It will die!
I don’t enjoy it for a combination of factors:
1. Gratutious use of 3D
2. The surplus charge for a movie ticket
3. Cinematography is hopefully my profession someday and unless you spend the money to actually previz and shoot in 3D than its an absolute destruction of the original vision.
4. 3D is nothing new, its just a little more main stream. (Universal Studios Themepark – Terminator 2:3D and Walt Disney World – Muppet Vision 3D just to name a couple)
In a review I did of Avatar I noted that I thought the visuals were absolutely wonderful. It was engrossing and colorful to the point I could feel that the world was real. However, I didn’t necessarily think 3D added to that feel and at times I felt the 3D kind of took me out of the moments (when I would look to the side or had an itch on my eye). The problem is that I felt as if I was at a theme park attraction instead of at a screening of a film.
Now obviously it has been good for the box office as of late, posting record grosses last year and already ahead of 2009 by 10%. But during a time in which movie goers are flocking in droves, the quality of the 3D isn’t necessarily great and the price is simply gouging the consumer. One would think there would be some customer appreciation instead of what we are seeing.
In short, I feel that the bigger and clearer the the film is, is much more important than the 3D factor. I used to be a proponent of 3D. Then as it became a gimmick I lost the love I had for it. Being used just to make money while destroying the intended look of a film is a travesty. When done right to supplement the story is the only way I can approve of 3D. With the influx of digital projectors, we are witness to very clean portrayals of films without the nasty degradation of celluloid. As always, the future of film is in the stories and how they use the technology of the times to tell them. But as we have seen with past technologies, unless the costs can be overcome by consumer spending it simply dies off.