When I think back on all of my fondest movie-watching experiences, none involve me wearing 3-D glasses in order to succumb to the illusion that the bullets from a bad guy’s gun might hit me, a shark might eat me, or a meteor might strike me. However, if certain movie studios have it their way, our kids will not remember what it’s like to watch a movie without tinted glasses.
It seems like most movies are being released in 3-D, but we have to draw the line somewhere. It’s too much. I can understand the use of 3-D, from time to time, if it’s used to enhance the story like in “Avatar”. The 3-D in that movie helped create the world of Pandora. It invited us in beyond the giant white screen and the projection and helped transport us into a fantastic world filled with Na’vi, floating mountains, and unobtainium.
The successful use of 3-D in “Avatar”, however, does not mean that I want to be invited into a world where mutant Piranhas are eating teenagers like it was Friday night at the nearest Chinese buffet. I also don’t want to know what it’s like to see blood splatters headed in my direction from the diabolical schemes of some twisted old man in the upcoming “Saw” film.
But blood and guts aside, one thing I definitely do not want to do is pay the ridiculous amount of money charged for a 3-D movie. It’s bad enough that theaters are raising regular ticket prices and limiting the use of student IDs and discounts — now they want to charge more for the 3-D experience and a pair of 3-D glasses that you don’t even get to keep.
It’s not like I’m missing out on anything by not watching a movie in 3-D. I’ve watched lots of movies in the suddenly “old-fashioned” 2-D and I have no complaints. It’s not like I walked out of the theater saying “Man, I bet I could’ve figured out the meaning of ‘Inception’ if I had seen it in 3-D.”
So Hollywood, I’m just going to hold on to these extra five dollars until you release something else that’s actually worth seeing in 3-D. Until then, you can keep your tinted glasses.
