The movie industry inundated us with 3D this past holiday season. If you didn't catch Jim Carey's take on dickens, you didn't miss much. My wife and I saw it in 2D, sans glasses. Turns out the movie is a flop if you're not into being wowed by 3D tricks. Without the glasses you're treated to long spans of effect laden scenes that are completely lost in 2D and add absolutely nothing to the story. C'mon hollywood! How could you possibly screw up a story as good as Dickens? And of course last summer we got animated dinosaurs in 3D.
And then there is Avatar. At least Cameron realized that 3D is just a tool and not the focus of the movie. Unfortunately, it suffers the same problem all 3D movies do: headaches. See, if you don't have equal vision in both eyes then you tend to get headaches from the stereoscopic view. Avatar wasn't too bad but those glasses are about as comfortable as placing a cardboard box on the bridge of my nose. My daughter also reports, having seen Avatar in 2D as well, that the colors are washed out in 3D and that the movie was actually more visually stunning in 2D.
What is it with the entertainment world that we have to do everything in 3D now? Has everyone just given up on story and content and now relies soley on explosions and mindless flash? Even the computer world is heading that way. I just read that NVIDIA was demoing their stereoscopic 3D technology at CES recently. And of course 3D TV is on its way too, or so they say.
But let's get real here. Who the hell wants to put on glasses to watch TV or sit at the computer? I don't but I have to wear them or I can't see monitors! I'm sure there are a few nut cases out there who think this looks cool but once you get over "cool" – and there are some who never do – you realize that wearing glasses in your living room when you don't have to is not what you want. Not to mention what happens to glasses. If you don't wear them you probably don't know: lost, squished, bent, smudged. And if we can't find the damn remote how the hell will we remember where the glasses are?
No, this 3D concept is not ready for the masses. If the TV just worked in 3D that would be fine. Having us put on glasses to use it just isn't going to fly. Even if it didn't give us headaches.