4 reasons why 3D movies suck (and how AVATAR can fix them)

By now the hype machine has gotten through to every man and his dog: James Cameron is finally making a return to sci-fi action blockbuster goodness. But what’s this? It’s a cartoon full of blue people? And what’s THIS? It’s in 3D?

Despite being around literally for a century, three-dimensional images haven’t really caught on at home or at the multiplex. With the revolution of digital cinema flooding the world with 1s and 0s the technology for projecting truly stereoscopic images onto a multiplex screen is getting more and more viable by the day, so it’s about time a real filmmaker tackled this business, right?

Sure, Robert Zemeckis gave it a shot a few times, but all three of his 3D movies not only sucked, but tanked at the box office as well. So what can a prolific, trend-setting cine-hero like James Cameron accomplish with the format? There are a few problems standing between Cameron and a utopia of great 3D films, and here are some of them:

1 - The Uncanny Valley

Motion capture (mo-cap) took off after Lord of the Rings‘ Gollum came off as a living, breathing, believable digital character. Davy Jones was mo-capped, King Kong was mo-capped, countless background characters in fight scenes were mo-capped and then duplicated, and you believe in the digital movements. But whenever mo-cap tries to emulate a regular, realistic human being, we get the dead, soulless manequins from The Polar Express. You know you’re watching a digital fabrication, but there’s just enough humanity behind it for it to become completely unnerving.

James Cameron claims to have smashed through this barrier. If Cameron can live up to his promise that the digital performances will be “indistinguishable from [live action] photography,” maybe a few other decent directors will look into the tech as well (Speilberg and Jackson are already in on the action). What’s the end goal of this? To bring us fantastical but realistic characters unfettered by the physical constraints of actors and make-up: imagine Captain Ahab with real scars running down his face and body, and with a genuine peg leg, not an actor in an awkward harness with some shiny make-up on, and you’re thinking in the right direction.

2 – Technical Difficulties

Last time I saw a 3D movie there were these horrible, visible bands inhabiting shadows and areas of contrast in dark scenes–most likely caused by sub-par compression on the part of the distributor (all 3D prints are digital, with no exceptions), but it is possible this is an unavoidable caveat of 3D projection. At first I thought this might have been unique to the movie, or even to the projector I watched it on–but alas, another film at another location I glimpsed was plagued by the same problem.

This is a tough one for Avatar to fix. It’s screening in Imax, which projects at 4k resolution (double the standard 3D resolution, and double your measly Blu Ray resolution), so there’s a chance the bigger image will hold its quality better, but whether or not this is a trend Cameron can begin is hard to say. Bear in mind too that Imax is even rarer than regular digital cinemas, so even if Cameron manages to avoid this colour-banding in Imax, it might still show up in standard 3D.

3 – Gimmicks Galore

Remember the bit in that 1950s 3D film where the jaguar slashes at the camera? Remember that time you went to Imax in the 90s to see a 3D rollercoaster film? Remember that time in Beowulf where the spear flies at your face? Resorting to knee-jerk tactics like this immediately ephemeralises the film in question and cheapens the efforts of real films to tug on your heartstrings with things like character and plot and performance.

Cameron can easily fix this by not doing it. 3D should add to the immersion, put you in the scene, not force you to concsiously acknowledge that, yes, you are in fact safe and sound in an auditorium surrounded by other patrons, not about to be covered in the gore of a soccer mum in The Final Destination.

4 - No Good Movies

This is the killer. Most 3D movies are computer animated. Animated movies are fine, if you like that kind of thing, but you don’t want 3D technology to be monopolised by a genre that caters mostly to children. Adult jokes, you say, family entertainment, you mutter, but wouldn’t you prefer to take your kids to see Star Wars in 3D rather than Animal Smirks and Wisecracks 5?

Cameron will either slam dunk this one or tear a hamstring in the run-up. The first trailer for Avatar screamed cliche plot and a massive over-abundance of shonky-looking CGI–it looked like the whole damn film was going to be mo-capped, plunging us into the Uncanny Valley halfway through the first act. Newer trailers had us all breathing a collective sigh of relief, showing us a balance of live-action footage and “photorealistic” mo-cap/CGI action, but the question remains: we all know Cameron puts plot, character and believability on the same level as pure entertainment, so which way is Avatar going to go?

And, more importantly, is 3D the future of cinema, as Cameron claims, or will it die out this time just like it did the last half-a-dozen times?