MisterShouty

There are several reasons why I hate 3D.

First, it is NOT new. Even this kind of 3D that’s in full colour and is being pedalled out by the movie companies as the next big thing – is not new. It has been in use in many places for over a decade. Most notably in the rides at Universal Studios, Florida. But it has been decreed by the TV and movie Gods that we shall all go 3D crazy by the start of 2011.

Well, to my mind, this is just another chance for them to screw money out of us once again. It’s so blatant, I can’t believe so many people are falling for it. Just a couple of years after thrusting HD on us, forcing us to purchase brand new, extremely expensive TV’s and Bluray players, not to mention “upgrading” our back catalogues of DVD’s … which, by the way, had only been upgraded to DVD a few short years before that, we are now going to be subjected to the same bullshit when it comes to selling yet another new format to us. And what do you know – this new format will require us to buy new TV’s, upgrade our old hat Bluray copies of Star Wars and Terminator so we can, once again, “experience them like never before” – complete with brand new bonus features available exclusively on the new releases, naturally.

Does it not occur to anyone that 3D could have been introduced alongside HD and only required us to spend the cash ONCE to upgrade our systems and movie collections?

Well, I’m damn sure it occurred to the makers of the TV’s, the players and the studios that produce the disks! They must all be planning holidays in the fucking Bahamas based on projected 3D TV sales for Christmas 2010! Ha – what am I saying? They’ve only just gotten back from their holidays courtesy of the HD TV sales of 2009!

I told my friends at the time, when HD TV’s and Bluray disks were getting huge, don’t spend your cash on all of this crap. It’s just another step on the way to something else that they’re not yet telling us about. But no-one listened! This would be it! Out they went to buy their massive TV’s … Well, what are you going to do now? Give it a couple more months and the one thousand pounds worth of TV on your living room wall will be worth fuck all and you’ll be told once again that to REALLY see your favourite movies come to life, you just HAVE to get them in 3D.

Well, I gave in to Bluray. I ignored my own advice and bought the TV and player. But I refused to replace anything I had already bought on DVD. This time round, they can keep their new, amazing TV too.

The fact of the matter is that behind all of this 3D hype is just one massive gimmick. High definition was a clear improvement on what preceeded it. It gave us sharp images on television screens up to 100 inches. So far, all I have been shown by this “amazing new” 3D technology is that they can make it look like crap is flying out of the screen at me … and I’m not even slightly impressed. Actually, I find it quite annoying. Call me old fashioned, but I still believe that the most important thing in a movie is plot, not a flying fucking monkey.

To think that there is some arsehole in California right now, pissing about with great movies like The Godfather, Terminator 2 and countless other classics, looking for places where this nasty 3D gimmick can be crow-barred in, makes me want to weep. But the bastardization of the classics is nothing compared to the awful new stuff being churned out that does nothing but ram this gimmick down our throats.

The 3D revolution is giving carte blanche to movie makers – especially animated and horror movies – to produce awful, plotless abortions of movies that they’ve filled with these stupid, annoying 3D effects instead of actually making an effort to create something worthwhile. Every one of these movies is just a vehicle for these “new” techniques, with scene after scene of new and not-so-creative reasons being thought up of why people, animals and objects might be flying about the screen in order to justify the expense of using the 3D techniques and the piling of extra charges onto the cinema ticket prices.

It all puts me in mind of those early Wii games that were essentially made just to demonstrate what the system was capable of doing … but eventually people lost all interest in. As is proven by the many millions of Wii consoles that now sit, untouched from one month’s end to the next, behind people’s new X-Boxes all around the world.

I firmly believe that 3D will go the same way.

Maybe it’ll stick around in kid’s movies, but for anyone past the mental age where a set of keys jangling in front of their face is all the entertainment they need, I sincerely hope that this 3D novelty will be outgrown, and fast.

~ by mistershouty on July 2, 2010.

Posted in Consumer, General Misery