always notice it when things go into the background, but it's because that's the way things are supposed to work. Things popping out of the screen is the unnatural thing that causes headaches. Done properly, though, it draws you in more even if you aren't noticing it, and if you know what you're looking for, it's definitely noticeable.
Obviously none of this applies if your complaint is "I'm blind in one eye/have a lazy eye, and it literally does not work for me." But then, should we have kept exclusively to silent films just because the deaf wouldn't be able to hear talkies? Or stuck exclusively to radio plays because the blind can't see what's going on in a movie?
I mean, what's the difference between "3D is a gimmick that works in action movies but not serious films. I mean, most of the time I don't even notice it!" and "color/sound is a gimmick that works in musicals but not serious films. I mean, what would you use it for if not people singing/big dance scenes with elaborate sets?" or "surround sound is a gimmick that works in action movies but not serious films. I mean, what are they going to do, have some guy talking behind me?"
For those who aren't well educated on how surround sound works, even serious movies with nothing but people talking are pretty heavily improved by it. While it doesn't have a lot of cars and spaceships flying behind you, it does have a lot of room ambience -- the echoes in a big room come from all around you, crickets chirping in outdoor scenes do the same thing, etc. Well done 3D is the same way. You don't always notice it when things go into the background, but it's because that's the way things are supposed to work. Things popping out of the screen is the unnatural thing that causes headaches. Done properly, though, it draws you in more even if you aren't noticing it, and if you know what you're looking for, it's definitely noticeable.
Obviously none of this applies if your complaint is "I'm blind in one eye/have a lazy eye, and it literally does not work for me." But then, should we have kept exclusively to silent films just because the deaf wouldn't be able to hear talkies? Or stuck exclusively to radio plays because the blind can't see what's going on in a movie?
Less shades of brown, more "why is everything blue and orange?" With the answer being "because they're complimentary colors and it makes things pop!"Daverson said:
Long story short, it's something that's been going on since The Matrix and Oh Brother Whereart Thou? introduced digital color correction to film in a big way. In the case of each of those movies, it was used to give a subconscious effect to the film[footnote]in The Matrix, the scenes where everyone is in the Matrix are tinted green, to look like an old monochrome computer monitor, while Oh Brother Whereart Thou? is tinted to look like an old sepia toned movie[/footnote], but in just about everything since then, it's been used to change the colors so they're more eyepopping, with the unfortunate effect that it makes everything look both unrealistic and ugly. That's why skin tones are so orange now, and everything else is so blue.
<link=http://theabyssgazes.blogspot.com/2010/03/teal-and-orange-hollywood-please-stop.html>more on the subject, with pictures
Can you tell from my last two posts that I'm a huge movie buff? XD
P.S.: You can get color with anaglyphic glasses. It's not good color, but it's not black and white, either. I've got a pair that I occasionally play videogames with.
Simple, Almost any non still image looks better in 2D, I can not think of a single non-CGI frame that looks better in 3D if it is in motion. 3D is however nice for stills or single frames, there are also in my mind 2 forms of 3D. One is gradated and has several different deaths the other (and by far most common) Has was depths being just background and foreground.