The Death of Motion Picture Part 2: 3D

Nowadays, almost 50% of the motion pictures are in 3D. Everybody seems to dig this 3D magic especially after the infamous Avatar which (almost) perfected the technology that started around 60 years ago. Now we even have 3D handheld gaming device called Nintendo 3DS where glasses are history.

However I think 3D will kill motion pictures.

First of all, the glasses. It is unbelievable that after 60 years, we still cannot watch a 3D movie without the stupid 3D glasses that are ridiculously pricey. A good pair of it will cost us more than US$150. Sure we can rent one for 2 hours in the cinema but it is unbelievably uncomfortable. Why can't they design the shape of 3D glasses according to human skull?!

Next, the existence of 3D increase the significance of visual effect and graphical quality in making and watching movie. The viewers demand more on the graphic and the movie makers try to fulfill it. However that's the problem: they concentrate so much on graphic and (usually) ignore the other (more important) aspect of a movie: directing, plot, story, acting, dialogue, audio, character etc.

Furthermore, many viewers can't distinguish between 3D and CG. Take Clash of the Titans for instance. The 3D effect in that movie is superbly crappy and few and far in between. Most action scene in that film is computer-generated graphic and not 3D. However, many people including some movie-reviewing media wrongly considered CG as 3D.

It's actually very easy to distinguish 3D from CG (and i know most of you know). Take off the glasses and if you still can see clearly, it's CG.

With that small amount of 3D effect in most films, the price of ticket increase significantly from their 2D counterpart. Without improvement in other aspects of film mentioned above, slight improvement in graphic department can't offset the increase in ticket price and eventually viewers will lose interest.

Nowadays almost everything is in 3D. Animated movies and action movies in particular. Do we need toy story, Shrekor How to Train a Dragon in 3D? How bout action movie? Clash of the Titan, The Last Airbender, or Piranha 3D. The 3D effect in these movies is added in post production and it's very crappy. Worse, these movies completely ignore other aspect of motion picture making them unbelievably bad.

How bout the amazingly overpriced 3DTV? Few thousand bucks and all we get is a TV with few crappy glasses and few movies? Is this a scam? Nintendo can make a glasses free handheld devices so why we still do not have a glasses free TV?

Yes, it's cool to have 3D movie and Avatar really let us know 3D can be good for movies but until they improve the overall quality of motion picture, 3D will kill the motion picture we love.