My feelings mirror Peter's about the movie: it was by far the best thing I've seen all year. Pixar movies are usually brilliant, and this was no exception--indeed, it may be my favorite of their films.
Unlike Roger Ebert, we saw it in 3D. And this triggered something of a disagreement as to whether 3D is the future of movies. Peter sort of endorsed Ebert's indictment of 3D:
I'll have to see "Up"in 3D to experience their effectiveness. I'm afraid the brightness and delicate shadings of the color palate will become slightly dingy, slightly flattened out, like looking through a window that needs Windex. With standard 3D movies, take off the glasses and see how much brighter the "real" screen is. I predict the Cannes screening will look better than almost every U.S. screening.
There is also the annoyance of 3D itself. It is a marketing gimmick designed (1) to justify higher ticket prices, and (2) make piracy harder. Yet as most of the world will continue to use 2D, pirated prints will remain a reality. The effect of 3D adds nothing to the viewing experience, and I have never once heard an audience member complain that a movie is not in 3D. Kids say they "like" it, but kids are inclined to say they "like" anything that is animated and that they get to see in a movie theater. It is the responsibility of parents to explain this useful truth: If it ain't broke. don't fix it. Every single frame of a 3D movie gives you something to look at that is not necessary.
I have to disagree. Yes, the standard goggles they hand out slightly dim the movie. On the other hand, there were moments in the movie when I crossed whatever the inanimate version of the uncanny valley is: I forgot I was looking at a movie. This despite the fact that I was watching a cartoon.
As we discussed this over dinner afterwards, it came out that Peter doesn't have good stereo vision. And though the plural of anecdote is not data, I wonder if this isn't likely to be a problem many film critics have. After all, the worse your stereo vision, the more compellingly life-like a movie is.
I don't think that 3D will prove much of a barrier to piracy--as far as I can tell, you could just as easily do it on a large home screen, and ever-larger home screens are clearly coming. But it is a format that is especially well-suited to a big screen, and in that sense, if it becomes a dominant format, it really might help save Hollywood from what has happened to the record industry.
And I think it might. For me, even with slight color-dimming, 3D added quite a lo, even though directors are clearly still learning how to use it. It still feels slightly awkward and underused, like the first talkies, when actors had to deliver their lines into the plants. But when it works, it's an improvement on par with the switch to color.
But I seem to be in a minority, at least among film critics. What do y'all think?
25 years from now, we will see film festivals pop up where you can view films in classic 2D.
For films with a lot of cgi that rely on special effects, I do think that 3D is the future.
For character driven films like "Lost in Translation" or "The Godfather" for example, I think 3D would be a distracting gimic.
I also am in a mixed relationship where my husband has 20/10 vision and can see through walls and I have fairly crappy stereo vision. Yet we both find 3D somewhat overrated. Neither of us like it because neither of us wear glasses and, therefore, putting on the glasses feels wierd (I have pretty good eyesight despite my crappy stereo vision) and, aside from that, the glasses give me a headache. We have not seen UP but we did see Coraline in 3D and I just didn't think it was worth the extra money.
It's a gimmick and it'll go the way of the dodo bird, just like it did the last time it became popular.
Bingo -- this kind of thing can easily appeal to two kinds of people: film technique afficionados, and people who already wear glasses. I might not mind, since bat blindness runs in the family and I've worn glasses since I was 7 or 8. For anyone else, the requirement to wear glasses for a couple hours in order to partake of an experience, is going to be the deal breaker. Especially when nearly the same experience can be had in alternate form without the distracting face gear.
The ViewMaster was a pretty neat trick, too, but once the novelty wears off it's easier and more practical to just look at regular pictures on display.
I get no benefit from 3-D movies as I have, essentially, no stereo vision due to a childhood injury. Scar on the retina left me with no central vision in my left eye.
I don't mind 3D for animation, because these things are made in 3D. Modeling and directing something in three dimensions then compositing it into a 2D image is much different from hackily inserting some jump scares into something that was filmed. Coraline was similar in that it never seemed to have something fly straight into the audience solely to get a rise.
I also doubt preventing piracy is the significant reason for 3D offerings--it's preserving the theater experience. I'm only 25 and I can remember a time when a trip to the theater was a treat. Now, actually going to a theater and dealing with the crowds and lousy food has become part of the cost. I'm not a "kids these days" type but given a. teenagers and b. affordable home entertainment setups they've managed to turn a value added service into an obligation in a shade over a decade.
I bet if you offered new movies at home for $25 a pop they'd sell like crazy--and not because they'd average more than 2.5 viewers a purchase
I don't mind 3D for animation, because these things are made in 3D.
As opposed to the 2D non-animated world?
I like 3D. It's still "cool" to me and the movie experience feels more exciting, like an amusement park ride. But I also wear glasses and I don't go to movies often, so that may influence my perceptions.
I'm glad you liked Up! I saw it (in 2D, as none of the theaters in my area had it in 3D) and fell instantly in love. As did my boyfriend, who was initially dismayed that I was dragging him to 'a kid's movie about old people'. We liked it so much we're going to see it again this weekend, and there is talk of the boyfriend dragging his buddies along.
I saw Monsters vs. Aliens in 3D with my kids and really enjoyed it. The 3D added to the movie, in my opinion. There was one scene where the action jumped out of the screen and it was pretty impressive.
My vision is adequate and I don't normally wear glasses. Both of my kids thought the whole thing was cool and even wanted to keep the glasses. They spent the rest of the afternoon finding polarized and tempered glass and seeing rainbows.
I'd love to watch everything in 3D. I can't wait for the XBOX 3D to come out...
So many people have nice home theater setups now, that it's tempting to wait for the DVD release and avoid loud audience members, overpriced refreshments, etc. But as you said, 3D is especially well-suited to the big screen, so it's a great way for theaters to fill the seats.
"I don't think that 3D will prove much of a barrier to piracy--as far as I can tell, you could just as easily do it on a large home screen, and ever-larger home screens are clearly coming."
Not "just as easily". You can buy a home 3D projection system for around $1000 and a silver screen for $300, and I'm sure the cost will come down. But you absolutely cannot use a normal screen, and you will have a lot of work ahead of you to adapt a pair of standard projectors. See http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1105843 for a discussion of the issues.
In short, you do have to spend extra, either in time or money, for a 3D system.
I deduce from this that, until 3D becomes mainstream, 3D movies will be pirated at a lesser rate than their 2D versions. But they will also be rented at a lesser rate. The movie industry might get you to see something in a theater that you would otherwise rent or pirate, but they won't convert pirates into renters. And if 3D ever becomes popular enough for it to be standard in home theater systems, then their would be no anti-piracy bonus.
Am I missing anything?
One advantage of the Dolby 3D system is that it doesn't require a silver screen, though you do have to have a dual projector system. It's the projector requirement that makes it a hard sell for mass-market home use.
I think you're missing the point, which I take to be "as long as a 2D version exists then people interested in selling/buying the film on the black market will probably do just fine selling the 2D version and those interested in pirating the 3D version will have insificantly different barriers than anyone who wanted to purchase a legitimate home version of the 3D media."
I don't think I'm missing that point, I think I'm making it. I say that 3D may turn pirates and renters into movie-goers, but will not turn pirates into renters.
I wonder if some of the comfort-related gripes could be addressed with better polarized glass and frames. The stuff they hand out in theaters obviously has throwaway quality, but if, say, Ray-Ban came up with high end glasses for 3D movie connoisseurs (with money to waste, that is) things may well start to look different. This will probably happen once (if) 3D versions become a commonplace enough attribute for most blockbusters.
I'm off the opinion that special effects are the worst thing that happened to movies. The more effects come out, the more studios cram them into movies. The more money they sink in, the more important it is to get a good return on their investment. Thus we get all these movies that "everyone will like" and no one is willing to take a chance on a movie that someone might just hate.
So we get movies that just reuse the exact same script over and over and over. Was is monsters vs aliens that I just watched or a bugs life or ants? I can't tell the difference. They just kids to watch an endless series of identical romantic comedies later on in life.
I don't think that 3D will prove much of a barrier to piracy--as far as I can tell, you could just as easily do it on a large home screen, and ever-larger home screens are clearly coming.
The system for home use (unless you want to go back to projection systems) will likely be more complex. The current system relies on having 2 images projected at once with the light using opposite polarization. The glasses have lenses that pass the properly polarized light to the eye, with a slight loss in intensity, though a digital system could compensate for the losses.
Non-projecting 3-d systems use high speed liquid crystal shutters over each eye that open and close in sync with the images, with the source alternating the left and right image. You also have some loss of intensity with these goggles. They'll need a power source ocntroller pack hooked to the glasses.
I'm not sure how well 3-D will be accepted. One problem with virtual reality systems is that if the visual scene gets too out of sync with the motion percieved by the inner ear, you can induce nausea. Of course, some films do that in 2D as well, like, say "Ishtar".
Thinking about it, you might be able to take a TI DLP HD televison and by doubling the DLP system make it 3D using the lightweight glasses. The TV would be more than 2x as expensive (2 projectors, plus the changes needed to decode and route the double signal) and might be thicker. The DLP TVs on the market are thicker than plasma or LCD systems already, and could end up even thicker.....
I haven't seen Up, but I saw Coraline in 3D (entirely by accident---it was the closest theater it was playing at), and was quite impressed. I just barely remember from my childhood those dreadful red-blue 3D glasses, but the new technology is nothing like that. It was not only visually stunning, but used quite compellingly to add to the atmosphere of the movie.
Against the naysayers, like Ebert and a few of your commenters, I'd argue that the new 3D tech belongs in the highest tier of special effects: it's so good that, use d properly, it will become an art in itself, at least for a time. Yes, it will be overused, and that's unfortunate, and no, it shouldn't be used in every single movie. But when used well, and in its early uses it has been, it's an artistic tool first, and a marketing "gimmick" second.
Up is wonderful.
That said, supposedly the upcoming HDMI revision includes some extras to make passing the data for stereoscopic 3D easier.
I saw Up in 2D and loved it, Coraline and Monsters Vs. Aliens in 3D. Aside from the dramatic differences in quality between the films, I still much prefer the 2D experience. The 3D effect adds nothing to the film for me and the additional ticket cost will lead me to seek out 2D versions in theaters whenever possible.
3D - occasionally fun but for the time being still kind of gimmicky.
Wouldn't care to see all movies while wearing goggles tho.
Like CGI (or any other special effect), 3D adds to the movie when it's done well, and distracts when it's done poorly.
Based on what I've experienced and what I've read here, it sounds to me like the future of 3D is in the movie-theater (or home?) experience, not in the creation technology. Example: what if you could do 3D without glasses (a special fitler on the screen itself? A panel to look through at each theater seat? I don't know, I just work here...)
As for animation vs. live-action: I think an explosion in an action movie that properly used 3D (i.e., shrapnel flying all around me) would enhance the movie, not distract. Again, only if it's done well...
I couldn't find a convenient theater showing UP in 2D so I settled for 3D. And...meh. The movie was wonderful but it would have been just as wonderful in 2D. 3D is okay, but not worth paying an extra $5 for. I'm as-yet undecided on whether it's worth paying *any* extra for - I'd have to do some side-by-side compares to be sure. Probably not.
Not willing to pay extra for a 3D movie and even less willing to wear goggles or glasses to get the “3D experience.” And I agree with the other posters who have said that special effects have been at best a two-edged sword for the film industry. Sometimes it makes a movie better to have a really cool special effect but too often it seems to come at the expense of plot and interesting characters. See the difference between the original Star Wars trilogy and the prequel trilogy.
I've seen a handful of movies in 3D lately, including Up (wonderful movie). I did try to find Up in 2D first, but the local theatre was only carrying the 3D version.
I find that the 3D is really impressive for the first 5 or 10 minutes. After that, I don't really notice it anymore and am just watching a movie wearing clunky glasses. That I paid extra for.
I also find it makes my eyes really tired by the end of the movie (although I've never gotten the headaches that some people complain about). I think the new 3D technology is great for a 15 novelty film in Disneyland. For mainstream movies, I hope it's just a fad.
There was an interesting article in Slate recently explaning why eyestream may be a permanent feature of trying to simulate 3D images on a 2D surface.
That would be eyeSTRAIN, not eyestream. I may not like 3D, but I should avoid implying it's actually creating medical conditions previously unknown to science.
My husband and I saw Coraline recently in 3D and enjoyed it, but made strenuous efforts to see Monsters vs. Aliens in 2D. We'll do the same with Up, or we'll wait until it comes out on DVD. At almost 3, our girls are just too little for the 3D glasses -- they won't keep them on, so the glasses become a giant distraction. Our friends with small children are all doing likewise.
Nobody decides to go see a movie just because it's in 3D, whereas some people will decide NOT to go see one that's only available in 3D. Given that animated movies are specifically targeting the preschool crowd, seems like a bad idea to me.
You could not just as easily do 3D on a large home screen. I have a DLP projection system and a 120 inch home screen and there is no way for me to achieve these 3D effects for multiple reasons.
(1) 3D cinemas use screens specially manufactured to better preserve the polarization of the reflected light.
(2) 3D cinemas use special projection equipment to simultaneously project two images with orthogonal polarizations.
(3) 3D cinemas use "prints" that digitally encode the information required to construct the two simultaneous images. This information simply isn't on a normal DVD, and the studios have no intention of releasing it.
The 3D gimmick will probably help get people back into cinemas to watch kids' movies and maybe si-fi action films. But it's hard to imagine it being a big draw for a drama or romantic comedy. And as far as picture quality goes, not only do the glasses reduce the dynamic range, but they also unavoidably introduce at least some fuzziness, because the polarization isolation is not perfect and because, even if it were, people will not hold their heads perfectly level.
Sometimes it makes a movie better to have a really cool special effect but too often it seems to come at the expense of plot and interesting characters. See the difference between the original Star Wars trilogy and the prequel trilogy.
Frankly, I'm skeptical of the idea that special effects have ruined movies. Firstly, there were lots of forgettable big budget blockbusters with lousy scripts and acting back in the day that have since been forgotten - not every golden-age western was "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" nor every swords-and-sandals epic "Spartacus". Taking in a few episodes of MST3K always reminds me of this. Secondly, there are plenty of modern special effects driven popcorn movies that also have great characters/plots/writing - e.g. "The Matrix" or "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. I, too, found the Star Wars prequels to be overstuffed with garish CGI, but that was a relatively minor flaw that was amplified by the fact that they were so poorly written. If the acting and dialog weren't so amateurish the story would have gripped me more and I likely wouldn't have noticed/cared that Lucas overdid it with the battle droids. "Revenge of the Sith" had a much better script than the other two and no less eye candy, which I think shows where the problem in that case lay.
I generally avoid summer action flicks of the Michael Bay school, but if they're gonna bring in $300 million with which the studio can finance better pictures, or if Steven Soderbergh can only direct something like "Solaris" because he's already paid the bills with "Ocean's Sixteen", then I've really got no problem with their existence, despite what they say about the depressingly minute value of the lowest common denominator.
I get the feeling that there needs to be another 'jump' in the technology before it reaches the kind of critical mass that would result in a large number of mainstream 3D movies.
I've seen a couple of movies in 3D films this year - Coraline (Wonderful) and Monsters vs. Aliens (Serviceable) - and I didn't get the feeling that the 3D experience was an order of magnitude better than what I remember from when I was a kid. Sure, it's been cleaned up, but it's still the old glasses-and-stuff-jumping-out-at-you thing.
It just doesn't seem as essential a leap as the advent of sound or technicolor must have seemed to the audience of their day. Perhaps James Cameron has something new figured out with his movie 'Avatar', which has been getting a fair bit of hype, but we'll see . . .
I would tell you exactly what I think, but really, I'm sure you can guess it yourself.
I'm afraid the brightness and delicate shadings of the color palate will become slightly dingy, slightly flattened out, like looking through a window that needs Windex. With standard 3D movies, take off the glasses and see how much brighter the "real" screen is. I predict the Cannes screening will look better than almost every U.S. screening.
Trust me that this is already compensated for. The same system that is used to the coloring of the 2-d print of the film is used to do the 3-d print of the film, and the operator matches the perceived colors, not the projected colors.
Basically, someone who cares a great deal more about the coloring than even the pickiest theater viewer has already put in the effort to match the colors seen through all of the projection filters and the stereo glasses.
The coloring of the 3-d print of the films are brightened and saturated slightly to compensate for the filtering effect from the stereo glasses. It's similar to how gravel made for fish tanks are extra-neon so that they still look colorful once you view them through the dulling-blue filter of the water.
Yes, it will look brighter if you take off your 3-d glasses, but the correct coloring is what you see through the glasses.
Also, as "...Max..." suggests, there is a market for high-end stereo glasses. And that market is not empty. They are available in nice comfortable (expensive) frames. They're even available in prescription varieties so you don't have to stack them over your everyday glasses.
Keep in mind that any pain you feel while watching the film for 90 minutes has been felt many times over by the production team who spends months of 10 hour days staring at the film in 3-d. They are your best friends for reducing eyestrain, and they'll keep getting better at it for as long as this current push for 3-d lasts.
The unmentioned piracy feature of 3D is one can't film the movie in the theater with a digital camera. That is how many of the street DVDs are made.
The industry believes that 3D gives people a reason to go to the theater, instead of watching at home. I think it's going to work for a while. Longer term a lot of money is now pouring into holograph projection (really!), which would be a huge game changer.
As someone who wear glasses, I'm not satisfied with the experience of putting on a 3D pair over my glasses. I find I'm always fiddling with the focal length between the 2 sets of lenses.
I saw UP this weekend. Great film. Gran Torino meets Beverly Hills Chihuahua. And those Pixar guys have clearly studied every frame of the Miyazaki movies Disney distributes (Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away).