It seems like every movie coming out these days is filmed in 3D. This irritates me, because almost invariably the movie becomes about how 3D it is, instead of how good (or not) the plot and characters are. And is it really more immersive and realistic? No. The audience is constantly reminded of how immersive and realistic it is, 'cause look, it's in 3D, remember? This is self-defeating. But someone else recently put it in much better words than I could (Orson Scott Card, of course), as an aside to a review of the new Alice in Wonderland movie. He makes some very good points, writes entertainingly as always, and gives 3D technology a fair shake while concluding that it is worthless and distracting. Once again, he has plagiarized my brain, and I hear my words all polished up, coming from his mouth (keyboard). Enjoy:
What about the 3D in Alice in Wonderland?
Some of the problems have been solved. When I put on the glasses I did not get a headache within the first three minutes. I never got a headache at all, though it was certainly a relief to take the glasses off.
Also, the filmmakers used restraint -- there were almost no leap-from-the-screen gotcha moments, which always break the audience's trance and destroy believability. The 3D is mostly taken for granted, which is the only effective way to use it.
Because each lens of the special glasses filters out a portion of the spectrum, the total amount of light reaching the eyes is significantly reduced -- the film is darker and details are harder to see. Still, by filming with more saturated light, the result is still watchable.
And my evaluation says: This is the most worthless film technology ever developed, with the possible exception of smell-a-vision.
The idea of 3D is to replace the flatness of the screen with something more akin to how we really see the world.
The gimmick of 3D is based on binocularity. Flat films have only one lens; 3D uses two, the way the human brain does, as it checks out the world through two eyes.
But the purpose of two eyes, evolutionarily speaking, is not binocularity, it's redundancy. You can lose an eye and still see. By having two eyes, you double your chance of survival in a world where lack of vision can kill you.
The binocularity effect is, while mildly useful, fundamentally trivial. It's a biproduct of the fact that two eyes cannot occupy the same spot. It might help you negotiate tricky grabs while swinging about in trees; but it is not the dominant feature of our vision.
We don't see the world in 3D. We conceive the world in three dimensions, but images of the real world come flat to our retinas.
We perceive distance primarily through focus -- when we focus on near things, far things blur a little; when we focus on far things, near things blur. Our peripheral vision does not have to be in focus; the spot where we're looking is always in focus.
In a film, however, the focus has to be the same for all viewers, because you can't control where people are going to look. Focus is embedded in the film. So every layer of the 3D film is in focus at the same time, no matter where you happen to look. This is so contradictory to our normal visual experience that 3D movies are more unreal than the pastel colors of filmed musical comedies.
You never for one instant think you're seeing something real. You can't -- it's slapping you in the face all the time that you are not. Whereas the old-fashioned 2D movie is much, much closer the way we see the real world, because the lens focuses the way our eyes do -- when one thing is in focus, farther and nearer things are less in-focus.
In other words, we have a medium -- flat film, even black and white film -- that has always done a superb job of reproducing our visual experience of the world, yet in the name of "greater realism" we replace it with a fundamentally unreal worldview that turns everything artificial.
Hollywood is so excited about 3D that some people want to use it to make every visual-effects-centered film. I think this is a horrible mistake, except with films like Alice where we want to have the sense of being in an unreal dream-state.
Every time someone says, "Hey, Ender's Game needs to be filmed in 3D, so the battleroom sequences really jump out at you" I shudder and do my best to change the subject. Because Ender's Game depends on letting the audience become absorbed in the story and characters, and 3D would be an enemy -- a constant distraction.
Imagine if the Harry Potter films were in 3D "so the quidditch sequences will look good." Aren't the quidditch games among the most boring moments in each movie? Yes, it's exciting for about ten seconds. Then we're ready to get on with the story.
And for those ten seconds -- or thirty, or ninety -- we have to watch the whole rest of the film in a medium so unreal that we will never really forget ourselves and fall into the audience-trance that makes storytelling arts an essential part of human life?
3D makes you watch the film instead of forgetting the film and watching the people.
And that's why it's a deadly mistake. Only in films where the special effects or cool, unnatural designs are the star is 3D an asset. The rest of the time, it's worthless at best, detrimental at worst.
And even when they don't give me a headache, I hate the glasses. When am I ever going to lean back in my chair at home, ready to watch a film on DVD, and be glad to put on a special pair of glasses? I don't think "never" is too strong a word.
- Orson Scott Card, 3/14/2010
