Is 3D The Right Future For Film?

For those of you unfamiliar with this blue beauty you'd be forgiven for thinking that it was just some animated porn from Japan. What you would not be forgiven for is not knowing about Avatar. Due out on December 18th it is set to change the world of cinema. Supposedly. Only time will truly tell if James Cameron can do it. After all, this is the man who made Terminator, and T2: Judgment Day. Not to mention Aliens, that genius of a film, so he has a good chance of pulling it off.


But really, is 3D it? Is it the future? How long have people been saying something akin to this? Forty, fifty, sixty years?

Sure, there have been advancements made. Most notably the glasses; they're no longer as fragile as a dry shit and don't kill your head with migraines and headaches. But that doesn't mean they're good. In fact research says, very explicitly, that those headaches are never going away, though they might feel less brutal. One explanation for the pains and eyestrains lies with the unnatural eye movements 3D needs from its viewers.

In the real world our eyes move in two distinct ways when we see something move toward us; firstly, our eyeballs look inward towards the nose, thus the closer the target comes, the more cross-eyed we become. Secondly, we squeeze the lenses in our eyes to change their shape and keep the target in focus. Without these two movements, we can't see the way we do. We need both movements or we lose focus. Now, when 3D comes into play, things start to go a little wrong.

This pretty much sums up everything to come.


Something different happens when you're watching three dimensional motion projected onto a flat surface. When a helicopter flies off the screen in Monsters vs. Aliens, our eyeballs rotate inward to follow it, as they would in the real world. Naturally, our eyes want to make a corresponding change in shape, to shift their plane of focus. If that happened, though, we'd be focusing our eyes somewhere in front of the screen, and the movie itself, which is projected on the screen, would go a little blurry.

So we end up making one eye movement but not the other in order for us to see the image being projected pop out of the screen.This extremely odd movement, going against every biological urge our bodies have, is what caused eye-strain before, and what will continue to cause it in the future. There's no way around this, it's inevitable. It is what has to be done for 3D to work. As promised Dreamworks are now producing all their films in 3D. Other companies are following suit; 3D is spreading. It can only be a matter of years before 3D TVs are marketable. It'll be just like when colour came to TVs all those long years ago. Except this time the chances are that rather than simply sitting on its arse, your body is going to adapt, as only a human body can, and try to re-adjust to the 3D strain meaning when you pull off those 3D glasses after your two hour plus screening of Avatar, or watching another omnibus of soaps, you will actually have to give yourself time to relearn, if you will, how to look at the real world. Just when 3D became pain free, the real world starts hurting.

So what's the long term damage? I mean, this all sounds very repairable doesn't it.? After all, if it can adapt one way it can adapt the other and we only see a 3D film once every five-seven months maybe? Sure, that sounds great. Until you remember that we will probably have 3D TVs within the next decade. How much TV do your kids watch? If you're American it could be anywhere up to four hours a day. Consider all that in eye twisting 3D. There's a reason there are drinking limits, and it's not to keep kids from having fun; it's to allow their vital organs to develop properly and become strong and healthy. Similarly their eyes are developing constantly throughout their youth, and when so much of that is spent looking at something which changes your body in such a biologically incorrect way, who knows what could be done to their vision. There's already been one published study, from the late 80s, of a 5-year-old Japanese child who became permanently cross-eyed after viewing an anaglyph 3-D movie at a theater.

Painful doesn't even to cover what looking at that thing does to you, but when you put on those glasses, you're forcing your eyes to see that image. The glasses are just pain meds taken when you've broken your leg. The leg's still broken, you're just not feeling the pain just yet.

But even forgetting all that. Let's look at the reasoning behind having 3D in place of what was, and is, the perfectly serviceable 2D system still in place in the majority of cinemas and in all homes. Are we really missing out that much when something is in 2D? 3D was always a gimmic. It was there to make you duck and doge projectiles and flailing limbs. Outside of that, where does the extra dimension give us anything more? Do we get a better story? No. Do we get a more involved experience? No. More emotional depth? No. So what do we get? Well, it looks 3D. "It's like you can reach out and touch the characters." "It feels like you're looking through a window into that world!" That would be the basic logic behind this wouldn't it? I mean, it's the physical presence of the characters that 3D offers us as viewers.

And after this new wave? Well the only natural development would be to make 3D without the glasses. However, this then allows cameras in cinemas to spread copies of the film online again, so what are the chances the film companies are going to let that development happen? Slim I'd say. You know, I've seen 3D like that before though. I've seen that level of physical immersion that the execs and filmmakers are trying to achieve. And I've seen it without any stupid glasses (except for my own which I have for my short sightedness, though personally I think they're quite nice and suit me well). Lies? No no, only the truth here. What 3D promised, and promises still. has been delivered so very long ago.

Yeah. In theatre. It's almost like you can reach out and touch them. Which you can. 'Cause it's right there in front of you. And it even feels like you're in the room with them. Theatre has the ultimate 3D experience. And is that what film wants to be like? Is that what audiences really want? Is that what you want? You may say that theatre requires the audience to suspend disbelief in order to buy into the experience, but surely film requires just as much suspension to believe men dressed in tights? For those of you who are sick of the same Hollywood popcorn crap, does theatre, the anti-thesis of Hollywood in many regards, not offer the story and character driven plot you so desire, along with the promise of Real3D?

Does film need 3D? No. Is it even a good thing to have pushed on you (as it inevitably will be eventually)? Given research so far, no. Perhaps this is the wrong direction for film makers to be taking. After all, it could end up a serious health hazard and thus a giant bust. Can your eyes handle the rash of 3D films heading our way in the next four years and beyond? Let alone the half a dozen 'must see' Disney-Pixar films coming up there's also the blockbusters which will undoubtedly end up in 3D (Spiderman 4 is just one of those apparently).

Is 3D worth it?

Talk to ya later.