The Last Airbender: Sounding the Death Knell for 3D?

[Solo4114]

I dunno. There's more support from the consumer electronics side of the industry this time around, and I think these days that's what's critical for pushing 3D filming.

I mean, if ONLY the theaters have it, then it's just another expensive gimmick to try to foist on the public. Might be neat once or twice, but in general it'll get annoying, and it won't be profitable for the studios to process their films for 3D when they can't really make any more money off of it as a result. On the other hand, when you know you can get revenues from Blu-Ray sales, it makes a lot more sense financially to invest in the technology.

Panasonic's plasma line this year, and Sony's (and I think Samsung's) LCD line of TVs are all coming "3D ready" or "3D enabled" or whatever. Usually with one pair of glasses. (which means you have to buy any others if you want to have company over...) So, I'd expect to see more content pushed as 3D. ESPN has been hyping the hell out of 3D sports during the world cup, you've got films like Avatar and the Pixar movies coming out with native 3D, so I think that the public will respond better this time if only because tehre'll be a more marked industry-wide push to make it happen.

I mean, let's face it. They can't keep pushing "even higher hi-def" TVs on the public, so the consumer electronics business model demands that there be new technology to sell people. And given that everyone JUST upgraded over the last few years, what else are they gonna sell? 3D represents a perfect way to get people spending, and a perfect way to keep studio revenues high and theaters competitive.

 

[Contec]

Forget 3D... "Feel-Around" Is the future!!!....
YouTube - Feel-Around

 

[Clutch]

Knew it had to be Kentucky Fried Movie!!!!!! :lol

 

[Kerr Avon]

"The Last Airbender" shouldn't have been in 3D. The 3D in it didn't suck, it was really just non existant. Besides the opening sequence, and at one point watching the prow of a ship coming at the screen, there was no 3D really.

 

[Ttaskmaster]

3D will always be a gimmick until people learn that it's not one.
It is a background enhancement effect like surround sound. It should be used as such and filmmakers must dispense with the "Comin' At Ya" style approach.

They need to look back at how 3D was done in the 50s, so they can see how production and post-production should be done. This is where the 80s revival mostly failed.
Finally, theatres need to make sure their projectionists do the set-up correctly. A mis-alignment as great as 1" on screen will result in the audience having headaches.


But there will still be some people with visual anomalies (stigmatisms etc) who are incapable of seeing 3D and those who do not like wearing glasses to watch a movie.
Therefore 3D will always suck until 360° holographic projection TVs are on the market.

 

[Qui-Gonzalez]

I am loathe to even say this, but Avatar was a really well done 3D movie. Alice in Wonderland was also good, but nowhere near as well done. Damn James Cameron for setting the bar so high that the rest just limbo underneath it.

 

[dropshipbob]

I don't get why people want to see stuff "flying" at them in the movies, I go to movies to see a giant image projected on a flat surface, if I want stuff flying at me left and right, I'll go watch a little league game!

 

[Ttaskmaster]

Damn James Cameron for setting the bar so high that the rest just limbo underneath it.

Not so high that mistakes weren't made.
He tried to force perspective in some scenes, usually with too much background motion, or something moving quickly in the foreground. At those points peoples' eyes are usually drawn to whatever is moving and he (rather glaringly) left the moving bits in 2D!!

I don't get why people want to see stuff "flying" at them in the movies

Because that's the gimmick 3D is sold as.
It's supposed to provide a sense of depth and perspective. Several lower budget films attempted to use 3D like this, but the audience were actually disappointed because stuff didn't jump off the screen at them!
As a result, those poor films bombed.

Avatar has done well in that it starts to re-establish 3D where it belongs, but we have a long way to go yet.

 

[Hamsterstyle]

I think the problem isn't 3d movies, its the fact all movies in theaters that are called '3d movies' fall under one group, when in fact there are two different groups.

2d>3d conversions

Films shot/rendered in 3d.

The conversions are what is killing 3d, as these arn't actually 3d, they are pop-up book 3d. In addtion, 2d>3d conversions are only half as bright, so dark movies (like Clash of the Titans, or Airbender) become wayy too dark and hard to follow.

Movies like Avatar or Toy Story 3/Up are made with this in mind. They are all bright colorful movies, so the loss in brightness isn't noticeable, in fact, it's expected.

Also, real 3d movies are actually shot or rendered with the debth of real 3d. Noses appear closer than eyes. I remember seeing Sam Worthingtons face in Avatar and you really can see the debth in the shot.

Personally, 2d>3d conversions are in my opinion the worst trend in movies today. I hope audiences complain, *****, and moan.. until this crap goes away.

Every 2d>3d movie that has come out has been bad to average. Green Hornet gets really bad reviews from the studio, so they delay it for six months for a 3d conversion.

If you can't make it good, convert it to 3d.

 

[Solo4114]

I gather that real 3D is quite expensive to do properly. Post-filming conversions, on the other hand, are relatively inexpensive by comparison. And then you can advertise as "IN 3D!!" which, supposedly, will kick up revenues by X%. I'm sure someone's modeled this internally anyway.

Basically, you can slap the 2D-to-3D conversion on as an afterthought, basically to act as the latest sleight-of-hand used by studios to disguise the fact that their film is a steaming pile. It's just another tool in the marketing department's arsenal.

 

[CTF]

Alice in Wonderland was also good, but nowhere near as well done.

You're kidding, right? It was amateur hour!

 

[Rotwang]

Hollywood has been on an endless quest to find the "perfect movie formula", that strange mix of business, beancounting, marketing and voodoo alchemy that will be guaranteed to draw millions to the cinema.

It's not about making good movies, that would be "too easy" Essentially they try and retry to find an endlessly repeatable formula to make a hit movie. They constantly tinker with the composition and this year the magical component of choice is 3D. Avatar made a gazillion bucks so 3D is the magic that will draw audiences to the screen like moths to a fire.

So 3D is added onto films like Vlad Tepes added stakes to his enemies and they sit back and wait for the money to roll in. Doesn't happen and it's back to the lab, 5% more CGI, 7% more high-paid star, throw more money at it, more recuts, test screenings ... "We're tweaking the formula. It'll work, it will be like printing our own money !!! Honest !!!"

3D is just another cinematic tool, it takes a bit of talent to use it properly.

 

[micdavis]

Let it die.

 

[Solo4114]

Hollywood has been on an endless quest to find the "perfect movie formula", that strange mix of business, beancounting, marketing and voodoo alchemy that will be guaranteed to draw millions to the cinema.

It's not about making good movies, that would be "too easy" Essentially they try and retry to find an endlessly repeatable formula to make a hit movie. They constantly tinker with the composition and this year the magical component of choice is 3D. Avatar made a gazillion bucks so 3D is the magic that will draw audiences to the screen like moths to a fire.

So 3D is added onto films like Vlad Tepes added stakes to his enemies and they sit back and wait for the money to roll in. Doesn't happen and it's back to the lab, 5% more CGI, 7% more high-paid star, throw more money at it, more recuts, test screenings ... "We're tweaking the formula. It'll work, it will be like printing our own money !!! Honest !!!"

3D is just another cinematic tool, it takes a bit of talent to use it properly.

More like making GOOD movies is too HARD. At least in large quantities.

I mean, I get much of Hollywood's risk aversion. Would you just roll the bones with millions of dollars? Or would you want a guaranteed return on your investment?

Good movies -- really good ones that get critical acclaim AND bring in the numbers -- are extremely hard to come by and probably even harder to predict. Who's to know when something will be a megahit or a megaflop or a sleeper hit, or just a straight-to-video crapfest?

Focus audiences can only tell you so much. And then there's the school of thought that just doesn't care and figures that a clever trailer and hype campaign can get enough people to go see it opening weekend that you'll make yuor money back. I see that a lot these days. Anyway, they've got their formulas, and as you say, 3D is just part of that equation now.

 

[Guri]

I haven't seen the cartoons, but I actually liked the movie, for what it was - a kids fantasy show. As for the acting - eh... didn't ruin it for me.

What ruined it for my son was the change in pronunciation of the Avatar's name. He cringed beside me almost every time they said his name.

We didn't watch it in 3d, but there were some action scenes and panoramic views that were really blurry and hard to watch. It made me feel like it was 3d without the glasses or something. Very strange.

 

[Colin Droidmilk]

I wonder what value the Great Directors of the past attached to the notion that a 2D image must be inferior to a 3D one. When 'Creature of the Black Lagoon' came out, was Kurosawa frustrated he couldn't do his Samurai epics in 3D? Was Kubrick always disappointed that Dr. Strangelove was in 2D? Maybe they were, I don't know, though I strongly suspect that they saw it as a crass overstatement of an already satisfactory illusion. And perhaps something else. I think something could be lost in 3D, namely the strong sense of structural composition that arises from arranging flat lines and shapes within the flatness of the picture plane, something these directors were masters of. But maybe 3D offers other opportunities for masterful frame composition, though Cameron, Bay et al. are not the mob to explore them. Still, who cares? It's only a few art-heads like me who give a toss, I suppose.

Also, the truth of an actor's head tends to become a bit too apparent. I'd have absolutely no desire to see James Stewart's head in 3D. I have a suspicion too that Ford's head would alwys have worked best in 2D.

 

[CTF]

Hitch played 'round with stereo, but he knew it was a gimmick.