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Roger Ebert: Why I hate 3-D

Roger Ebert article

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3-D is a waste of a perfectly good dimension. Hollywood's current crazy stampede toward it is suicidal. It adds nothing essential to the moviegoing experience. For some, it is an annoying distraction. For others, it creates nausea and headaches. It is driven largely to sell expensive projection equipment and add a $5 to $7.50 surcharge on already expensive movie tickets. Its image is noticeably darker than standard 2-D. It is unsuitable for grown-up films of any seriousness. It limits the freedom of directors to make films as they choose. For moviegoers in the PG-13 and R ranges, it only rarely provides an experience worth paying a premium for.

That's my position. I know it's heresy to the biz side of show business. After all, 3-D has not only given Hollywood its biggest payday ($2.7 billion and counting for Avatar), but a slew of other hits. The year's top three films—Alice in Wonderland, How to Train Your Dragon, and Clash of the Titans—were all projected in 3-D, and they're only the beginning. The very notion of Jackass in 3-D may induce a wave of hysterical blindness, to avoid seeing Steve-O's you-know-what in that way. But many directors, editors, and cinematographers agree with me about the shortcomings of 3-D. So do many movie lovers—even executives who feel stampeded by another Hollywood infatuation with a technology that was already pointless when their grandfathers played with stereoscopes. The heretics' case, point by point:

1. IT'S THE WASTE OF A DIMENSION.
When you look at a 2-D movie, it's already in 3-D as far as your mind is concerned. When you see Lawrence of Arabia growing from a speck as he rides toward you across the desert, are you thinking, "Look how slowly he grows against the horizon" or "I wish this were 3D?"

Our minds use the principle of perspective to provide the third dimension. Adding one artificially can make the illusion less convincing.

2. IT ADDS NOTHING TO THE EXPERIENCE.
Recall the greatest moviegoing experiences of your lifetime. Did they "need" 3-D? A great film completely engages our imaginations. What would Fargogain in 3-D? Precious? Casablanca?

3. IT CAN BE A DISTRACTION.
Some 3-D consists of only separating the visual planes, so that some objects float above others, but everything is still in 2-D. We notice this. We shouldn't. In 2-D, directors have often used a difference in focus to call attention to the foreground or the background. In 3-D the technology itself seems to suggest that the whole depth of field be in sharp focus. I don't believe this is necessary, and it deprives directors of a tool to guide our focus.

4. IT CAN CREATE NAUSEA AND HEADACHES.
AS 3-D TV sets were being introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, Reuters interviewed two leading ophthalmologists. "There are a lot of people walking around with very minor eye problems—for example, a muscle imbalance—which under normal circumstances the brain deals with naturally," said Dr. Michael Rosenberg, a professor at Northwestern University. 3-D provides an unfamiliar visual experience, and "that translates into greater mental effort, making it easier to get a headache." Dr. Deborah Friedman, a professor of ophthalmology and neurology at the University of Rochester Medical Center, said that in normal vision, each eye sees things at a slightly different angle. "When that gets processed in the brain, that creates the perception of depth. The illusions that you see in three dimensions in the movies is not calibrated the same way that your eyes and your brain are." In a just-published article, Consumer Reports says about 15 percent of the moviegoing audience experiences headache and eyestrain during 3-D movies.

5. HAVE YOU NOTICED THAT 3-D SEEMS A LITTLE DIM?
Lenny Lipton is known as the father of the electronic stereoscopic-display industry. He knows how films made with his systems should look. Current digital projectors, he writes, are "intrinsically inefficient. Half the light goes to one eye and half to the other, which immediately results in a 50 percent reduction in illumination." Then the glasses themselves absorb light. The vast majority of theaters show 3-D at between three and six foot-lamberts (fLs). Film projection provides about 15fLs. The original IMAX format threw 22fLs at the screen. If you don't know what a foot-lambert is, join the crowd. (In short: it's the level of light thrown on the screen from a projector with no film in it.) And don't mistake a standard film for an IMAX film, or "fake IMAX" for original IMAX. What's the difference? IMAX is building new theaters that have larger screens, which are quite nice, but are not the huge IMAX screens and do not use IMAX film technology. But since all their theaters are called IMAX anyway, this is confusing.

6. THERE'S MONEY TO BE MADE IN SELLING NEW DIGITAL PROJECTORS.

These projectors are not selling themselves. There was initial opposition from exhibitors to the huge cost of new equipment and infighting about whether studios would help share these expenses. Some studios, concerned with tarnishing the 3-D myth, have told exhibitors that if they don't show a movie in 3-D, they can't have it in 2-D. Although there's room in most projection booths for both kinds of projectors, theaters are encouraged to remove analog projectors as soon as they can. Why so much haste to get rid of them? Are exhibitors being encouraged to burn their bridges by insecure digital manufacturers?

7. THEATERS SLAP ON A SURCHARGE OF $5 TO $7.50 FOR 3-D.
Yet when you see a 2-D film in a 3-D-ready theater, the 3-D projectors are also outfitted for 2-D films: it uses the same projector but doesn't charge extra. See the Catch-22? Are surcharges here to stay, or will they be dropped after the projectors are paid off? What do you think? I think 3-D is a form of extortion for parents whose children are tutored by advertising and product placement to "want" 3-D. In my review of Clash of the Titans, I added a footnote: "Explain to your kids that the movie was not filmed in 3-D and is only being shown in 3-D in order to charge you an extra $5 a ticket. I saw it in 2-D, and let me tell you, it looked terrific." And it did. The "3-D" was hastily added in postproduction to ride on the coattails of Avatar. The fake-3-D Titans even got bad reviews from 3-D cheerleaders. Jeffrey Katzenberg, whose DreamWorks has moved wholeheartedly into 3-D, called it "cheeseball," adding: "You just snookered the movie audience." He told Variety he was afraid quickie, fake-3-D conversions would kill the goose that was being counted on for golden eggs.

8. I CANNOT IMAGINE A SERIOUS DRAMA, SUCH AS UP IN THE AIR OR THE HURT LOCKER, IN 3-D.
Neither can directors. Having shot Dial M for Murder in 3-D, Alfred Hitchcock was so displeased by the result that he released it in 2-D at its New York opening. The medium seems suited for children's films, animation, and films such as James Cameron's Avatar, which are largely made on computers. Cameron's film is, of course, the elephant in the room: a splendid film, great-looking on a traditional IMAX screen, which is how I saw it, and the highest-grossing film in history. It's used as the poster child for 3-D, but might it have done as well in 2-D (not taking the surcharge into account)? The second-highest all-time grosser is Cameron's Titanic, which of course was in 2-D. Still, Avatar used 3-D very effectively. I loved it. Cameron is a technical genius who planned his film for 3-D from the ground up and spent $250 million getting it right. He is a master of cinematography and editing. Other directors are forced to use 3-D by marketing executives. The elephant in that room is the desire to add a surcharge.

Consider Tim Burton, who was forced by marketing executives to create a faux-3-D film that was then sold as Alice in Wonderland: An IMAX 3D Experience (although remember that the new IMAX theaters are not true IMAX). Yes, it had huge grosses. But its 3-D effects were minimal and unnecessary; a scam to justify the surcharge.

Even Cameron plans to rerelease Titanic in 3-D, and it's worth recalling his 3-D documentary, Ghosts of the Abyss, which he personally photographed from the grave of the Titanic. Titanic 3-D will not be true 3-D, but Cameron is likely to do "fake 3-D" better than others have. My argument would nevertheless be: Titanic is wonderful just as it stands, so why add a distraction? Obviously, to return to the No. 2 cash cow in movie history and squeeze out more milk.

I once said I might become reconciled to 3-D if a director like Martin Scorsese ever used the format. I thought I was safe. Then Scorsese announced that his 2011 film The Invention of Hugo Cabret, about an orphan and a robot, will be in 3-D. Well, Scorsese knows film, and he has a voluptuous love of its possibilities. I expect he will adapt 3-D to his needs. And my hero, Werner Herzog, is using 3-D to film prehistoric cave paintings in France, to better show off the concavities of the ancient caves. He told me that nothing will "approach" the audience, and his film will stay behind the plane of the screen. In other words, nothing will hurtle at the audience, and 3-D will allow us the illusion of being able to occupy the space with the paintings and look into them, experiencing them as a prehistoric artist standing in the cavern might have.

9. WHENEVER HOLLYWOOD HAS FELT THREATENED, IT HAS TURNED TO TECHNOLOGY: SOUND, COLOR, WIDESCREEN, CINERAMA, 3-D, STEREOPHONIC SOUND, AND NOW 3-D AGAIN.
In marketing terms, this means offering an experience that can't be had at home. With the advent of Blu-ray discs, HD cable, and home digital projectors, the gap between the theater and home experiences has been narrowed. 3-D widened it again. Now home 3-D TV sets may narrow that gap as well.

What Hollywood needs is a "premium" experience that is obviously, dramatically better than anything at home, suitable for films aimed at all ages, and worth a surcharge. For years I've been praising a process invented by Dean Goodhill called MaxiVision48, which uses existing film technology but shoots at 48 frames per second and provides smooth projection that is absolutely jiggle-free. Modern film is projected at 24 frames per second (fps) because that is the lowest speed that would carry analog sound in the first days of the talkies. Analog sound has largely been replaced by digital sound. MaxiVision48 projects at 48fps, which doubles image quality. The result is dramatically better than existing 2-D. In terms of standard measurements used in the industry, it's 400 percent better. That is not a misprint. Those who haven't seen it have no idea how good it is. I've seen it, and also a system of some years ago, Douglas Trumbull's Showscan. These systems are so good that the screen functions like a window into three dimensions. If moviegoers could see it, they would simply forget about 3-D.

I'm not opposed to 3-D as an option. I'm opposed to it as a way of life for Hollywood, where it seems to be skewing major studio output away from the kinds of films we think of as Oscar-worthy. Scorsese and Herzog make films for grown-ups. Hollywood is racing headlong toward the kiddie market. Disney recently announced it will make no more traditional films at all, focusing entirely on animation, franchises, and superheroes. I have the sense that younger Hollywood is losing the instinctive feeling for story and quality that generations of executives possessed. It's all about the marketing. Hollywood needs a projection system that is suitable for all kinds of films—every film—and is hands-down better than anything audiences have ever seen. The marketing executives are right that audiences will come to see a premium viewing experience they can't get at home. But they're betting on the wrong experience.

I agree with everyone he just said in this article. How do you feel about 3-D?

Ebert is batting .500 for me recently. This article is so dead on perfectly how I feel about 3d that it could basically have been ripped out of my head. I won't discuss his blighted abomination of an editorial regarding video games here, but it's odd to me that the same person wrote both, but I digress.

My negative feelings about avatar are in no small part because as soon as it came out this side effect was easy to foresee. 3d is a gimmick and a bad one at that. The number of non 3d films forced to become 3d reflect that fact and the sooner this shit goes away the happier I will be. I'm glad someone with the degree of clout in the film industry that ebert has was willing to say this so bluntly. Maybe someone will listen.

I think Roger Ebert is an old coot who's quickly losing any relevance he might've once had.

I don't know whether 3D is going to catch on, but I have no problem with technological innovations.Go back 70 years and I bet you'd find some folks saying the exact same things about talkies. Boy were they a dumb fad!

Fuck yeah, tell it like it is Ebert.

My son is 7. He doesn't like 3D. We went to see How to Train your Dragon, and he asked specifically to go to a 2D theater. We'll be doing the same for Toy Story 3.

I REALLY hope that 3D television doesn't catch on.

That article was spot on. They are ruining many movies with "fake 3d". However some do look fantastic, as he has pointed out.

Overall I think it is a fad and I really hope that it dies off before they start ruining all new movies. The theatre in the South of Calgary only plays 3d versions of the movies that are released with it. After getting stuck watching just how horrible Clash of the Titans was in 3d (wanted to see it in 2d, but that choice was not even offered) the number of movies that I see in the theatre will be greatly reduced.

I agree with him in principle but if it's applied judiciously and correctly, I'm all for it.

In Avatar there was one quick shot where the camera tilted up to the sky before cutting to the next scene. In that moment, glimpsing the expanse of clouds, stars and moon (or two?) I truly had a sense of depth and reality and was fully immersed inside the projected world.

Outright rejection of that potential would just be silly.

I think 3d has a place, I just don't think it's as big of a market share as the marketers are hoping which could unfortunately kill the technology simply because they overestimated it's appeal. These aren't just Roger Ebert's opinions. They are factual, except for #8. I think a serious drama could be filmed in 3D. Hell, I think a serious drama NEEDS to be filmed in 3D without any gimmicky "pop off the screen" effects that EVERY 3d film, including Avatar has utilized to show off the tech.

The big problem it's facing is that it's not just a flavor item for people that love it can enjoy while everyone else can casually ignore. 3d is a technology that almost everyone wants but can't enjoy because it's annoying as hell due to gimmicky 3d, poor technology, stupid glasses or because it makes them physically ill. If Avatar was a medication, it would have been pulled off the market because it made so many people sick. I'm not talking about eye strain which is obviously a sign that your eyes are seeing something unhealthy. I'm talking about pure on vomit inducing sickness. This is after seeing 1 movie. Imagine the people that didn't get sick the first time but will the 2nd or 3rd time. If it's anything like Simulator sickness, it'll happen and every time it happens, it's at least 1 customer lost. If it's a father of 2 that gets sick, count it as 3 customers lost.

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it's odd to me that the same person wrote both.

It's odd that an old coot like Ebert isn't open and accepting of new technology? I kind of expected this from Ebert, I just happen to agree with him on this and not about the other.

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Originally Posted by Martian (Post 2782755)

I'm not sure this is the same thing. Are you saying that 3D is as integral or has the same impact as sound? If you had to choose between sound and 3D, what would you choose?

For the record I agree with Ebert to a large degree. I can see the value of 3D with such films as Avatar and the plethora of computer-animated films they're producing.

But in terms of your standard drama, comedy, and even a lot of action films, I really don't see the appeal.

I'm not saying anything of the sort. What I will be prepared to say is that modern 3D is in it's infancy, and making blanket statements regarding what it will/won't or can/can't do is, to borrow a term, fucktarded.

What strikes me as particularly bizarre is that he acknowledges in his very own essay that Avatar's 3D was well done, as well as noting that films where it wasn't as well done (Alice, Clash of the Titans) weren't originally intended to be 3D in the first place.

It's hard to imagine your average modern drama being shot in 3D, sure. But it's hard to imagine a film like Fritz Lang's Metropolis, or any of Chaplin's comedies, with a soundtrack. That was more my point in bringing up that innovation; judging a technology by the works that predate it is a bit foolish, because they by definition are unable to demonstrate the impact the technology is capable of.

For the record, I suspect 3D Titanic is going to be utter shit, but then I thought the 2 dimensional version was crap anyway.

The studios' current drive for 3D is nothing more than a cash grab. Yes, there are creatives out there, like James Cameron and a few others, that want to use it to expand their craft and art. But, by and large (mostly large), this is about charging a premium on the ticket price.

Will it go somewhere and develop into something better than it is now? Perhaps. It will likely take a lot of new tech and a lot of (literal) head-aches for patrons.

At present, I agree with Ebert. The tech isn't adding anything substantial to film. It is a gimmick not much greater, though certainly more expensive than the vibrating seats they had when the film Earthquake came out (you could really feel what the characters were feeling!).

I agree 100% with Ebert. The thing that he doesn't mention though, is that a lot of these movies employ first-person shots, purely to facilitate either the "pop of the screen" effect, or to enhance the perspective. Now, when I watch 2D versions of 3D movies, I find myself running into those shots often, and its frustrating as hell, because the shot very often could have been better from a different angle. In my mind it just amounts to poor cinematography. The 2D Avatar suffers less from this - probably because Cameron is a skilled 3D director.

On another note, Clash of the titans was already a piss poor movie, made even worse by its attempt at 3D.

.

I think 3D can coexist with 2D. I don't really need ebert to tell me otherwise.

A more serious question though: With the advent of 3D tv, how long before we see 3D pornos, and see cum spraying at our faces?

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Originally Posted by Vaultboy (Post 2782941)

A more serious question though: With the advent of 3D tv, how long before we see 3D pornos, and see cum spraying at our faces?

If 3-D televisions are a popular item, I am sure the porn industry will follow this trend and make 3-D porn films. However, from what I read about 3-D televisions, the user needs to buy $150 3-D glasses and I am not willing to buy 3-D porn movies when I can get it for free online even if it is in 2-D.

3D is a misnomer anyways, I swear to god people don't even know what 3D means.

Until I can stand in the middle of the living room, and see something from the center with full 360 degree immersion, it is NOT 3D

I'm talking star trek holodecks. Then we're talking. This shit is a overhyped mislabeled fad.

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Recall the greatest moviegoing experiences of your lifetime. Did they "need" 3-D?

The second greatest of these, for me, was Beowulf, which I saw on Imax 3D in 2007 and which was at the vanguard of the 3D explosion we're now experienceing, and bemoaning. Beowulf was so incredible that I had to watch it twice; subsequent attempts to watch it on DVD have failed because home viewing cannot come anywhere close to the Imax experience.

The first greatest was watching How the West Was Won on 3-strip Cinerama - a short-lived and extremely expensive widescreen process requiring a triple camera, three projectors and a huge curved screen - at a widescreen festival a few years ago. This is a film that I wouldn't even bother trying to watch on a television: the whole point of it is spectacle and it would look very sad and puny on a small screen. The fact that, looked at objectively as a film, it is a pretty pedestrian and derivative Western, is irrelevant. Re the cinema, spectacle is all-important. The cinema is and always was inherently spectacular.

Ebert is right because 3D doesn't really make a film more spectacular. To keep people in the cinemas and out of their homes the industry needs to look at what truly does make people gasp in amazement. Since reading about it just now I really really really want and need to see a MaxiVision film. Something shot like this on a large high-def format like IMAX (65mm or 70mm vs the standard 35mm), projected at 48 fps onto a huge screen cannot be anything but spectacular.

Samsara is due for release this year. It's a non-narrative film and hardly anyone will see it but if my facts are straight it's only the second feature-length film to be shot entirely on Imax-size film. The first, Samsara's prequel Baraka (by the same director, Ron Fricke, who DPed the wonderous Koyaanisqatsi) is apparently a favourite of Roger Ebert, who said of its Blu-Ray release : "the finest video disc I have ever viewed or ever imagined."

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Originally Posted by Martian (Post 2782755)

I think Roger Ebert is an old coot who's quickly losing any relevance he might've once had.

The entire Internet disagrees. :thumbsup:

Translation: I'm old and don't want to adapt.

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Originally Posted by Martian (Post 2782755)

Yeah, Ebert sure has trouble with that new-fangled, 120 year-old 3D invention. Get with the times old man!

P.S. I'm not kidding - check out wikipedia. 3D is 120 years old!

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Originally Posted by Lasereth (Post 2787451)

The entire Internet disagrees. :thumbsup:

They're entitled to their opinion.

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Originally Posted by guy44 (Post 2788277)

Yeah, Ebert sure has trouble with that new-fangled, 120 year-old 3D invention. Get with the times old man!

P.S. I'm not kidding - check out wikipedia. 3D is 120 years old!

Yeah, and Mr. Ebert was just a lad when it enjoyed it's first big heyday in the fifties. What's your point?

Past iterations have little to do with current technology or availability.

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Originally Posted by Martian (Post 2788366)

They're entitled to their opinion.

Yeah, and Mr. Ebert was just a lad when it enjoyed it's first big heyday in the fifties. What's your point?

Past iterations have little to do with current technology or availability.

It's just that you claim that you, presumably in contrast to Ebert, "have no problems with technological innovation." So I'm just pointing out that Ebert is not rebelling against technological innovation, he's rebelling against what he (and many other people) see as a lame, useless technology that is really quite old for reasons that have nothing to do with newness or innovation.

Polarized 3D projection combined with digital filming, projection and editing techniques is light years ahead of what was available 120, or even 60 years ago. I would go so far as to say that these technologies are instrumental to an optimum 3D experience, which is why we're seeing another resurgence.

Mr. Ebert's argument seems to be that because past great films were not made in 3D future films shouldn't be either. This is akin, to me, to arguing that because some of the great animated films of the past were produced by hand, CGI is a useless gimmick. The part of the article that strikes me as particularly bizarre is that he acknowledges that great directors like Scorcese and Herzog are likely to use it well, and that Cameron did a good job on Avatar; he's praising the technology here even as he tells us how useless it is.

The whole thing, once you parse out the 'I hate 3D' vibe, amounts to shitty films are shitty. Thank you, Rog, I never would've realized.

I also find it odd that he presents something like Maxivision as an alternative to 3D cinema, as if 3D and higher framerates are somehow incompatible.

As an aside, I watched How To Train Your Dragon in 3D, and can't imagine what it's like without the technology. No doubt I'll catch it in 2 dimensions eventually, and I have a feeling that it'll seem lacking in comparison. This was a film done from the ground up in 3D by a highly regarded animation studio; in other words, 3D done right.

So there.

Okay, so a 3-D option is fine for kids movies, animation, action, adventure, thrillers, horrors, certain documentaries, and other fun-fun sort of films.

But when it comes to drama, I could see it as a distraction and it being unnecessary, adding nothing as Ebert claims. Of course, I myself see film as a kind of derivative of storytelling already. I don't see why we should make it worse.

Then again, I'd like to add that if the 3-D experience can be made more seamless (say, as realistic holographic images not requiring glasses), then I can see it being more acceptable in general. It would make film more akin to seeing a stage play in terms of "3-Dness."

There's nothing wrong with the third dimension in my view; it just shouldn't be an unnecessary distraction.