[Sound Off] Why 3D Movies Are Limited
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
My wife and I went to see the new Harry Potter film last night. We’re a little late to the game, sure, but that’s because we waited for the IMAX version, which featured the film on a nice big screen with superior sound and rockin’ 3D!
…well, sort of. There’s a big difference between movie theater IMAX and the big, 4-story IMAX you might see at a tourist attraction. It’s still an impressive picture, but it’s not THAT much better than a digital theater. And the 3D? We were more impressed by the trailer for the 3D animated A Christmas Carol than we were with the measly 12 minutes of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince that were in 3D. Those minutes were at the beginning (one of the least impressive parts of the film) and didn’t work out so well.
Oddly enough, we’d gone with my mom the weekend before to see G-Force, a harmless family movie that plays out like someone took a generic spy movie script, tweaked the main characters to be guniea pigs, and cranked out a film. Say what you will about the plot, but the 3D was very nice, and very immersive. We also saw Pixar’s Up in 3D earlier this summer and were similarly impressed.
Harry Potter, on the other hand, was pretty dull in 3D. We got a few minutes of action at the beginning, but it was nothing special. We also got to see Harry sitting in a diner reading a newspaper and searching through an old house with his wand. Yawn. The scenes weren’t really made for 3D, so I won’t blame the filmmakers; it was just a gimmick to get people to check out the IMAX version. We were a lot more impressed with the IMAX 3D in the previous film, Hary Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which was at the end of the movie and which featured spells flying around and glass breaking. That made for some entertaining 3D action.
What this has helped me realize is that 3D filmmaking has some major limitations. You just can’t shoot a 3D film the same way you shoot an action film. Quick cuts, oblique angles, confusing rotations and other staples of action filmmaking are disorienting in 3D, and they actually remove the viewer from the immersive feeling of watching a film. You really have to focus on straightforward action, and you have to find ways to make things pop out at the audience and excite them a little bit. A film like G-Force, despite its faults, was well-made for 3D, because it had constant action, cartoonish characters, and interesting gadgets. Up really popped on the screen because it had a lot of depth in its animated world (the balloons carrying the house, for example, had a nice three-dimensionality about them due to their round shape), and its action was slow enough that you could be stunned by the big moments.
3D is the way a lot of big-budget films are going, but I have a feeling that until action filmmakers figure it out, it’s going to be used primarily for kid’s movies and animation. One reason for this is that it’s easier for the filmmakers to create these films in 3D (due to the complicated cameras that have to be used to film live-action shots in 3D). Another reason is that kids’ films don’t move as fast and aren’t trying to be as edgy and cool as the summer blockbusters are. They lend themselves better to 3D’s strengths.
Unfortunately, the techniques used for modern action films are designed to look good on a 2D screen, so I have a feeling a lot of these 3D films are going to lose their “oomph” when they’re being viewed as home videos. I wonder how long it’s going to take for 3D to be something you can easily watch at home? I give it 5 years.
Oh, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince? I’m not going to waste my time giving it a review, so suffice it to say that I thought it was the weakest and least magical of the films so far. If I hadn’t read the book, I think I would have been pretty lost about the plot, and the film was so focused on teenage silliness that it really lost its ability to focus on the deeper, darker themes that showed up in the book. Granted, Rowling didn’t develop those themes very well either, but they were present, and the film really missed an opportunity to tell a compelling story. But let’s be honest — people don’t go to see the Harry Potter films for the story. They go to see the book acted out. I’m really dreading the seventh film, which is the first half of the worst book in the series. But, my wife’s a fan, so I’ll have to go.
Sound Off | SeanJJordan | 
August 2, 2009 11:05 pm
2 Comments
Other Links to this Post
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Subscribe
By Boon, August 3, 2009 @ 4:32 pm
I absolutely agree with you; I do hope the filmmakers make full use of the 3D technology, but at the same time they have to respect its limitations, otherwise it might actually serve to alienate cinema-goers. Its a great way to add value to the cinema experience and a good weapon against illegal downloads.
Anyways, if any of your readers are interested in finding out how the whole 3D thing actually feels like in the cinema, there’s a review that goes into depth about the 3D glasses, a discussion about the 3D-ness, etc:
http://www.london-insider.co.uk/2009/08/g-force-3d-movie-review-o2-dome-vue-cinema/
By javier, August 21, 2009 @ 6:42 am
Thanks for your insight….i went to see harry potter in imax and was also disappointed at the short length of the 3D technology. Your post jumped out at me because there isn’t a lot of commentary as to why these kinds of movies cant be made into a complete 3D motion picture. If anyone knows of any good sites that talk about this type of tech post! thanks