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i know i'm a little late to the party on this... but how shit are 3D movies? i guess the fact i'm travelling and therefore i rarely take trips to the cinema means the '3D revolution' has somewhat passed me by. i've heard a lot of dissenting voices (mainly from a certain podcast) but seen little with my own eyes to form a valid opinion. the first full length 3D picture i saw was avatar. i didn't mind the 3D, partly because it was a fun, silly gimmick and added to the surreal visuals. it also took a small amount of attention away from the many failings of that shitty film. i haven't compared it to the 2D version as i've no desire to sit through any of it again. the second flick was toy story 3. again i thought it wasn't particularly offensive, and pretty much forgot about it as the film continued. that has the reverse reaction of avatar in that it was so touching and emotionally involving i didn't give the 3D much importance. the latest film i saw in my most recent trip to the pictures was the avengers - and there the 3D really pissed me off. i thought the movie itself was confusing fun and at the higher end of the big action movie market, but the 3D almost ruined it. for a start the desaturation and lack of illumination really bugged me. some scenes were unnecessarily difficult to see as they clearly weren't lit with 3D in mind. it must be so frustrating for the cinematographer whose carefully planned shots are pissed on and ruined by the conversion. it made me take off my glasses a few times, preferring a blurry image to an invisible one. i also started to get a headache which i hadn't experienced before. i think that had something to do with the fast pace of the action and set pieces. with everything moving so fast my little head clearly couldn't cope and sent out a mildly painful distress signal. but what i think annoyed me the most was that the 3D effect was just pointless. it's not three dimensional, at least not how we perceive 'real life' with our eyes. it just puts things on different planes in front and behind each other. that's not how we see things in 3D, we use things like size, and depth of field, to judge what's close and far away. cinema has known this for over 100 years - see every 2D movie for proof. the 3D movie effect is a gimmick, but because it looks so strange and fake it can't help but take you out of the movieworld and constantly remind you that you're watching a film. it's the opposite of immersive, the very sensation it's supposed to be courting. a further issue, which only affected me for a few brief moments compared to the rest of the cinema, was that reading subtitles in a dark 3D film whilst you have a headache, well it's a far from pleasurable experience. plus i had to pay over two grand for the glasses. kinda makes me want to wait and download the 2D versions of future releases.

here's the original