So I’ve been mulling over this article for some time now, trying to find a balance between my utter hatred for this 3D movie craze that is taking over like a plague, and my enjoyment of certain movies that actually work well with the format. But with the recent announcement by Sony to back out of their distribution of 3D glasses, I can’t hold my tongue any longer.
I hate 3D movies. I seriously do. OK, maybe I should rephrase that – I hate movies that are made to be in 3D when they seriously should not be. The actual 3D movie experience doesn’t bother me so much, aside from the fact that I wear glasses and you are a lying son of a bitch if you can sit there and tell me wearing two sets of glasses doesn’t feel awkward. In fact, Coraline and Piranha 3D were actually entertaining – and no, it had nothing to do with a CGI dong floating around in my face.
By the way, I’m talking about Piranha, not Coraline. I just wanted to clear that up for those who haven’t seen either.
Coraline was fun and entertaining, and since the majority of this animated gem was set in a fantasy world of sorts, the 3D helped bring that to life. And as far as Piranha goes, any movie with mass amounts of boobs and gore is automatically good in my book. When you make those boobs and severed limbs in 3D… well, let’s just say you had me at “boobs”.
Resident Evil: Afterlife and Final Destination 5 are prime examples of studios force-feeding this 3D crap down our throats. Both movies are part of obnoxiously successful franchises, and would’ve performed well at the box office based on name recognition alone. But because 3D is the new trend, they spent extra money to shoot in that specific format, thus giving them an excuse to drive up the ticket prices. And yes, I realize that both of these movies suck and probably should never have been made in the first place, but they were and now we all have to deal with that.
The least they could do was make an attempt at writing a decent storyline and making a movie that has a coherent plot, instead of coming up with 3D-friendly action sequences and then slopping some half-ass script around it. I’m sure those pre-production meetings are something like this:
“Alright, we’re gonna make a movie that has all these badass in-your-face action sequences, because we’re doing this bitch in 3D!”
“Well that’s nice and all, but what about the storyline?”
“Oh who cares, just throw some shit together but make sure you integrate all the 3D scenes we have lined up for it!”
“Yeah ok boss, whatever you say.”
And I absolutely fucking hate going to see a standard release of a film that was shot in 3D. All those scenes where objects are popping out of the screen toward your face? Yeah, that shit looks ridiculous when you don’t have those glasses on – and even when you do, a lot of those sequences are so overplayed that they become almost laughable.
“Well, that pitchfork thru his chest was cool, but why did it have to get stabbed towards me… and why is it just floating there for an extra 15 seconds? Is it trying to tell me something?
What is it, mystical floating pitchfork? Did Timmy fall in a well? Did I just get screwed out of an extra 4 dollars on top of the already ridiculous ticket price?
Why yes, floating pitchfork of wisdom, I’m really glad I didn’t opt to see this movie in IMAX as well as 3D, as I’m uncertain that the bank would have approved the small business loan required to shell out that kind of money for a ticket.
Why yes, I’m thankful that these theater seats are comfy, but that doesn’t make up for the fact that seeing this movie in 3D just fucked me out of a quarter of this week’s paycheck only to have an imaginary conversation with this floating pitchfork that is still hovering in front of my face long after the scene should have been over.”
What’s quickly ruining the experience even further is the growing trend of studios releasing a film in 3D for not other reason than the simple fact that they can. Not every movie will work in 3D, and I wish studios would get that through their heads. Contagion is the most recent example of this nonsense. Although I haven’t seen Contagion yet, I did see this movie about 15 years ago when it was called Outbreak, and at least that one had a monkey. Anyway, my point is that movies of this nature have no reason whatsoever to be converted to 3D, yet the studios are doing it anyway, which is a thinly-veiled attempt for Hollywood to convince us to shell out more money at the box office. At this rate, it won’t be long before we have dialogue-heavy films like Coffee and Cigarettes released in 3D. Can you imagine watching Bill Murray and Iggy Pop having a conversation in a diner… in 3D? Would anyone give a fuck?
I’m actually interested to see how things go down with this Sony 3D glasses ordeal. While I’m sure that ticket prices will see an increase, this will have little to no effect on whether or not I see the flick, as I tend to boycott just about every 3D movie that gets released. As long as people are willing to pay that extra price, Hollywood will keep rolling this crap out. But if enough people lose interest and stop seeing movies in 3D, then the 3D ticket sales should start coming down, which is just the first step in getting rid of this 3D craze once and for all.