When I was little one of the most exciting treats for me was to see a 3D movie. I had only seen a few total during my childhood, and they were usually an event at an amusement park. Michael Jackson’s Captain EO was one of the greatest movies I had ever seen at three years of age. My parents probably spent hundreds of dollars just to get into Disneyland for the experience of that particular film. To me, 3D was rare, mainly because it was expensive and reserved for the spectacle films. Today, a single ticket to a 3D experience such as Avatar could cost you over $20!
3D films have been around almost as long as moving pictures have been around. Sure, the technology is better than the early 1900s, but the concept is the same: to get more viewers. Especially since television, 3D has been used as a competitive tool to make the movie-going experience better. But was it really better? People found it more convenient (and cheaper) to sit around the television as a family rather than spend the money to see movies that didn’t look so interesting. Hollywood added the 3D experience to draw crowds, but the fad quickly faded when people realized they were the same bad movies in a different vision.
Is Hollywood doing the same thing now? Well, with the convenience of the Internet, people are having an easier time pirating movies that haven’t been released yet, or if they have, could be watched from home. It is hard to steal 3D because it is an experience, one that can only be enjoyed in a big, dark theatre.
Is it worth it though? Personally, I’d rather sit at home and watch a movie (which I’ve bought legally!) or my favorite TV show because it is more convenient and it is considerably cheaper. I don’t think that a 3D experience can make a movie better; because a bad movie is a bad movie is a bad movie (that’s a lot of bads!). And particularly nowadays, theatres are switching to projecting in digital, so I feel that I could see the same HD quality at home. A lot of major theatres are losing the film experience and falling into a digital, 3D one, where everything is expensive, including the bad food.
More information on spectacle films: http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/papers/medculturespectacle.html
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