I was recently asked by the BBC to comment on whether Avatar would herald in a new revolutionary kind of cinema, and whether its CGI and 3D effects meant that it would be far more immersive and spectacular than anything we’d ever seen before. It’s a shame they asked me before the film had actually been released. On the radio I warned: ‘Don’t believe the hype’ and that turned out to be pretty much the case, except I wasn’t prepared for how bored I would be.
Here’s the real problem with 3D. The 3D plane that detaches itself from the screen and heads towards you is itself 2-dimensional, creating an effect that is explicitly artificial. Yet as the 3D effects continue our eyes adjust and we no longer notice it, as was the case in Coraline, Up and Avatar. 3D has to draw attention to itself to be noticed but by doing so distracts you from the film itself.
3D cinema breaks the primal illusion of cinema, that a flat image can appear to have depth. 3D suits its status as a novelty for good reason. It’s 2D cinema that’s the truly immersive experience.
The Classic Film Show 
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January 19, 2010 at 3:19 pm
bobbyperu
You have absolutely right. This isn’t 3D, it gives only the illusion of it (btw 2D gives this illusion, even less distractively, too). Just try to change your position in the cinema during watching Avatar. You’ll have always the same view. This 3D is even less than a holographic image.
And we still didn’t talk about how the film is completely subordinated to the visual (everything is happening within the ‘z’ axis (the abundance of perspectivity, the perpendicular action, the tools (bow and arrow) and features (the long tail)).
This is not the future of the cinema, perhaps a certain prospect of amusement parks.
January 19, 2010 at 8:56 pm
Christian Hayes
I absolutely agree – I feel that Avatar was perhaps a very expensive and futile push in completely the wrong direction. It proved itself wrong.
January 20, 2010 at 1:28 am
nicklinn
“Here’s the real problem with 3D. The 3D plane that detaches itself from the screen and heads towards you is itself 2-dimensional, creating an effect that is explicitly artificial.”
What on earth are you talking about? 3D works by varying the convergence between 2 images one for each eye allowing extremely fine control of depth. This is no different then then how you naturally see depth.
January 20, 2010 at 1:53 am
Christian Hayes
Yes of course that’s how you see depth. The problem here is that the 3D objects exist on a 2D plane out in front of the screen.
If anything this is far more obtrusive to the illusion of depth than 2D cinema.
January 20, 2010 at 6:21 pm
nicklinn
I am having a hard time figuring out what you are on about. Using the methods used on the movie by altering the convergence you can create objects at any distance from the screen itself to literally the tip of your nose. That is clearly a 3d space.
If you are arguing that the because there is no volume to the images projected you cannot look at it from other angles, that is way beyond what this sort of 3d is supposed to do. The movie is meant to be viewed from the perspective presented to you by the director, that is true with 3d or 2d. This is akin to complaining about not being able to dolly the camera in a 2d film.
January 20, 2010 at 2:50 pm
hate you!
3D is awesome, if you don’t like it, stay in your cave.
Thanks for wasting my time grumpy old man!
Oh, you don’t have to approve this comment, it’s enough that you see it.
October 18, 2010 at 3:03 am
Gean
-__- how ignorant of you to say its awesome and not say why. Normal people dont care about: OMG its barelly popping out of the screen! We dont need 3D we have blurays at home and can actually pay attention and don’t forget we’re watching a movie, not all of us have the attention span of a monkey ;)
January 21, 2010 at 4:03 am
Invisible Mikey
1. “Awesome” is the most overused, pointless adjective in current American English. (UK equivalent would be “brilliant”.)
2. According to the “about”, the author of this blog is 25.
Try getting out of YOUR cave, and going to school more often.
January 21, 2010 at 2:48 pm
hate you too!
1. According to what bullshit statistic made up by you?
2. According to the “my opinion”, the author acts like a grumpy old man.
I’m out of my cave, I watch 3D film with my friends and enjoy them. Whatever this 25-year-old grumpy man whines about makes no sense. What the hell are you expecting?? Do you want the actors to come to your theatre and act the film in front of you?? If you’re one of those 7% (or whatever) that cannot see 3D without getting a headache, then tough luck, boo hoo.. That doesn’t mean you have to make up a crappy argument about why you think 3D doesn’t work.
This is just like when idiots like you said sound was a baaad idea.. We all know how wrong that was. But then again, according to the “about”, the 25-year-old grumpy man is into silent films so that explains it. Of course there are going to be morons that think 3D sucks, the good thing is us normal people will not give a damn (except for venting on their blogs) and move on, enjoying sound, enjoying colour and enjoying 3D.
January 21, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Christian Hayes
Silent movies are pretty amazing – you should try and catch one on the big screen with live music. Now that’s an immersive experience.
January 21, 2010 at 4:43 pm
3D is awesome and brilliant!
That is because of the quality of the acting and the script, not the technology. Why do you think there are no silent movies nowadays? That’s because people have moved on. We want sound, we want colour and now, we also want 3D. That is the evolution of film:
no sound, no colour, 2D
sound, no colour, 2D
sound, colour, 2D
sound, colour, 3D
Who knows what comes next.. scent? I’m sure there will be a bunch of articles called “why scent film doesn’t work”, but if the people like it, it will stay.
Can’t you see how many opportunities have opened up with sound, with colour, with 3D?
I’d still like an explanation of what you actually mean, why you think 3D doesn’t work because neither me, nor nicklinn (and probably many other readers) get what you talk about. Try again.
January 21, 2010 at 7:10 pm
3D is awesome and brilliant!
By the way, there is no way Avatar would work so well without 3D.
January 22, 2010 at 12:09 am
Christian Hayes
I’m absolutely positive that it would be. Cinema is already powerfully immersive.
January 22, 2010 at 1:00 am
Invisible Mikey
I do agree with “awesomebrilliant”dude that Avatar won’t work in 2D, but I contend that is because it’s not well-written. A weak story has to have a lot of smoke and noise, or you’ll notice the man behind the curtain is a humbug and know that you’ve been tricked.
Movies with smells have been tried, by Mike Todd in 1960 (Scent of a Mystery, made in “Smell-O-Vision”) and John Waters in 1981 (Polyester, in “Odorama” which was scratch-n-sniff cards). Scent of Mystery was a box-office “stink bomb” and lost a lot of money. Polyester is funny and got good reviews, and still has a following though “Odorama” hasn’t exactly caught on.
I don’t understand the comment about color at all. It just is so obviously false. Films are made in black and white every year. Big successful films like Kill Bill use b+w scenes to heighten tension. Pleasantville went gradually from b+w TO color as the story progressed. Sin City had no full-color scenes, using only b+w and 1-2 other bright colors like in the graphic novel.
As far as sound goes, everything was mono (except for experiments like Fantasia) until Star Wars, and mono is still in common use today. I did work for 14 years re-mixing major studio films for stereo, LCRS and 5.1 for release on DVD. I think my track record on support of sound in movies contradicts your assumptions.
(My next post is about Zemeckis vs. Cameron and why story matters.)
January 22, 2010 at 5:38 pm
3D is awesome and brilliant!
I didn’t say that they don’t make black and white any more, I said they don’t make silent movies any more. And come on, a few scenes in a few films doesn’t count.. I’m sure there are some independent nerds that make silent films as well, the point is, the public consumes sound and colour, a huge majority of everything that is made is in colour and with sound. Regarding the scent, there was 3D back in the days too, the problem is neither of them had the technological opportunities for them to work well. Who knows what the future will bring..
@the author – since you haven’t replied to neither me or nor nicklinn I’ll try to reply to what I think you tried to say in your article. I’ll keep it simple for your sake. We have two eyes, the 3D camera has two lenses (sort of). If we were in the camera’s place, we would see an image with our left eye and another with our right eye. The lenses of the camera represent our eyes, through the glasses, we get to see what the left lens saw with our left eye, and what the right lens saw with our right eye. Voila, 3D works!
Now please explain to me, in a simple way like I did for you, what you see wrong with that? Thanks!
January 23, 2010 at 3:01 am
Christian Hayes
Here you go:
https://classicfilmshow.com/2010/01/23/5-reasons-why-3d-really-does-not-work/
March 11, 2010 at 11:32 pm
baruman
3D movies like Avatar amount to a costly commercial for 3D Televisions sets. Do any of these 3D releases have a story that approaches The Hurt Locker or District 9? Seriously! I would hate to think of the nightmare of The Dark Knight in 3D. Face it, its a gimmick made to make you OOO and AAAHHH, but that is all. Nothing substantive there. The Emperor Has No Clothes.
December 26, 2010 at 3:47 am
Mr. K
Another problem that 3D presents and neglects to mention is how exclusionary it is. For instance, I have an astigmatism. Images are already offset for me, and 3D still can’t pull the two images together properly. I also have motion sickness, so when I see a 3D movie, I stay nauseous the entire time.
Also, my grandmother has a glass eye. Without depth perception, the technology is lost on her.
Thirdly, a friend of mine is prone to seizures. She can’t see 3D movies either, because it increases the risk of an episode.
Medically, Hollywood is excluding a portion of the population. However, this is nothing new, because my mother is deaf and hasn’t been to the movie in years (and she loved movies so much when she was younger she saw Grease 23 times). No one wants to watch a movie with captions at the bottom.
Spend less money, produce the movie in 2D and allow everyone to enjoy. My local theater only has one screen that isn’t in 3D now.
April 10, 2011 at 8:23 am
JohnQ
I would really like 3D to be cool, but my experience with it is that it ultimately gives a pounding headache and it seems that it makes watching the movie more difficult than it has to be? Is it just me? Ultimately it seems the only reason movies are going 3D is because Hollywood is getting put over a barrel by the internet and they are trying to implement technology that makes it more difficult for people to download and enjoy movies. Same reason iTunes was forced upon the public. This same tactic was attempted when TV threatened cinema in the past, and I am willing to bet that once the public wakes up and realizes they are getting duped, all this 3D hysteria will likely take a dirt nap.