any comments? more than welcome.

3D is certainly at an interesting time and I for one am looking forward to seeing how it evolves over the coming years.

Eric – I too saw Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs last week and I agree with your comment. It does show improvements in the technology and it is one of the better 3D films I have seen in terms of colour, visuals and presentation.

Greg – Yeah I think that my experience of 3D films at home was affected by my small and rather old TV set! Perhaps if I upgraded my technology at home I would have enjoyed the 3D film more? Or maybe it is only suited to the big screen at the moment. I’m undecided.

Jamie – I wasn’t blaming the 3D technology for the poor quality of The Final Destination. In fact I was trying to communicate that despite, in my opinion, the poor storyline and acting, I think the fact that it is in 3D is the reason why it found an audience and performed well at the box office. It was style over substance.

I must go now, I am off to see Toy Story in 3D! I wonder how it will compare to the original 2D version? Perhaps I’ll post here with my thoughts :)

Rob.

That being said, there have been a few movies that I felt would be “interesting” to watch in 3D, but I missed the time frame to watch them. Perhaps if I owned a larger TV & had HD access or a Bluray player or AppleTV I could test out the home 3D experience.

Thanks again for the article.

When the resurgence of 3D first came back, I ventured out to see “My Bloody Valentine 3D”. I was impressed with the technology, but it was a little nauseating (the 3D, not the content) and difficult to focus during camera moves. The edges were just too blurry when the camera was panning, and handheld was a joke. What I was most impressed with was the dimensionality of the images. Sure they had the occassional gimicky object popping through the screen, but overall, the benefit of this new technology was that images seemed more realistic through the separation of planar spaces.

Last week I went to see “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” in 3D. After watching this evolution from the reissue of “Nightmare Before Christmas,” “Beowulf,” “Up,” and “Monsters vs. Aliens,” it is clear that the technology has grown exponentially, as has the expertise of the people using it. The motion of “Cloudy” was clear. The focus was where it should be. There were no schlockey moments of things needlessly popping out of the screen to call attention to the technology. And after a while I became so adjusted to the image quality that the 3D technology became transparent and I found myself being caught up in the story. This is precisely the point of any new technology in an artistic field, to become a tool to better tell the story or convey a message. The technology is there to enhance the message, not to be the message.

But there still appear to be gimmicks on the horizon. Disney and ImageMovers “A Christmas Carol” coming out this christmas season seemed like a take-it-or-leave-it film when I saw the trailer in 2D. In 3D, however, it looks like a must-see film. What I gained from that impression is that, at least with this example, is that the film exists to service the technology and not the other way around.

While this is a little disappointing, it is part of the evolution process. There have always been projects that experiment with the technology in order to help the technology evolve to a place where it becomes more of a tool and less of a gimmick. “Tron” was noted for its use of CG, and now CG is virtually invisible and being used to enhance the story as much as to tell it. Even sound was accused of being a gimmick with “The Jazz Singer,” as was color, and now we can’t imagine a film without them.

This evolution process indicates that in the near future we will see many poor films designed just so people can play with and experiment on the new technology. But in the future, we will see 3D become so commonplace that a world of 2D film may go the way of the black-and-white silent film.