Telling stories.
3-D probably here to stay. Those who are complaining about the whiz-bang scenes designed to say “Look I’m in 3-D!!” should look at the old color movies, where everyone was dressed in bright red green and orange. Eventually the novelty wore off and people could start wearing earth tones. The 3-D movies will tone down in time too. More recent 3-D movies seem to be more tasteful in this area than those just a few years ago where every 10 minutes you had a spear pointing at your eyeball or someone spitting at your face. A few years from now, they will be more subtle still.
For those who think its going to fade out like it did before, there are two differences now. First as has already been mentioned, the quality is much better. But a second reason for the previous failure of 3D was technical. Before when movies were celluloid you had to have 2 projectors in sync to show a 3-D film. In a 2-D movie if the film broke, you could cut out the break, splice it and show the movie with a barely noticeable a hick-up. If a 3D movie broke, you would have to splice both copies identically or you would lose the effect. Now that everything is digital, this is no longer a problem.
The point he’s trying to make is that his wife was forced to pay more for a movie without being able to experience the effect that she paid for. Yes, they could have driven to a different theater that was showing in 2D, but that’s pretty lame if it’s really inconvenient and/or far away (I suppose you could argue that driving further to a theater increases the cost of watching the movie as well).
What concerns me is the trend that appears to be forming. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to see movies in 2D, and it’s pretty shitty for people who can only see with one eye, myself included so I’m admittedly biased (for those of you who don’t know, you have to be able to see with both eyes to enjoy 3D movies). I have no problem with movies being shown in 3D as long as 2D movies are also offered so I’m not forced to pay more. I guess I’ll at least get some sweet new eyewear out of the deal.
I wonder if there will eventually be designated 2D theaters where people with only one eye are forced to go to watch movies (Cyclops Cinemas?). That’s segregation! I’m mostly joking, but seriously, it wouldn’t surprise me if there is some sort of class action lawsuit at some point.
As man has done for thousands of years, since first we learned to gather around a fire. But isn’t it better when the fire is IN YOUR FACE!!!?
In that case it will will provide the same sort of crappy, headache inducing (for many, even if not you), 3D effect produced by current cinematic 3D systems.
Clearly you don’t understand holograms. Holograms would produce the same sort of parallax effects from head movements that we see in natural scenes. The problem with holograms is that the technology is a very long way from being useable for cinematographic purposes (and may never get there).
And who is talking about craning your neck to see around things? I specifically said “moving your head an inch or two,” something people quite naturally, frequently and spontaneously do whilst sitting in cinema seats (and at other times). You will soon get uncomfortable if you try to hold your head stock-still for many minutes, I can assure you. The parallax shifts produced by such small movements are quite enough to provide an impression of three dimensionality when looking at real objects in the near and middle distance. Indeed, as human eyes are typically only about two and a half inches apart, quite small head movements can (and do) provide more, and more accurate, distance information to the brain than binocular vision ever can. This is an integral part of normal three-dimensional vision (and probably plays a larger role, in most circumstances, than does binocular vision).
Sitting in a movie theater, people do spontaneously (and frequently) move their heads, and, if they are watching a 3D movie, when they do so the fake 3D information that they are being fed via their binocular-vision system is in direct conflict with the (lack of) 3D information that their brain is getting from the head movements. That is why 3D systems that depend on binocular vision effects alone can never look natural (unless you were to clamp the audiences heads still), and why some people find it positively uncomfortable.
You need to learn a lot more about how 3D vision works before you go shooting your mouth off on this topic.
If I was wrong about the Nintendo 3DS works, and it is just another 3D technology that relies entirely on binocular vision, then so much the worse for Nintendo! I predict that, like 3D movies, it will be a passing fad, because people will soon find that it looks unnatural, and many will find that if they play on it too long they will start to feel headachy or queasy.
What is interesting is that, for gaming systems as opposed to cinema, it is possible to implement 3D systems based on the tracking of head movements. (Indeed, there is an impressive video out there somewhere of this being done with a repurposed Nintendo Wii, so Nintendo already has the technology! If they are not using it, they ought to be.). If this could somehow be combined with binocular-vision based 3D technology then we would finally have something like true, natural seeming 3D. I am inclined to think, however, that even on its own, head-tracking 3D would probably feel more real, and be less annoying, than binocular 3D on its own ever can.
Is Up in 3D something that can be seen now? Or is there something you can recommend as being an exceptional use of the technology? The things I’ve seen so far have been far from impressive, but I could potentially give the 3D thing another chance if there’s something that would wow me.
Avatar was good, Saw 3D sucked. (Both the general movie and the 3D effects) I’m tired so can’t recall offhand what others I’ve seen.
I am a bit surprised to see that 3D is being defended by so many people.
All my friends and I think it’s utter nonsense that they keep bashing us over our heads with this 3D nonsense. We’ve all seen movies both ways and are all adamant in our hopes that the movie industry will eventually move back to 2D. We’re not even among those whose complaints stem from physical discomfort or inability to view a movie in 3D. Just plain old movie-goers who want it to end.
I also don’t believe the argument that 3D is what is driving people to theatres, particularly in the case of Up, Avatar, Toy Story and other high profile movies. I go to see Pixar films for the animation and storytelling. They just present better on the big screen the first time I see them.
The movie industry doesn’t need to go gimmicky again, they just need to make movies that people have a motivation to see in a theatre.
Many? Try minority. Also, the 3DS received near unanimous critical praise at its unveiling at E3–care to explain?
What don’t I understand, pray tell? Holograms aren’t difficult to understand.
The irony, coming from one who spouted plenty of nonsense i already refuted, while responding to comments that contained no factual basis for your assertion, short of perhaps some hyperbole–something you seem to be quite familiar with.
You’re cute. You all too often conflate your opinions with those of the masses, and that’s where your entire line of defense really falls apart. Let’s revisit this in a few years, when the 3DS has sold millions of systems, and again is the leader in dedicated gaming devices.
As a gamer, this seems incredibly unlikely to me. Unlike the “clutch your pearls, Eunice, they have changed the moving pictures!” people in this thread, gamers are all about image. The graphics and immersability of a game are always among the first things discussed in game reviews. It’s rare that an otherwise good game is a flop because of a crappy storyline. It’s very common for an otherwise good game to be lambasted for crappy graphics.
Video games change rapidly and are always looking for a new immersive “fix.” There was this one game I loved to play as a kid where you grew progressively more insane throughout the game, and as an indication of this your controller would start vibrating in your hands until it became impossible to do anything. It’s standard for the controllers to jump or jiggle or make noise in response to something on screen. Now game systems controlled through body movements instead of button mashing are becoming the norm. 3D is a natural extension of this sort of thing.
If the 3DS fails, it will be because they utilized the technology poorly and someone will quickly come along and improve on it. It will not fail because gamers are conservative and want nice, dull 2D images and all the one-eyed teenagers can’t appreciate 3D.
You mean like someone immediately improved on the Virtual Boy?
Even if gamers want “dull 2D images”, the 3D effect on the 3DS can be turned off completely, making it an ordinary handheld system. It’s essentially a souped up PSP with a touchscreen and 3D effects.
And Nintendo’s handheld expertise to not make the same mistakes Sony made with the PSP. There’s almost zero chance the 3DS won’t be a huge hit.
The Virtual Boy relied on parallax, was monochromatic and required you keep your face against it at all times. Comparing that to a handheld autostereoscopic device is ridiculous. The 3D technology is completely different, it isn’t attached to your face so the motion sickness is less likely, and it has other functions aside from simply playing games. A handheld device that can take 3D pictures and video, play 3D movies, is WiFi enabled, and plays 3D games with backwards compatibility is simply not comparable to the Virtual Boy which did one thing and did it badly.
Like Justin_Bailey said, the 3DS is very similar to the PSP except with extra functions which someone doesn’t have to use if they don’t want to. It’s a familiar format with new capabilities, rather than a new format that’s difficult to use.
I’m surprised by the number of people who are defending 3D and think that it is “the future”.
In real life, no-one has ever told me that they were impressed by a 3D movie. The general consensus seems to be that 3D is at best disappointing or un-noticeable, at worst headache-inducing.
If 3D is ever to become anything more than a silly marketing fad (which I doubt very much), they need to: -
- Find a way to show it without glasses
- Stop charging extra on ticket prices for it
- Most importantly, make it more impressive! I want to see things flying around the theatre and above the heads of the people in front of me!
Why? It is.
Most of the movies I’ve seen trailers for lately are “Coming in 3D”, with the exception of things like The King’s Speech which is obviously a “Worthy” period drama and not really the sort of thing you’d make in 3D at the moment. Give it a few years and I think about the only “released in theatres” films still being made in 2D will be either “Worthy” or “Arthouse” films (and that includes “Foreign” movies), or “Independent” movies.
Cinemas, as has been said, need to change with the times to keep getting bums on seats. Affordable home theatre systems and Plasma/LCD/LED TVs and Blu-Ray players mean that increasingly people think 'You know what, I’ll wait till it comes out on video and rent it then", so the movie theatres need something new to get people to come and see films there- and that’s 3D, which isn’t available for home theatres at anything like an affordable price (yet), and gives viewers (except SDMB members, it seems( a Big, Awe-Inspiring, Escapist Show- which is exactly why people go to the pictures in the first place in many, many cases.
Edited highlights: 3D’s not going anywhere. As I’ve mentioned twice already, too many people have too much money and time invested in it for it to simply “go away”.
And yet ticket sales are going up for once and people are going to see 3D movies in droves. Perhaps you don’t associate with a representative slice of the American movie-going public.
And I’m surprised there are so many 3-D bashers on this board. In real life, no one has ever told me that this current version of 3-D was just a gimmick or a fad. Some people complain that they don’t get anything out of it or that they experience discomfort, and I can empathize with them, but no one who is able to and has seen a 3-D movie in the past few years has been so dismissive.
Here’s how I think it’s going to play out.
This year has seen a lot of disappointing 3D films, not just with poor implementation of post-produced 3D, but the films themselves have been a lacklustre bunch. Many will have been expecting 3D as good as Avatar, and didn’t get it. Many of these films were shot before Avatar was released so didn’t have that influence in their production. It’s therefore hard to judge what the box office returns, be they good or bad, are based on.
2011 will see more movies actually filmed in 3D with the same or similar process as Avatar was, guided by its success in how they implement it. There will be an anticipated improvement. Cynics and doubters, of which I count myself upon their fringes, will probably not go to any, and the box office will reflect the fans only.
But 2012 will finally be independent of mishandling, reactionary box office, and flush out the cynics, and it will be December of that year where they can finally judge whether 3D is a success or failure of an idea.
I am anticipating it will find the niche where it works best and cling to that; Mostly CG movies and the occasional epic blockbuster (but not all of them). But I’ve been wrong about this kind of thing before.
I dearly regret not seeing How To Train Your Dragon in 3D. That alone would be worth buying one of the new 3D TVs.
I think in time the tech will evolve to where people who have trouble seeing 3D won’t any more (other than the obvious debilitating problems like blindness), but what we have now is Good Enough To Sell. Should we have waited on TV until color or HD was possible?
…and then the world will end. heh.
I have no idea why I read your post as a Mayan prophecy, but I got that feeling from it from the first two sentences. I’m certain it’s just me; no offense is intended.
This makes no sense to me. Are you saying Hollywood waited on movies until 3D? Because I’m pretty sure Hollywood started making movies a while ago.
I both get something out of it, AND experience discomfort. I appreciate the technology and I think it looks neat, but it also tends to make me feel a bit woozy.