Someone in the movie industry must still think that 3D movies are a good idea and I think this person needs to be told to take a step back, then another step back, a few more steps back, leave the building and never come back again.
The most recent movie I watched in 3D was 'Captain America — The Winter Soldier'. Why did I watch it in 3D? Because it's not being shown in 2D and I wanted to see it in the cinema.
Or to put it another way: I was pretty much coerced into watching it in 3D because no cinema in the region shows the movie in 2D. To be allowed to pay to able to watch it in 2D, I was going to have to wait for the BluRay release.
Tell me how that makes sense? The movie industry is essentially telling me that I will love 3D even if they have to force me love it.
3D is nice in theory but there's only one movie I watched so far that did 3D "right" — in the sense that you can make 3D right and feel like something more than a novelty. That movie was 'The Hobbit'. It was filmed in 3D from start to finish and it's the only movie where 3D didn't feel like it was a tacked-on feature to get that badge on the movie poster.
The Hobbit was also best case scenario for 3D. Here the feature felt like a fun addition that didn't make me enjoy the movie more, but it also didn't diminish the movie watching experience.
Every other time that I watched a 3D movie in the cinema I was annoyed
- by the stupid glasses which are uncomfortable and limit your viewing positions, thus making me tense up,
- because the 3D doesn't match with the filming style of the director and makes the movie feel hectic and all over the place,
- by the mediocre post-production 3D effects that look bad, have wrong perspectives, and unnatural depth of field effects,
- by the fact that the price mark-up for 3D movies is ridiculous,
- because the glasses are single-use and produce unnecessary waste.
With that in mind I decided that I won't watch 3D movies anymore. I wanted to watch the second Captain America movie because it ties into the recent Marvel releases and I like what they are doing here in terms of the story. Still, I'm not going to watch the 'Guardians of the Galaxy' movie in 3D, even though it, too, ties into Marvel's larger storyline. Luckily the latter is not the case with the new Spider-Man movie and the new X-Men movie or Godzilla. I'm not going to go and watch them in the cinema if they're not being shown in 2D, or any other movie for that matter.
So…
Dear cinemas, movie distributors, movie publishers, movie studios, movie studio executives,
I love going to the cinema. I love handing the cashier in the cinema my money. If the movie looks promising I even shell out the obscene € 10.- for some popcorn and a soft drink without hesitation.
I won't, however, watch any more 3D movies. They're just not worth it.
Cheers,
Alex
