Considering that we just
gave away 25 pairs of tickets to a 3D screening, we're expecting some serious responses to this one. With 3D
doing its best to come storming back into relevancy, we've seen studio after studio commit to pumping out flicks in 3D. All the while, cinemas have been transitioning just as quickly, giving viewers the option to catch new films in 3D so long as they're kosher with rockin' the shades. So, have you checked out a theater screening in 3D? How was it? Do you plan to go again? Avoid 3D at all costs?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Dana @ Mar 14th 2009 12:07PM
Where's the choice for "Yes, but Journey to the Center of the Earth sucked balls anyway"?
Jonsson @ Mar 14th 2009 5:15PM
Yes, Journey to The Center of the Earth was a real disapointment. This is really my big fear. Films will be pushed out in 3D and they will be made just to display 3D effects and nothing else. Journey to The Center of The Earth is sooooo made for 3D and an utterly crappy film (3D or not).
If the studios think that they can push another gadget onto the consumers, after having invested in a (fancy?) flat screen, posibly a BD player etc. and on the top of that substandard films just because it has has the latest stupid gadget, they are just stupid stupid stupid, did I say stupid?
Mr. E @ Mar 14th 2009 5:47PM
Yeah, I'd prefer to wait to take this poll until I have a chance to see Avatar.
dishbreak @ Mar 18th 2009 1:05AM
Agreed. I don't want every single movie to have something flung, shot, or spat at the screen.
John @ Mar 14th 2009 12:11PM
I saw Captain Eo long ago at Disneyland and it was pretty cool.
nixican @ Mar 16th 2009 1:25AM
Seriously overpriced! We saw the matinee to Bolt in 3D and it cost me nearly 50 bucks! And you gotta wear glasses?! Cmon, Ive seen black and photo's from the 50's when THEY were wearing glasses. These new glasses arent any different. It was cool seeing Captain Eo in 3D but paying extra to wear dorky glasses that make you miss the popcorn and drink when you try to find them out of your peripheral vision. Forget it.
Mike @ Mar 14th 2009 12:18PM
Nope, I wear glasses, and so far the only 3D I've been subjected to required glasses that don't go on top of mine.
And if the choice is seeing the show/movie in 3D vs seeing it AT ALL, then I'm going to be missing out on 3D for awhile.
Aaron @ Mar 14th 2009 12:27PM
I've seen Coraline in 3D with two different kinds of glasses, and both fit perfectly fine over my regular glasses.
Thad Garrison @ Mar 14th 2009 1:09PM
I've been wanting to see a 3D film but I also wear glasses and don't want to wind up wasting money. Are there particular technologies whose accompanying 3D glasses are oversized enough to fit over regular glasses vs. others that won't? Is the experience the same with and without glasses, or do the double-glasses dampen the 3D effect?
I've been searching online, but have yet to find info about this. Hear that Cinematical? This would be a great investigative article idea for your four-eyed readers!
nidx @ Mar 14th 2009 1:58PM
When I saw Beowolf and Harry Potter in IMAX 3D They had two specific types of glasses one for people without glasses and an oversized for glasses type
kcmurphy88 @ Mar 14th 2009 2:51PM
If the glasses become standardized, I wonder if folks will get prescription 3-d glasses.
Lazarus Dark @ Mar 14th 2009 3:21PM
Here's what you do:
If they give you the disposable/recyclable kind, bring a twist tie with you (like you use for garbage bags). Rip the ear pieces off the plastic 3d glasses and Twist tie the 3d glasses to the bridge of your glasses. It sounds like it looks dumb and it probably does, but your in the dark and what do you care what people think anyway? Enjoy 3d, don't miss out cause of your glasses.
FreeRange @ Mar 14th 2009 3:50PM
I watched Coraline as well and the glasses fit fine over my normal glasses. My girlfriend doesn't wear glasses though and was complaining about the fit of the 3d glasses. The wire rims on my glasses prevented all of her complaints from being a problem for me so, eh, trade-offs.
Garst @ Mar 15th 2009 3:30PM
You do realize that there is an invention that will allow you to see AND use 3-D glasses. It's called a contact lens.
Andy Anonymous @ Mar 14th 2009 12:24PM
Saw Coraline 3-D. WOW, what an amazing experience.
Lazarus Dark @ Mar 14th 2009 3:25PM
Indeed. My fiance is big Neil Gaimen fangirl, so I had to go see it in 3D 3 times! All three times it was great, but after the third time, I'm afraid I got used to it looking like that... when it comes to Bluray I'm afraid it won't look as good anymore since I won't have polarized 3D. That said, I am about to buy the Samsung LED DLP which supports shutter type 3d, I wish they'd make an addition to the Bluray spec for 120hz shutter 3d already.
Blue @ Mar 14th 2009 12:51PM
I saw My Bloody Valentine 3D and it was the best I had ever seen. I loved it because the images really popped and it didn't have those annoying colors making the picture look bad. I love Real D. I just wish they could use the same thing for home Blu-ray. I know that now I have to go see a movie in the theatre to see the best 3D available, because waiting won't be as good.
hines @ Mar 14th 2009 1:47PM
As someone almost blind in one eye I wish I could actually see 3D but I can't.
Michal @ Mar 14th 2009 1:12PM
there should be an answer between "Yes, and it's awesome!" and "Yes, and I won't go again!", like maybe "Yes, it was pretty good."
Joel @ Mar 14th 2009 1:23PM
Animated movies are incredible in 3d. Live action.... not so much.
Rob Cannon @ Mar 14th 2009 4:58PM
I saw Polar Express in 3D and it turned a meh movie into something very enjoyable. But I don't think 3D works for every movie. It probably works alot better in computer animation and I think Monster vs. Aliens will rock in 3D. But I don't want to see Star Trek in 3D (for instance).
Dan @ Mar 14th 2009 1:53PM
I watched Coraline and it was great... Also watched the new IMAX into the Deep and it was awesome.
Wayne Dunham @ Mar 14th 2009 1:51PM
Not enough options in the poll. It completely depends on WHAT 3-D technology you watch. If, for instance it is the HORRIBLE technology that NBC trotted out a couple months ago with the Chuck episode then the answer would be "Yes, and I won't go again". The image was horrible, totally ruining the HD experience and the 3-D was mediocre at best.
Several years ago I saw an I-Max 3D space movie and it was incredible, so there the answer would be "Yes, and it's awesome!"
Fred @ Mar 14th 2009 1:51PM
I agree, I wish their was a yes, but it depends on the movie. I liked Nightmare Before Christmas, Captain EO and some others... but then their were some that sucked. It depends how it is used.
St.McDuck @ Mar 14th 2009 1:55PM
My option isn't in the poll: Bolt was pretty cool in 3D, but it added nothing to Coraline (which I didn't enjoy anyway).
Jordan @ Mar 14th 2009 2:28PM
U23D was probably one of the 3D experiences I ever had.
It was epic.
Mia @ Mar 14th 2009 3:02PM
we saw bolt the dog movie..to me the only thing 3d about it was that the cartoon animation looked a little bit more dimnensional ...its just not that great having to leave on glasses for 2 hours ....espically if you have an astigmatism like me...lol
Evan @ Mar 14th 2009 3:07PM
I hated IMAX 3D - the glasses really cut down the brightness. I'd prefer 2D with vibrant colors and dynamic range over the half-bright 3D version.
I enjoyed Real-D - the glasses didn't seem to degrade the brightness as much.
Crispin @ Mar 14th 2009 3:44PM
I've seen both Coraline and Bolt in 3D and while they were very impressive and immersive, the screen was very dark. I don't know if splitting the picture between the polarized halves makes the difference but in some dark scenes it would give me a headache from eyestrain. It would also mean some scenes that were meant to be bright would seem shadowy and less pronounced. Still, the 3D effect usually overcame this.
Kevin @ Mar 14th 2009 4:25PM
3D is nice but the loss of half the screen brightness puts a good deal of strain on my eyes, even though the effects were pretty good. I'd only go again if the movie was really good, not for something like My Bloody Valentine.
loadstar @ Mar 14th 2009 4:48PM
The only one I saw was U23D. It was OK, I don't know if it rises to the level of "awesome!" but it was definitely better than the crappy old fashioned 3D that they've had before.
The local 3D theater is a Dolby 3D theater, and used 3D glasses that don't fit well at all over prescription eyeglasses, which was a pain.
DVD4ME @ Mar 14th 2009 7:58PM
I saw a mini version Shrek in 4D at the movies, the donkey sneezed and we all got sprayed with water, riding on a horse the chair was bucking and jumping and the 3D effects were continually popping off the screen. A fun 15 min experience, especially for the kids, but I wouldn't want to sit through every movie like that, or any full length serious movie for that matter.
It may find it's place for kid's and family movies, but it's hard to imagine adults embracing this across the board.
Bob Brouhaha @ Mar 14th 2009 10:29PM
I hear "Monsters vs. Aliens" was authored entirely in 3D and if you're to believe the folks who have seen it, it is supposed to be really awsome.
Here is what one person who saw the movie thought of it.
Capone goes sci-fi wild for MONSTERS VS. ALIENS in 3-D!!!
Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.
One of the biggest corners of my heart is held in reserve for old (usually black-and-white) sci-fi films. I'm talking ginormous man-in-suit monsters, slow-moving aliens with tentacles and either one or 50 eyes, or regular-sized animals that are made to look humongous as they terrorize poor citizens like us. Watch any of them repeatedly and you notice one thing almost without fail: they are about 85 percent chatter and 15 percent actual creature feature…if you were lucky. The philosophies and theories bandied about were pretty hilarious, and were usually just an excuse to keep the cameras rolling to get that running time to at least 75 minutes. Now imagine taking the best parts of these alien invasion flicks, these giant spider films, these creeping menace pictures, and these home-grown mutated abominations of nature movies and tossing them all into one big 3-D animated work, and you have some idea of just how much fun MONSTERS VS. ALIENS was for me.
In a way, you could look at MONSTERS VS. ALIENS as the ultimate superhero team movie. A colossal alien robot lands on earth carrying a message from one Gallaxhar (voiced with pure maniacal splendor by Rainn Wilson), who tells the President of the United States (the inspired casting of Stephen Colbert in this role is enough to recommend it) that he's essentially going to destroy the world. Fair enough. In his very DR. STRANGELOVE-like War Room, the President listens to his advisors list the options on how to handle this situation. But only Gen. W.R. Monger (Kiefer Sutherland, complete with gravelly Southern accent) has a solution that seems like it might work--to unleash a group of captured "monsters" that the government has hidden in a secret facility on the alien invader in exchange for their freedom.
The film actually opens with a wedding. Susan Murphy (Reese Witherspoon) is about to wed weatherman Derek Dietl (Paul Rudd, once again donning his weatherman voice; all of you ANCHORMAN fans should be pleased). But just before the wedding, a meteorite falls from the sky and lands on Susan. She miraculously survives, but during the ceremony she grows to 49-feet 11.5-inches tall (I guess rounding up would have been a copyright violation). Her cowardly husband-to-be leaves her at the alter--actually she destroys the church, so the alter is pretty much kindling at this point--and Susan is quickly snatched up by Monger's team and she's placed in a giant holding cell.
So who makes up the world's only defense against alien destruction? Seth Rogen voices B.O.B., a gelatinous creature who has no brain and is virtually indestructible; Hugh Laurie is the mad scientist Dr. Cockroach Ph.D., a play off of THE FLY; Will Arnett is the cocky Missing Link, a big of a cross between The Creature from the Black Lagoon and Bigfoot; and an oversized slug/caterpillar thing called Insectasaurus. Susan is given the code name Ginormica, and the team sets off to deal with the powerful alien robot.
There's no doubt in my mind that B.O.B. is going to be the fan favorite of the bunch. Aside from being just plain funny, B.O.B. is basically the stoner creature--he's easily distracted, giggles at everything, and, you know, he's a blob of a guy. It's great to hear Laurie's British accent return to add a bit of gravitas to Cockroach's ravings. And although Witherspoon basically sounds like herself, she has the toughest job. She's our entry point into this story and these characters. She's scared, has no idea exactly what the limits of her powers are, and she called upon to perform this weighty task at a time in her life when the bride-to-be Susan didn't now what direction her life was going to take after getting married. I've heard the complaint often that there are no strong female lead characters in animated films anymore (CORALINE aside). Complain no more--Susan is your girl, ur, woman. And she fills out a nearly 50-ft. black jumpsuit rather nicely.
One of the fun things about the film is also that there are guest voices tucked away in some very small roles. Listen carefully for the likes of Jeffrey Tambor, Amy Poehler, Ed Helms, Renee Zellweger, and John Krasinski. No joking, some of these people have one or two lines tops. But the best thing about MONSTERS VS. ALIENS is that it takes its cues from science fiction films of old. Gallaxhar isn't some play one particular alien from another film; he's every alien enemy rolled into one. These are details in the camera work, the music, and the story that you will absolutely love if you have an affection for these types of classic genre works.
And I haven't even talked about the unbelievable 3-D. I've seen a lot of 3-D in recent months, but this has got to be the best 3-D I've seen in an animated film. There's something about having the giant creatures interacting with smaller people that makes the 3-D pop off the screen, and without tossing stuff at the camera every five minutes. There's a scale and depth to this 3-D work that is unrivaled. One of the sequences the crowd at BNAT X saw was a fight scene on the Golden Gate Bridge. Holy crap, that is the absolute best scene in the movie. And seeing it a second time in the context of the completed film, I was even more impressed with it. Your jaw will collect bugs from being open for so long.
Now please understand, this movie is rated PG, which means it's aimed directly at the younger sect. But honestly, I had as much fun watching this as the kids in my audience. And being able to understand the clandestine adult humor and the site gags and more overt stuff, I may have even enjoyed it a little more than the youngsters. Co-director (along with Rob Letterman) Conrad Vernon was also a director on SHREK 2, probably the best melding of evergreen jokes, modern references, and innuendo in a animated work allegedly more for children. He knows where all the lines are drawn and exactly how far over them he can put his big toe. Sure the film is sweet and charming most of the time, but it's when things get a little ornery and mischievous that things really start to cook. There's a devilish undercurrent that props MONSTERS VS. ALIENS up and makes it something special. In case you couldn't tell, I had a blast watching this movie.
-- Capone
Here is the link to the review: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/40431
Pencreus @ Mar 15th 2009 12:54PM
Coraline 3D was freaking amazing.... Forget CGI! Claymation + 3D is by far the way to experience animation, it's warmer and hard to explain. It's like the when guys talk about how Vinyl records are better than CD's...kinda like that.
Dennis @ Mar 15th 2009 9:30PM
Aren't all movies 3D (height, width, and time). They should call them 4D with the addition of depth.
Firtch @ Mar 16th 2009 4:33PM
And a dot that you see for any length of time is 2D? And then a dot that you don't see is 1D? Naw, time's not really a dimension, and, typically, a physical object can't be measured in terms of time, so not really.
Kenlad @ Mar 16th 2009 8:58AM
I've seen U23D and it was a bit good! Didn't know what to expect, but it was great to see how stunning the DLP quality was along with the 3D effects.
So good i went agian...twice.