

Why I Hate 3-D (And You Should Too) - alexkay
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/04/30/why-i-hate-3-d-and-you-should-too.html

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gdl
Gimmicky as 3D may be right now, this is just typical "get off my lawn"
trolling. His arguments boil down to:

1) We got along fine without it before, so adding it would be somewhere
between worthless and a net loss artistically.

2) The early implementations available now are still awkward.

3) People make money from it.

His same arguments can be applied pretty much point-for-point against
introducing sound or color, or creating TV at all. Or print. If the Epic of
Gilgamesh was only told in person and passed down through oral history, well
by golly, that should be good enough for us. Anything more is just cheapening
the art!

~~~
petervandijck
4) The experience sucks. After my second 3d movie, I've vowed never to pay for
a 3D ticket again. The experience is actually _worse_ than 2D, it makes it
harder to focus on certain parts of the screen etc. Even in Avatar the 3D
wasn't very good. And his point about 48fps rings true, although I've never
seen it.

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garyrichardson
Give it time. The tech is still pretty new.

I've only seen one move in 3d: avatar. I thought it was pretty amazing to look
at.

With any new technology, there are trade offs. This goes for movie from b+w to
color, color to digital, etc. For the move to 3d, some parts of the screen are
not in focus. Don't try and look at them directly. Let your eyes be drawn to
the parts in focus and you won't have a problem. That's how the director
wanted it any way (this goes for 2d movies too, it's just used less
frequently).

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paradoja
> Give it time. The tech is still pretty new.

Yeah, it's only about 100 years old
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-D_film#History>).

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msmith
I think it's a fair critique despite the inflammatory title. He's not really
opposed to 3-D, as long as it doesn't come at the expense of good filmmaking.

There's a goldrush going on right now in Hollywood to cash in on the premium
for 3-D ticket sales before the novelty wears off, which means we'll have a
lot of fake or lower quality 3-D films. The 3-D craze really only kicked into
high gear last year when Avatar was released. I imagine that a lot of the
titles currently being released were intended to be 2D.

I'm looking forward to what the future will bring. I'm sure the technology
will continue to improve and the filmmakers will continue to become more
effective at using the third D.

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praecipula
The real problem with 3D is that all (real, not CG) cameras have a depth of
field - a certain range over which the image is in focus. This is great in a
2D film to focus the audience's attention on something, but the 3D setup just
begs the user to focus on what they think is important, so you end up focusing
on some fuzzy object instead of the subject. In other words, depth of field
replicates the fuzziness of your peripheral vision, but 3D asks you to look
into and around the scene. It's a view mechanics uncanny valley - and I don't
think they can fix this as long as there are flat screens.

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mizhi
I saw Avatar. Criticisms of the plot aside, I loved the 3D. I wanted to see it
with my partner. But when I talked to her about it, she said that 3D films
make her nauseous.

So now, it seems like every movie coming out that is possibly even worth
seeing is in 3D. I can adjust to the experience, but my partner can't, and
this is a problem because going to the movies is one of the few options we
have for a quick date away from the house and baby.

Like Ebert, I'm fine with 3D as an option. But I hope it doesn't become the
dominant form for decent movies. I'm hoping that the studios continue offering
the alternate non-3D option for each movie they release.

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swah
My experience: the glasses make the movie darker, feel bad in front of my
glasses and I try to focus on 3D objects desperately. I end up enjoying the
film less.

~~~
petervandijck
Exactly the same here. It's evil marketing ploy at its worst, a lot worse
than, say, the camera's industry focus on selling megapixels.

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makecheck
I think a major problem with 3D right now is that you don't really know what
you're paying for. Are you getting a movie where some real effort was put into
the 3D, or are you getting a half-assed version? The (increased) price is the
same.

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mitsuto
what about a spherical globe made of touch screen glass video monitors
displaying inside out video streams, and it has just the double size of one's
height, as to make a displayed horizon within the sphere where someone is
inside, without glasses. it can react to steps and jumps, or even "create
gravity illusions" with some hydraulic pistons, creating the ultimate
immersive experience ever. Then would be relevant to have minority report's UI
inside a sphere like this one i just proposed. :)

