Though the upcoming sure-to-be-blockbuster film Inception will not be in 3-D, director Christopher Nolan has admitted trying “3-D tests,” and intimated that a 3-D Batman could be tough to avoid, according to the Los Angeles Times. As the idea of an exclusively three-dimensional future sinks in, let’s flirt with sacrilege a bit and consider which classic films could have been one dimension more awesome.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day: Perhaps Avatar czar James Cameron should have waited a couple years in order to bring this blockbuster into 3-D fruition. Using the layered planes effect from Avatar, the motorcycle chase scene could be even more exhilarating. (I’m focusing especially on the shot at 3:09 of this clip.)
Being John Malkovich: Who says only action movies benefit from extra dimensions? In addition to augmenting the claustrophobia that is the seven-and-a-half floor, 3-D technology could enhance the portal into Malkovich’s brain, allowing the viewer to really see the world through his eyes.
Die Hard: In the movie that set the standard for modern action films, the famous “elevator scene” set the standard for Bruce Willis blowing stuff up. I’d love to see the flames ripping up the shaft in 3-D. Maybe they could even turn up the heat in the theater for some sensory overload. (Start clip at 1:12)
Spider-Man: If there is anything to learn from Avatar and How to Train Your Dragon, it’s this: Flying sequences in 3-D > actually flying. What could be better than gliding around the Big Apple with Spidey via the already impressive web-slinging sequences?
PopWatchers, what do you think? Which classic movie do you think could have benefited from today’s 3-D technology? Who’ll be the first poor soul to suggest Citizen Kane: 3-D?
I think I’m going through 3-D fatigue. No more overly-priced, unexciting 3-D!
I couldn’t agree more. Only idiots who can’t focus long enough to pay attention to a story need 3D which explains why studio execs like them.
I know the extra cost makes it feel worse when you see a bad film, but it’s just no bad movies I want. 3D is fine and used correctly it enhances the film, just as widescreen, colour and surround sound do. The trouble is the money people are converting poor films into 3D to try and save themselves from losing money.
Oh and sorry, but the 3D thing is not a craze. If for no other reason than the vast sum of money spent on it by the film & electronics industries makes it a very long game project.
Ah yes, the “if you’re not like me you’re an idiot” theorem. The internet age has fuelled that attitude to an unsavoury level.
You don’t like it that’s fine but there’s no need to insult the intelligence of those that do.
Your argument travels a straight line that suggests every development in film since the 2 reeler has only been for fools. I take it you only ever watch silent movies in B&W? With no close ups and just Tableau? No American films after (or even including) The Great Train Robbery. (allegedly the first close up was in that film which was obviously only there for those who couldn’t muster the brain power to work out who was important in the scene. Ditto the cross cutting and score for Birth of A Nation (as brilliantly made as it is repugnant in themes) is too much of an advance?
therealeverton (and thank God we know he’s not a fake!) seems to prefer watching silent movies in something other than black and white. Is he a proponent of colorization too?
Seriously, though, claiming equivalency between developments in the language of cinema and marketing-fueled sensationalism like 3D (in any of its incarnations) is just being obtuse.
nerk
You believe there are no silent movies that have been shot in colour? You’re mistaken. Colourisation is an abomination, I’ve said so many times so you may come accross that somewhere else. The article is a speculative fantasy wherein we have been asked to state what scenes we think would be cool in 3D.
Unless EW are planning to turn this thread intoa petition and I just missed the small print? There’s also no need to destroy a film in order to convert it, although viweres of the “converted” Clash of The Titans may wish both the 2d snd converted 3D versions were destroyed. So making old films, like Toy Story 1 & 2, and Titanic 3D would do nothing to harm the originals.
The display and filming tools ARE part of the language of cinema. As your erroneous silent movie comment can show the sound and other part of cinema’s “language” are in fact far more disposable than the filming and displaying tools. Your insistance that 3D, colour and sound are somehow not a part of the language of cinema what is obtuse, deleiberately so as well. Too busy trying to score points and insult to make a coherent point.
Widescreen may be a tool that was marketed to help distinguish cinema from TV but that doesnn’t mean it is NOT a genuine filmaking tool and choice. HOW a tool is used determines its usefullness and whilst there are socres of films that abuse the varied tools of colour, sound reverse zooms, steadycams and wide lenses that doesn’t invalidate there usefullness.
Your refusal to actually look impartially at the subject in favour of joining the “anyone who does not like what I like is an idiot” club makes your argument nuggatory, even more than the lact of any actual fact, or it seems film knowledge, behind it.
Fancy an actual film debate rather than a junior school sarcasm and rudeness battle?
Clearly color and sound are part of the “language of film,” but 3D is not. Color and sound can be manipulated by the director to create a different sensation for the viewer. In many films, this is used to express the different enviornment the characters are in, or can be used to show someone’s deteriorating mental or physical traits. That is an artistic display of the directors vision. It matters to the film. 3D does not. 3D is mereley a way of watching a movie from a different perspective. The addition of having a third dimension does not actually enhance the overal story or feel of the film. I know you and I have discussed this at length before, and I wish I’d have been able to point this out before: when you take away the color from a film, or when you take away the sound, it GREATLY effects what you are watching on screen. When you take away 3D, it does not. You still have the same movie on the screen. If you can take away something and it doesn’t effect the film, then it wasn’t important. I still feel that 3D in film is a clever gimmick, but nothing more. That being said, 3D in gaming is potentially a huge step forward.
Hello again Skip.
To quote yet another movie, “You proceed from a false assumption”. Basically you’re making that statement from the perspective of a view at the crossroads. 3D is not the dominant method of either making or displaying moving pictures. You can say it doesn’t take away anything because you are neither used to it nor engulfed by it. When silent movies were being encroached upon by synch sound films people said what you say about 3D (As I’ve said before Japanese cinema is a bold example of this).
The idea that you take away the 3D from, let’s say Coraline, is both insulting to the director and factually inaccurate. The film makes ample use of the malleability of depth of field that 3D filming allows. It makes for increased wonder and tension fear as the differences between real world and Button world become increasingly marked. That’s just scratch the surface differences. Again your argument is that 3D doesn’t change a film is also wrong because it quite simply does. Clash of The Titans isn’t reviled simply because it is an awful film but because people were charged a premium to watch a film that had many scenes with no 3D and poorly executed 3D when it was there. By definition any film is no different then why was anyone bothered by this? Why did they notice.
Also you know who I am; you know I’m a one film studies and media studies student who writes about various media for Syfy. I have a pretty good knowledge of film history and outside of any of that I just love film. Yet despite all of my reading and writing I don’t pretend to know better about film making than the likes of Spielberg, Cameron, Zemeckis, Scorcesse and so on. Hell in real practical terms the handfull of student films I made back in the day don’t mean that even Uwe Boll doesn’t have more practicle knowledge of film making than me. So what is it that makes you so certain you know more about the storytelling pros and cons of 21st C 3D than they do. Now when i’m screaming at my TV watching Emile Heskey fail to convert a scoring chance (again! It aint a shock) I know what he should have done up to a point because I’ve been playing and watching football all of my life but let’s face it both Hesky and Mr Capello (England manager) are really better qualified than 46million plus English fans and me, whatever we think whilst we’re screaming at our tellys. Those who have a real knowledge of these things recognise it as a tool to enhance their films. Of course there are always hacks who let the team down, but we don’t judge the usefulness of the tool.
Wash out the colour from a film and it’s a different film, remove the 3D from a film, that was actually conceived and mapped out from day one as 3D, and of course you have different film. In fact the very fact that colour has become the norm it is now an artistic decision to “remove” the colour and shoot in black & white. But only because now we’re accustomed to colour. We’re also accustomed to synch sound, surround sound at that. If we went to watch, let’s say the Expendables, and sound only came from 2 speakers at the front, with no background noise coming from the sides or a plane flying overhead didn’t sound like it was actually flying overhead we’d miss it. It wouldn’t feel like a natural film going experience.
You describe how changing the light or the colour can be used to alter the environment, or to highlight a change of environment, yet refuse to accept the fact that 3D, with depth of field for one, can be used to do the same thing.; and IS used so to do. As I have mentioned before when speaking to you as well as in my 1srt SyFy 3D article (which I believe I pointed you towards on a previous thread (?).) You think that taking away the 3D from well made 3d films loses nothing? It’s hard for you to get your point across when you’ve clearly not seen Up or Coraline at the Cinema, in 3D, and then in 2D and thought that nothing significant was different even Beowulf. Even the average films, like Journey to the Centre of the Earth are noticably flat (no pun) compared to the 3d versions.
I’m just curious why you don’t seem to have watched the well made 3D films to see precisely how it DOES affect a 3D film when the 3D is removed. Add to that the fact that your gimmick argument actually negates today’s ” When you take away 3D, it does not…” argument. If it’s a film made with 3d as a gimmick then removing it will leace you with pretty much nothing. No gimmick, no film.
At the very least, in the poorest made in 3D film, you will have a heightened sense of reality a greater feeling of looking through that window on the world, or (with IMAX and improvong tech) of being “in the room”.
Dinema marches on in its evolution into something that more resembles the way we see the world. What 3D films have you actually seen? Of the ones that were always going to be 3D which have you seen in 2D & 3D to say that the films are little different without it?
My distaste of 3D asside, I’ve seen many of them in theatres. I’ve seen Avatar, Up (the balloons looked pretty cool I’ll admit), Coraline (hands down the best use of 3D to date), Shrek the Fourth, Toy Story 1 & 2 (even though I’d seen those movies dozens and dozens of times, I saw them in theatres because of the 3D gimmick), Monsters vs. Aliens, and Clash of the Titans. Besides for Clash of the Titans, I have also seen all of those films in standard 2D. As I’ve previously stated with Avatar, I felt it added nothing to the experience. Sure it was cute, but as far as what it generaly added, besides for a higher ticket price, I felt it added nothing. Around the time you and I were talking previously, I saw Avatar in 2D on Blu-Ray, and I felt it was a much better film that way. Part of my feelings towards the technology has to do with the fact that it is only used successfully (to an extent) in animated movies. I don’t know if it is because of the different medium, but for some reason 3D tends to be slightly better suited to these types of films. Perhaps it is because every single image on the screen has been looked at with extreme detail and has been meticulously planned out, or perhaps it is because those films tend to have a more bizarre or warped world image that is better suited to visual distortion. Regardless, I own all of these films on Blu-Ray (besides Shrek and Clash of the Titans obviously), and I can honestly tell you that had I not already known it was 3D, there would be no way to tell I was “missing something.” I would have to dissagree with your statement of “in the poorest made in 3D film, you will have a heightened sense of reality.” Clearly Clash of the Titans has set the bar extremely low, and it shows that if done poorly, it completely takes away from the film. I think that your analogy is far more appropriate to IMAX and Blu-Ray technology. Christopher Nolan, arguably the best director out there today, who has yet to make a bad movie (hopefully that won’t change with Inception), has stated he will not shoot in 3D. He has taken the opposite approach that most directors have and shoots in the highest resolution currently available (IMAX), and is considering shooting the third Batman installment entirely in IMAX because, quite simply, it is the best representation of what the world truly looks like. Like you said before, I’m just some guy, so who’s to say I know better than the pros? Well, Nolan is the pro I look up too because he never misses, whereas those other directors have missed, and missed terribly, in the past. Heck, Avatar was one of Cameron’s worst movies, yet the spectacle of this “revolution in 3D” made audiences (and many many fanboys) see the film. Cameron is a fantastic filmaker, but as I argued in the previous conversation, he spent so much time developing a new technology that he forgot to write a film we hadn’t already seen before. Even when 3D is done right, at least at this point, directors are more concerened with what it looks like than what the film means. You like to use movie quotes, so here’s one of my favorites from Star Trek VI: “Let us define progress as meaning that just because we CAN do something, does not necessarily mean that we MUST do something.” Cameron is now going back and re-doing his previous movies in 3D. I must ask “why?” Just like with the next Twilight and Harry Potter movies being released in 2 installments, it has to do with the only thing that matters in Hollywood: Money. Right now, 3D is hot, so they’re going to milk it for all it’s worth. Now don’t get me wrong, 3D has it’s place in the world. Sporting events and video games could be greatly improved if the technology ever get’s to the point where glasses are not needed (which, with today’s news of Nintendo’s 3DS system being glassless seems like a pretty sure thing). One last thing about your argument against “when you take away 3D it does not…” You take the argument to the extreme saying that if it’s a gimmick and you take it away you are left with nothing. That’s a fallacy in that, even if the worst film in the world was shot in 3D, and you took away the 3D, you wouldn’t be left with nothing, you’d still be left with the worst film in the world. 3D is just another way to view that terrible movie. I will admit that your argument “Again your argument is that 3D doesn’t change a film is also wrong because it quite simply does,” is a tough one to argue against because it’s purely opinion, and honestly there’s no quantifiable way to measure that. Also it kinda gets to the heart of the whole debate. I would ask you, why is 3D neccessary? I simply don’t see how it adds to the experience. Real life is in 3D. In real life, if you take a step to the left or right, you see a different image than you do where you currently stand. In a theatre, no matter where you sit, no matter if you move around or not, you see the exact same image. How then could that be an accurate depiction of life? (btw I’d like to appologize for the spelling and overall jumbledness of this response. perhaps 3am is not the right time to try and make a cohesive argument.)
I thought I was the only one tired of the whole 3-D craze. I’d love for it to just go away.
The Hoth battle in Empire Strikes Back would be pretty darn sweet in 3D or the entirety of Rear Window, I’d pay premium to see either of those.
Duel of the fates from the Phantom Menace would be awesome.
The ambush from the end og The Godfather.
The 3 way “Mexican standoff” from the end of The Good, The Bad & The Ugly.
Any of the battle scens from Star Trek II.
“We’re gonna need a bigger boat”
Pretty much the whole of Project A and Police Story.
Whilst I’m being Greedy I’ll take The Water Tenticle from The Abyss, the crop duster scen from North by Northwest and last, but not least Nightcralwer’s attack on the Whitehouse from X2. Still one of the best opening scenes, or action scenes, ever put to film.
The Abyss, Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Star Wars… too many to mention.
Avatar in 3D still looked blurry to me. I don’t need it
I can’t see in 3-D, so it wouldn’t matter to me. It seems like a worthless gimmick.
Hello Franck.
It’s a shame you can’t see it. Although it saves you a lot of money I guess? Can you see the film, unblurred, with the glasses on, or would you basically not be ablle to go to the cinema and watch TV if it all became 3D, with no 2d options?
Even with the glasses on, the picture is blurred. If there wasn’t a 2-D option, I wouldn’t be able to see the movie. I smell a class-action lawsuit!
BTW – My left eye tends to “wander”, so I have trouble focusing it. That’s why I can’t see the 3-D effects.
Hmmm, we should definately be able to get people who can’t see 3D out of paying extra!
I try to watch in 3D, but it looks no different than 2D to me at times. (shrug)
It really is a shame. But at least you get to see a “normal” picture, not a blurry one? Do you have some kind of medical exemption card that means you don’t have to pay the extra?
I’m actually finishing up a list of “complaints” and trying to draw up a charter of some kind around 3D. It started, with tongue in cheek, as a faux campaign to get people their money back for Clash of The Titans; just the extra we all paid for the 3D. Because that film was clearly not in 3D for a very large amount of the time, and the scenes that were in 3D were ….. anyway. But I’m taking it a little more seriously now. A friend of mine was one of 3 girls who got clubs in the UK to accept ID that confirmed the bearers as cancer victims, so that they could enter clubs, bars etc. without having to remove their hats / caps. I was talking to her about it the other day and it reminded me that there are people who just can’t see 3D and yet are having to stump up the extra cash IF there’s no 2D alternative. Anyway you guys have reminded me again so I’m getting off my .. and adding that to my list. I’m doing this from the UK but I guess it makes sense to contact Hollywood and American cinema chains as well.
So do you have to pay extra?
Hey, how about a story asking people to name 3D movies that could have benefited from a better screenplay?
Oh, wait. That’s all of them. (Except, maybe, How to Train Your Dragon.)
You missed Coraline, Avatar, Alice in Wonderland, Toy Story 1, 2 & 3, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. I’m sure there are more too. All fine films, in different ways and before you start the tired argument about Avatar’s story being familiar again, the overwhelming majority of films, books and TV shows are and How to train your Dragon, excellent, is no less a familiar format. in fact it is ossibly the most Formulaic of the films listed. It was well made so it didn’t matter.
Ah, yes. The glory of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.
You’re telling me Avatar wouldn’t have been a better movie if Cameron had had an original idea when making the story?
Also, if you think Toy Story 1 and 2 belong on that list, I’d like you to point out what theaters were showing them in 3D when they came out. I’ll wait here, take your time.
That’s not relevant in any way. They are films that have been shown in 3D and are excellent. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is a very funny and very well made film. I was not expecting it to be anything other than mildly diverting for adults and forgettable fun for kids. It wasn’t.
There are many original ideas in Avatar. ~Whilst I will always review films & TV with a critical “film student / Net journo” mind I find second guessing one of the greatest (in entertainment terms at least) film makers of all time a bit of a fool’s quest. Do I think there were ways to have mad Avatar a better film? Probably, no art, or entertainment is flawless; however you do get things that are so good that to try and tinker is either disingenuous or a case of making changes that may actually worsen the film as a whole. I suggest that Cameron knows more than either of will ever know about making successful film, and about making excellent films. You see there’s no really anything I’d cut from the film and whilst fleshing out the human characters may have made them more satisfying the extra length may well have harmed the flow of the film. Also the nature, by design, of the film is such that it doesn’t need them. If a 5th Indian Jones film were to made (I have an article on that going up on Syfy UK’s website soon) it could fix what you could argue is the major missing point form Indiana Jones; a villain who is his match, who is given the kind of writing and attention that, The Joker or Magneto tend to get. But did that lack thereof really stop Raiders from being the platinum standard for “intelligent” entertainment / blockbusters?
The problem with the way you critique the film is the use of a sweeping, and hence erroneous, condemnation. The film is full of original ideas carried on the back of a safe recognisable plot type. Outside of the fact that it didn’t harm the film, box office and critical reaction point to this, you can see why that was done. A film with so much “unreal” footage and characters who are not human was, on paper at least, a very risky venture; reducing that risk by wrapping the film around a familiar plot was the smart thing to do. Familiar less, devoid of originality? Please.
The fact that you hold up Raiders of the Lost Ark as a film with a villain that isn’t a match for Indiana Jones is enough for me to say “well, clearly you and I experience reality in completely different ways and we should just agree to disagree.” Because Belloq is the exact match for Indy, the point where there’s a dialogue scene in the film devoted to precisely that point.
It’s interesting, too, that you choose “flat villains” as a point to argue, when that is, and has always been, Cameron’s biggest problem, and was far and away the single worst aspect of Avatar. Oooh, snarl, growl, take a slug of black coffee, spout crypto-racist dialogue that would make Mark King say “dude that’s a bit much.” Yeah, I certainly couldn’t improve on that.
Cameron’s a brilliant technical filmmaker, and has made some great films. But to claim that we hoi polloi can’t possibly claim that his work can’t be improved upon? Come on.
@therealeverton If, as you say, “second guessing one of the greatest (in entertainment terms at least) film makers of all time a bit of a fool’s quest”, and then note what we “could argue is the major missing point form Indiana Jones”, could we not infer a bit of a contradiction there?
That said, I appreciate your thought-provoking comments.
Ok first of all thanks for replying in a debate style rather than just cheap insults style. The Villains that aren’t quit up to snuff in Indiana Jones movies isn’t something that just I feel it’s the one criticism levelled at Raiders and one that runs trough the other films. I didn’t really think it matter too much, which was my point, that he isn’t quite up to Indy’s level. It’s the way you’d dissect Khan or Ra’s Al Ghul. Physical matches for their opponents as well as intellectual ones. Belloq is an interesting villain but the whole following Indy around and being clever enough to find people who can help him steal what Indy had both the intellect AND the Physical prowess to acquire doesn’t make him an equal. Like I said it doesn’t matter it’s Belloq And the Nazi’s that are Indy’s foe, but despite a gaggle of “superhumans” And an army of “criminals” it’s the intellect and physical prowess of Ra’s and Khan that make them as formidable, or more so, as their arch nemeisisisis.
But again it really doesn’t matter. Raiders is a film that is probably perfect and trying to “fix” some things is as likely to “break” a lot of other things in the process.
Next I never said the villains were flat, you may think so but I don’t. I think they were exactly as they were meant to be and suited the film. the irony with Quaritch, for example, is that he is raw nature, in the way that the joker is often seen as the flip side of the Batman coin, Quaritch, with his comic book physique and animal nature is the flip side of the Na’vi coin. A physical presence, yes snarls and grimaces, so tough you can almost believe he doesn’t need to breath and just pretends to fit in. Hawk eyed. Cameron has always had, and Avatar is the greatest Eastern trends. In much Asian cinema as much is said by the movement and positioning of bodies; (Ironically given the talk on silent films in this thread), that Japanese cinema was so resistant to synchronised sound in movies. They thought, as you and others do with 3D, that it took away more than it added, forcing them to say in clumsy words what great actors should convey simply with a glance or the subtle movement of a hand or foot. Avatar is a film, partly because it relies so much on emotion to get its message across And to draw in the viewer, where facial expression, body posture the way people move is absolutely key. Because of this many people, although they are in the vast, vast minority, think the film’s script is lacking. It isn’t, its simply not all about the words and it is a film where many of the characters are fine as they are. They are not flat, in no way are they flat. It’s a Western conceit, much like the one that leads many to think animation is only for children and if it isn’t it still has little worth, that it’s all about the words. It isn’t all about the words and those words that are there are generally fine.
I’m not sure what the “Crypto racist..” comment was about to be honest, maybe it’s lost in translation on me? I certainly don’t know who Mark King is. The issue of whether or not the derogatory language used in regards to the Na’vi is kind of the point. When are people people? It may be an idea we’ve seen before but anyone who thinks we’ve outgrown the need to ask the question is mistaken.
Cameron has no problem with villains at all. It’s possible the perception is such because, in general his villains aren’t people. They are massive and often represented on a human scale by an indvidual or individuals in the foreground. The Terminator is the perfect villain but merely represents the end of the line for the real villains, humans and their recklessness and warmongering. Also represented by the gun store, the machines in the future flashbacks and TV fireplace. Aliens has various villains from the consumer mad capitalists of “The Company” and those whose IQ’s dropped sharply while Ripley was away to the simple, idea as villain, namely that there’s no problem that can’t be solved by bigger and better weapons. (A Vietnam reference and a pretty good one.) Aliens continues Cameron’s Miyazaki like path down the, not quite Nature VS. Technology, but the idea that you cannot replace nature with technology. The Alien Queen, the environment and the Alien drones were also effect parts of the villain body. A look at Alien3 and Resurrection will show you how good the “villains” were in Aliens. In a strange way a look at Star Trek First Contact (which was modelled on Aliens in several ways shows how the idea that personifying a villain, because you believe that the dumb masses can only respond to a “human” individual villain isn’t always a good idea. Don’t gert me wrong I know a lot of people liked the Borg Queen and she was an interesting character, especially visually, but it was the facelessness of The Borg, as much as their military might, that made them so interesting and so fearsome. Dumping all of that onto a power mad lady who wanted some sort of intellectual concubine, weakened them a little. Of course if she had been as fierce in defence of her children as the, wordless, Alien queen maybe………? The idea as villain is also present in The Abyss and T” as well as Avatar. It’s a pretty good villain if you ask me, and (broken record) most critics and cinemagoers of all levels of intelligence, ages and sexes; although more women than men, likely because of the visual nature of the story telling. Michael Biehn’s bends fuelled descent in the Abyss is a very good part of an underrated film, but again it’s mankind that’s the villain, as well as the various ways the film trys to kill as many people as possible. With much of that villain, the Cold War cut from the Theatrical version the personification of the villain, Coffee, had to shoulder more of that role than intended
As for your last point you kinda negated that yourself when you (erroneously) stated that I was arguing that the Villains were flat. I can’t have been suggesting that some characters could have been improved upon AND saying that Cameron can’t be improved upon. What I said was no art is perfect and I am in no place to tel the director of 2 of the 3 most successful films of all time, and a few of the best, how to make a better film. I’m just not and it would be arrogant of me to say that I am. That I could take the highest grossing film of all time (outside of North America) and say If you’d let me write it would have made twice as much! Seriously? I’m saying there will surely be things in all the films ever made that could be improved, the issue is would changing those little things improve the films as a whole or make them worse? Is Raiders better for having Indy just shoot the sword master guy? Could I sit a bunch of writers down and say write me some deeper dialogue for this Ark movie? Sure but I don’t know that it’d make a better film, or a more entertaining one. Again. I’m sure Cameron has many ideas in his head for ways he could have made Avatar better, all good film makers do, but I just don’t think it matters. Hell Star Wars, (ep IV) has many things that could, at face value, be improved, and yes I have ways that I think I could do so, but you cannot argue that it worked fine as it was. Avatar works as it is and if that were all it would be enough. I also happen to think it’s a damn good film with a masterclass performance from Zoe Saldana that deserved top level nomination.
To relate my point to current events I’m enjoying the World Cup at the mo and I’m sure many teams could improve their defences by playing 6 defenders instead of the traditional 4. Except that what if they get in each others way? Or how are they going to create scoring opportunities with 2 fewer forward thinking players? Spurious I know but I’m trying to shine light on what I said and meant and what you seem to think I meant. The film as it was conceived and meant to be is pretty fine as it is and I’m not sure changing it would improve the film as a whole. You seem to think it was poorly written, I disagree. Others share your view, including respected critics and film makers and others share mine, including respected critics and film makers and the screen writer’s guild. There’s more to it than just the diction and sometimes you can get caught up waiting for an Oscar clip speech that you forget that what you are listening to is exactly what is required, or even that it’ll do.
@ D’s Advocate
You certainly could. Paradoxically that’s kinda the point. I’m trying to say that of course you can always think “wouldn’t it be better if…” so no art is perfect but at the same time when something so obviously works, and not just works but works in such a defining, mass audience and major critic pleasing way why bother? It is a bit of a fool’s quest because hey Raiders is still the standard for that kind of movie and one of the best entertainment films ever made. I used to be a big basketball fan, until half the players got to be taller than the basket! Like anyone else who has watched millionaire players miss free throws I’ve gone on about how poor that is and they should have done this or that. We’ve all had the perfect idea of what x sports person should have done in x sport to win or score or whatever; and a lot of the time what we said, from the comfort of our seats, is exactly what probably would have worked. But let’s face it, there’s a reason we’re watching from comfy chairs and the people we’re shouting at are earning good money playing sports.
That doesn’t negate our opinion but perhaps we should consider that we don’t know all there is to know.
thanks D’s Advocate.
3D gives me a headache … I would rather just watch a movie without it.
agreed. i am ready for this current resurgence (sp??) to be over. why does EVERY movie have to be in 3D??
Gives me a headache too. I know it makes for some intense scenes, but enough already.
How about a 3D porno?
do not want.
Don’t ask me how I know this, but the porn industry is about to shoot their first HD 3D porn film. Gross, yes, but also interesting that the porn industry is about to do 3D better than Clash of the Titans.
I wanna see some space battles in 3-D!! …Star Wars comes to mind. But there are probably better options that I am not thinking of
None! Even if I wholeheartedly loved 3D (which I don’t), changing a classic movie like that is the moral equivalent of colorizing it. Horrible!!!
It’s a fantasy thing. We’re not actually contemplating scrubbing original films and replacing them 3D versions; just saying if you could see a scene or a movie again in 3D, which would it be?
House of Flying Daggers, Hero, Crouching Tiger, Hiddden Dragon and Ran would be beautiful in 3D
Yes, folks, he just suggested using 3D for Kurosawa. Next up, Throne of Blood in Smell-o-Rama! And heck, colorize Rashomon while you’re at it!
No I didn’t. I answered the “fantasy speculation” of the blog and said that Ran, one of the most beautiful films ever made would look even more beautiful in 3d. Just as it would look better with a quality clean up (remastering or whatever) and a HD presentation. Just as Lawrence of Arabia looked better when I was lucky enough to see it in all its glory on the big screen a few years back.
But seeing as how you’re only inersted in playground arguments rather than actually reading what is typed and having a debate I shan’t waste any more of my time taking this seriously.
I’m getting kind of sick of 3D myself (honestly, I would have liked Alice in Wonderland more than I did, and I did enjoy it, if I hadn’t seen it in 3D). While it’s not a “classic”, if I had to pick something I’d like to see in 3D, I’d probably say The Black Cauldron. There’s a scene where this green smoke comes boiling out of the cauldron, and it looks amazing. Would probably be pretty cool in 3D
Jurassic Park. Any of the T-Rex scenes would be cool in 3-D.
Jurassic Park FTW!
Winner!
I’d pay to go to Dancer in the Dark, The Bourne Ultimatum, and Cloverfield in 3D. Not for the movies per se, but to watch the 3D-loving zombie public all vomiting in unison from Vertigo.
(First person who says “hey, Vertigo would be great in 3D” gets slapped. Hard.)
Was your intention to highlight the shot at 3:19 (not 3:09) of the Terminator clip you linked to? The shot at 3:19 is the one I was thinking of when you suggested T2 be given a 3-D make-over.
Nothing particularly exciting happens at 3:09 in the clip…