h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've just seen 'The Pirates in an Adventure with Scientists'. Yes - everything that it should have been. However...I'm not convinced that 3D added anything. In fact...in any 3D film I've seen it's seemed to me to be little more than a gimick. The occasional moment when something sticks out of the screen, just like it wouldn't in real life. (In RL, 3D doesn't look like that, does it? You don't see things sticking out at you.)

So what gives? Could it be that 3D cinematographers simply haven't yet developed beyond a basic vocabulary of 3D shots? Or are there films that I haven't seen in which 3D genuinely makes an artistic - as opposed to commercial - contribution.

There was a trailer for Top Cat 3D. No. No. Apart from the cynicism of the creative industries plundering the back catalogue rather than having to be - you know - creative...it just looked all wrong. It was just 2D layers superimposed on one another to give the impression of a children's cardboard cutout theatre. I'd like to see Studio Ghibli try something like that, but it was totally wrong for Top Cat.

The last film I saw in 3D a the cinema actually reminded me rather a lot of watching Captain Pugwash as a kid.

What do I mean by that?

Well I think I mean "It was just 2D layers superimposed on one another to give the impression of a children's cardboard cutout theatre."

As that was what Captain Pugwash was then rather than the proper animated cartoon it appears to have become.

So yeah I tend to agree with you.

Having said that - I did do Avatar in IMax 3D when it came out and they did throw everything into that 3Dwise and the 3D did really make the planet come alive. Even then there were unncessary things in 3D like a wall sticking out at you for no apparent reason. Oh and other than an immersive 3D experience it was "Meh" as a film otherwise.

Moreover, I'm more or less not allowed to see anything in 3D by the missus. She has a lazy eye and so 'gets no benefit'. Which apparently means I have to permanently forgo it too.

I was unconvinced by Avatar. Yes - the 3D worked in a few places - but not in the much-vaunted action sequences. Plus - it was generally a piss poor film.

"I've just seen 'The Pirates in an Adventure with Scientists'."[Edward]

Is that the same as "Pirates, Band of Misfits," which premiers in the U.S. on April 27? Hugh Grant provides the voice for the captain.

I'm not sure there's much chance of spoilers. The trailers contain an awful lot. As for the 3D, what chance do you of avoiding it? if there's only one version, and it's in 3D, you can't opt out. Eventually, even DVDs will have 3D television sets to play on. This is the irresistible force that is coming at us. I'm not thrilled about paying extra for 3D when I go to movie theaters, but at least I get the senior citizen discount now. I feel sorry for the younger viewers.

It is. The UK title is the same as the book...and I couldn't possibly comment on whether the distributors wish to downplay the fact that one of the leading characters is Charles Darwin.

I've been looking at new TVs lately and took to MediaMarkt to show him what we had in our showroom at work last year.

And I have to say that while I think it's a bit gimmicky, at least the test things are brilliant (the one we looked at was a girl blowing bubbles, and something taking off from an aircraft carrier and I nearly ducked...)

I don't want 3d all the time, but sometimes it adds a bit of fun and that's all TV is for me (well, apart from paying the rent and putting food on the table...)

I get that it's meant to be fun. Fun is good. My point is that nobody seems yet to have found a way to make it *much* fun.

I think it's a vicious circle - until there are a lot more TVs in homes, there won't be too much content. But people are put off buying them because of a lack of content.

However - what amazed me (and yes, my bad since I sell the flipping things) was that the quality of the TV is really very very good in normal 2D. And in HD it's totally lovely. So for not too much more I can get 3D when it's available and that's great for me.

What really peeved me, though, was that I downgraded my mum's sky subscription because my dad had the whole kit and caboodle but it's mostly sport. But you can't get 3D films (when they show them) unless you have the sport package.

Not sure what other suppliers of TV have as a policy, but that strikes me as a bit cutting off your target audience for films.

Nah. The idea is that 'All happy families are alike'. Dad likes Sport. Kids like 3D films.

(I've just downgraded my Virgin because we no longer want all the kids channels...nor any of the other crap.)

3D has been an off-on gimmick since the early seventies. And not once has it been successful.

There's a very, very simple lesson to be learned there. And it says a lot for Hollywood intelligence that - well, you know the rest.

B

I have a colleague who is an acknowledged world expert on visual displays - and also a collector of stereoscopic photos. He says that a craze for 3D comes round every thirty years or so,

This time I have a feeling that it will succeed. It's a commercial imperative, There's been so much money invested that they'll *make* it work. It's a way of shifting more product at a higher price.

£15 for two tickets today!

Well high end TVs are pretty much all 3D now as are DVD players. And that's beginning to filter down to more affordable models.

You'll be hard pushed to buy a telly that isn't 3d soon I'd say. Doesn't mean you have to take advantage of it though.

And maybe as a result someone will find an actual, artistic purpose.

Christ, though! Will we really have to sit on the couch looking like Ray Charles?

An artistic purpose.

Porn will lead the way as ever

Who knows what we'll see poking out of our screens?

Probably not. I assume that the 3D televisions will work without anyone needing to wear 3D glasses.

My daughter El has no 3-D vision at all in normal life, because she has bi-ocular vision. She only uses one of her eyes at a time - she has one for short-range vision and the other for distance. She's blown away by 3-D movies, because it's the only place she ever sees three dimensions. Strangely, the part of her brain for appreciating 3 dimensions is still there and working, even though it never got any input from her eyes up to now.

But like all the rest of us, she has a headache for a couple of days after watching a 3-d movie. So we always go for the 2-d one if we can.

I think I and my family appreciate the world much more intensely than the average person, because other people seem to just float through life, whereas we're watching everything, listening to everything, analysing all the time.

"3D has been an off-on gimmick since the early seventies"

It's been an on-off gimmick since the Lumiere brothers. There was a major 3D flap in the 50s with Creature from the Black Lagoon and House of Wax. I've seen colour 3D footage of Elizabeth II's coronation parade.

But the idea that it will succeed this time is, I think, mistaken. A year ago the movie "Despicable Me" was notable for being the first of the recent crop of 3D movies to take more money from its 2D screenings. That's the rot setting in, right there. 3D is not the future - it's the past. It will keep coming and going, but since not everyone is James Cameron and most 3D films look like animated ViewMaster slides (showing my age there) it will not catch on.

And yes, most modern TVs come with 3D capability - but that doesn't mean that most people will use it. Practically every TV bought for the last five or six years is HD capable, but most people I know claim not to be able to tell the difference between SD and HD and don't use HD channels unless they're the default.

3D is tiring, inconvenient and doesn't add anything to the experience apart from some minor novelty value. Avatar did it right, and it was an excellent ride. Rubbish movie, but an excellent *ride*. And there will continue to be one or two films a year that use 3D well. But you can't run and industry on that, and it WILL fade again for another generation until tech advances to the point that we don't need glasses.

And when we don't need glasses, it'll be back, for a few years, then it'll fade again until the tech advances again until the image is being projected into space rather than being a stereoscopic 2D screen image... and even then we'll still prefer the convenience of projection onto a wall.

3D is already dying.

the good news is that all the major manufacturers are working on 3D that doesn't need glasses.

My feeling is that it will be a feature of TVs until something else hot & sexy comes along but the TVs themselves will keep "improving" (better quality picture and/or more functionality) and 3D may or may not come and go.

But the investment in the TV manufacturing is there and won't now disappear in a puff of liquid crystal I think (until we have other display technology, probably...)

And not everyone gets headaches - it's one of the things the TV manufacturers at least are investing in, because if people think they'll get headaches they won't invest. For me the bigger question is will people buy the specs with electronics in them or go for the lighter non-electric ones.