Does the silver screen need 3D effects?
3D movie technology, which was quite popular long ago, was brought back to its popularity by James Cameroon’s Avatar in 2009. From then, almost every high budget movie is being released in 3D. Some directors though are reluctant to use this technology. Even Interstellar Director Christopher Nolan quoted” I don’t particularly enjoy watching 3D because I think that a well-shot and well-projected film has a very three-dimensional quality to it.” I am not entirely against the 3D movies. I had a great experience in theatres while watching movies like Gravity, The Walk and the credit goes to the 3D technology.
Technology being pushed too far
I feel the technology has been pushed too much towards the people. If you take Man of Steel, apart from the initial scenes in the Planet Krypton, I don’t feel the necessity of 3D effect in the movie.
If providing a 3D experience was not the main aim of the movie then it doesn’t make sense why people should struggle watching the movie with those glasses on. It distracts the audience from watching the movie. We try to feel the 3D effect and miss the movie’s flow. It’s like when you hear a baby cry or people talk in the theatre, you suddenly realize you are just sitting in a dark room staring at a screen. You feel conscious.
Difficult to focus
Not only it’s difficult for you to focus on what’s going on in the movie, but it’s also difficult for your eyes to focus on the screen. In a regular 2D movie, the eyes need to focus at the plane of the screen and the eyes will converge at the same distance throughout the movie.
But in case of a 3D film, the eyes need to converge at different planes; one plane might be closer, one might be farther away. And this is not our eyes are made for. So, we pay a premium amount to strain our eyes and possibly a headache too.
Walter Murch, Film Editor, who won academy award for his work in Apocalypse Now once quoted “3D films remind the audience that they are in a certain "perspective" relationship to the image. It is almost a Brechtian trick. Whereas, if the film story has really gripped an audience they are "in" the picture in a kind of dreamlike "spaceless" space. So a good story will give you more dimensionality than you can ever cope with.”
So, unless the main motive is providing a 3D experience, the movie with the 3D glasses is not worth it.