3D at the box office

[msagara]

I was reading links on Twitter, and one of them lead to an article about 3D at the box office.

Let me come out and say it: I hate 3D.

Let me then qualify that statement, because there are movies I deliberately went to see in 3D. All one of them. (This would be Avatar). Okay, that's out of the way.

I am Asian. I have a small nose. I already wear glasses (my eyes are far too dry for contacts. I know. I've tried). Can you guess where this is going? Yes!

When I go to a movie and discover that it is, in fact, in 3D, I usually have 2 kids and a husband in tow, we are on a time limit, and the show we've chosen unfortunately happens to be in the 3D theatre, something that's not clear until we arrive at said theatre. I pay more money for this privilege, and I am given oversized, clunky, 3D glasses which have to sit on top of the glasses I already wear, and guess what? My nose is not long enough and the glasses fall off. I spend the entire movie fighting a rearguard action to be able to watch the movie at all.

More than half of the movies my youngest wants to see end up being in 3D when we choose and reach the theatre. I would pay extra money if I could avoid 3D entirely for every single one of those movies. First? The 3D isn't necessary. I don't find that it adds much. I could be wrong, because if the 3D glasses fall off, I can't really see what's going on past the horrible blur, and as mentioned above, the 3D glasses are always almost falling off.

So, with apologies to those who like 3D, I am doing a hopeful little dance at the prospect of fewer of them.

Comments

[trektone.livejournal.com]

I would pay (extra money) to have a picture of you wearing 3D glasses.

[msagara.livejournal.com]

Thomas says: It's so nice that you have such supportive friends.

[trektone.livejournal.com]

And Thomas would be correct!

[wiredwizard.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on the dislike of the new fad of 3D movies. I've seen a few and for the most part felt it was just a cash cow rip off. Plus, most 3D movies leave me w/ such a headache afterwards.

The sooner they go away, the better.

(And now they're starting to push 3D tv sets too...)

[lithera.livejournal.com]

I don't think I would mind 3D so much if the people making the movies were using it for more then GOTCHA in your face sorts of effects. What I saw at Comic Con of Tron: Legacy was lovely and I might see that in 3D but most of it is cheap tricks and oddness.

[mmarques.livejournal.com]

Coraline was the worst on that... with a needle coming straight at me! Avatar actually seemed the best... nothing really jumping out at you and more like looking through an open window.

Whats just as bad is seeing movies intended for 3D but in 2D... because there are shots that are just obviously there for the 3D effect.

[lithera.livejournal.com]

Avatar was filmed with a 3D camera. I appreciated that it was pretty. Beyond that... ehn. Post conversation works well for animation since they can add another camera point of view fairly simply but if you filmed with just one camera, live action is hard to do a good post conversion on. I've seen some good ones but it is pretty hit and miss.

[shadowkindrd.livejournal.com]

I refuse to go to 3D movies. Not only do I have the glasses issue (my nose isn't quite that short, but my glasses are bulky), but I refuse to deal with 3-D images messing with my head. Give me 2D, tyvm, have a nice day, don't let the 3D hit you in the butt on the way out.

[twiegand.livejournal.com]

But you have such a cute little nose. I avoid the 3d movies because I get motion sickness too easily. I can't imagine how sick I would have been at Avatar had I seen those flight scenes in 3D. Visual and motion inputs need to agree.

[maiac.livejournal.com]

Call me cynical, but I consider 3D to be a substitute for, y'know, good plot and acting and stuff like that.

[maga-dogg.livejournal.com]

Well, it's best-suited to spectacle-type action blockbusters, which are not overly endowed with those qualities in the first place.

I think 3D is more than a gimmick, and my reasons for not being uncomfortable with it are mostly just bigger versions of the reasons why I'm not entirely comfortable with the cinema experience in general.

[mmarques.livejournal.com]

I think some movies are coming out just because of 3D... like Piranha 3D, which seems like it's going to be just about 3D shots of boobs and attacking piranhas.

[qiihoskeh]

I just now noticed the "spectacle" pun!

[qiihoskeh]

I've never seen a 3D movie; I'm waiting for 4D.

[tobemeagain.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on the glasses, they should have clip-ons for the almost 1/3 of the population that wears glasses. Recently I've also gotten optical nerve damage and 3D does zero for me, I literally cannot see the effect anymore - so I save the money and have my friends tell me what they think.

Sorry youngest is so into them though. *winces*

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

I feel for you, Michelle, I really do. I have to take Dramamine before I watch IMAX, OMNIMAX, or 3D, so I know what you're going through. Especially if I forget the darn stuff in the first place.

That said, the new craze is merely a repeat of the original 3D revolution in the 50's/60's. Or maybe Cinerama. The only movie that probably integrated it seamlessly into the environment was Avatar, but having only one out of many used in a non-"OOOO....look at me!" fashion means that Hollywood learned the wrong lesson from Avatar. Integration is key, not the tech itself.

[mightydoll.livejournal.com]

I, too, hate 3d movies. Baz dislikes them, too, as they give him a headache. The last one we saw was Coraline, at MC's insistence and she left there saying that she didn't think it was as cool as she'd anticipated, so I guess we lucked out. Sorry your guy is so in to them. :P

[spookyevilone.livejournal.com]

I can't watch 3D movies because they trigger migraines for me. My sister loves them and she has glasses. Her solution has been to make sure there are rubber bands in her purse so she can attach the arms of the icky plastic glasses to her regular glasses and not bother trying to actually wear the plastic ones. It reportedly works.

[slweippert.livejournal.com]

I am so with you on this.

While Avatar was visually beautiful, it was filmed purposely for the technology. Other movies, not so much. The extra charges for the "privilage" of the unnessary and tacked on at the last minute 3D burns me.
Hollywood, if you want to charge me more money, actually make it worth something, not just "Avatar made lots of money with this we can to!"

[sativa]

I've often wondered if the fact we wear glasses at all doesn't prohibit the 3-D effect from working properly because I can't begin to count how often I've shocked friends, coworkers and even family when I told them I didn't see how the 3-D effect in Avatar aided the film at all (or in other films for that matter). Sure, it added a bit of depth in a few scenes, but overall? I didn't see much difference in the 3-D experience versus the 2-D experience, but, like you, I do wear glasses and likewise can't move to contacts because my eyes are to dry.

Either way, I do wish they gave more options for 3-D movies versus 2-D or else just kept the 3-D to IMAX.

[tobemeagain.livejournal.com]

Not to butt in here *winces* sorry. If you're not seeing the 3D effect that is usually because of the shape of you ocular lens and/or your optic nerve. (Ah the joys of spending lots of time at the eye specialist). It has to do with how you interpret the image in your brain, not usually the glasses - though those effects can cause major headaches.

Again apologies, like I said I've spent way to much time with eye specialists and neurologists.

[sativa]

Not to worry! I do have astigmatism so my ocular lens is a bit different from the norm so that would make a lot of sense. Thanks for the clarity. Maybe I should tell this to my friends next time they try to laud how much I missed out on not seeing Alice in Wonderland in 3-D. ^^

[nightsinger.livejournal.com]

I also have astigmatism and experience the same thing with 3D movies and those "magic eye" pictures. :/

[lyssabits.livejournal.com]

Huh, I have an astigmatism but I don't have a problem with 3D. On the other hand, I mostly don't see the point. I'm happy to go with my husband, but honestly, it doesn't add so much to the experience for me. Not to bring up Inception again in this journal but if you're talking about arresting visual effects, you can achieve far more interesting ones in 2D if you really want to. Story aside, that was a beautiful movie. But I watched Up in both 3D and 2D and Pixar movies are so beautiful anyways didn't find the 3D experience any more fulfilling.

But 3D movies are basically the only thing we go to the theater to see anymore. ;) We have a pretty nice HD TV and between high quality Blurays at home and the annoyance of crowds and the cost of tickets ($10+ on weekends?!) there's really no reason for us to go out. Except for the 3D movies, or the movies we don't want to wait to see. I mean, once our kid is old enough to go see movies and we have to start paying for him, one movie is going to cost the same as our monthly subscription to Netflix.

[msagara.livejournal.com]

This is interesting to me because I do see the 3D effects, but about 50% of the time, I emerge from the theatre with a pounding headache.

[phantom_wolfboy]

I'm with you. I see them, but they hurt my brain. I read somewhere, I can't remember where just now, that the reason for the headache is that your eyes are trying to focus on a spot that isn't actually there. That makes sense to me, but I don't know if it's true.

[heinous_bitca.livejournal.com]

Oh, this would explain much. I have a very bad astigmatism in one eye, and a not-as-bad in the other, and the only 3D I saw in Avatar in IMAX was the little floaty bits of fire near the end.

I'll have to check with the husband to see if he saw more.

[damedini.livejournal.com]

3D totally /made/ Avatar for me, but otherwise it's used too often with little to no understanding of how to make the best use of it. Most movies don't need to be 3D, and 3D is actually detrimental/distracting. I would love to see a filmmaker really get good with it and learn how to use the 3D tool to the utmost. Then they can innovate so we don't need the stupid glasses.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_ocelott_/]

I'm not fond of the 3D myself. I find it interesting that they've done a number of kids' movies in 3D, since the glasses only come in one size. This means they fall off my 3-year-old's face so fast he decides about 2 minutes in they're not worth wearing. They really do need to make more than just the one-size-fits-nobody glasses. Or, y'know, get over this love affair with adding special effects that are both expensive and unnecessary.

[msagara.livejournal.com]

I find it interesting that they've done a number of kids' movies in 3D, since the glasses only come in one size.

Since almost all of the movies we see are kids' movies (this year in the first year where it hasn't been 100%), yes. Mine are old enough now that the glasses don't fall of their faces -- but people with four and five year olds in Despicable Me probably had issues -- something I hadn't really given much thought because I was too busy ranting about the glasses falling off me. Ahem.

[cloudshaper2k.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on this. I despise the 3D movement - I will wait to see a movie rather than pay extra for some cheap tricks that eye docs are now warning are bad for my children's eyes.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

I dislike 3D because it exhausts my eyes. My nose is long enough. :)

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Oh, me too. I also have glasses, and the 3D ones fight with them.

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

I hate 3d movies also. Only exception are the ones at the movie-type rides at Disneyworld etc where the movie is short and come with other integrated effects like water sprays, moving seats, etc.

[lwe.livejournal.com]

Couple of things:

They really ought to offer clip-ons for glasses-wearing patrons.

Movies that had 3D added after the fact, e.g. Clash of the Titans, are heinous and not to be borne.

Movies that use 3D purely as a gimmick, throwing things at the audience, are also a Bad Thing, though not as bad as the reprocessed ones. (Reprocessed ones that throw things at the audience, of course, are downright evil.)

Movies that are made for 3D from the start, and use it well, such as Avatar, are really cool, if you ask me, and I hope to see more of them.

[braider.livejournal.com]

You could design a couple of small clips to fasten the 3D glasses to your own....