3D or not 3D, is that the question?

Watching movies in 3D at the cinema is bloody annoying - FACT. It’s bad enough that I have to pay extra to put huge, (what I am 99.999% sure are) used glasses on to watch something that I can see better without but this pile of crap is what it is being touted as the future of cinema. Are you kidding me? If I wanted something jumping out of the screen at me, distorting my vision and pissing me off, I would just stare at Alan Hansen’s forehead on Match of the Day – for free! (Don’t tell anyone I haven’t paid my TV licence).

The only proper use for 3D technology

Ok ok, I know I have just gone on a rant there but when you think about it realistically, 3D is about as useful as lipstick on a cow. 3D is meant to enhance the experience of a movie but if anything, all it ends up doing is distorting your vision and leaving you with a headache. Let’s face it, the only movies that have ever been remotely good in 3D have been animated or Avatar. The Pocahontas stealing movie aside, the imagery in 3D was absolutely to die for. It really did bring the scenery to life and totally captivated me (a fact I am not ashamed to admit as it allowed me to ignore my then girlfriend’s annoying narration of the movie). But the reason that this worked is because it was computer generated. UP in 3D literally brought a tear to my eye but again, that might have had something to do with the plot of the movie rather than it being brought to life in 3D.

The key to success there was the fact that it was animated. To get a 3D movie from animation, all you need to do is get really fancy on a computer. To render live films into 3D, you need to buy big-ass, expensive cameras. But fear not humble 3D lovers, Hollywood will continue to flog that dead horse until they can charge you more over something just as useless. When deciding whether or not a film should be shot in 2D or 3D, I’d encourage the director to use some common sense. If Christopher Nolan refuses to shoot his movies in 3D, that should tell you everything you need to know about it (check out this article from the good people at Tech Radar). Humans generally see in 3D without the distorted vision or throbbing headache anyway, so why pay for the discomfort?