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

[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.