3D Film - Criticism

Criticism

Most of the cues required to provide humans with relative depth information are already present in traditional 2D films. For example, closer objects occlude further ones, distant objects are desaturated and hazy relative to near ones, and the brain subconsciously "knows" the distance of many objects when the height is known (e.g. a human figure subtending only a small amount of the screen is more likely to be 2 m tall and far away than 10 cm tall and close). In fact, only two of these depth cues are not already present in 2D films: stereopsis (or parallax) and the focus of the eyeball (accommodation).

3D film-making addresses accurate presentation of stereopsis but not of accommodation, and therefore is insufficient in providing a complete 3D illusion. However, promising results from research aimed at overcoming this shortcoming were presented at the 2010 Stereoscopic Displays and Applications conference in San Jose, U.S.

Film critic Mark Kermode argued that 3D adds "not that much" value to a film, and said that, while he liked Avatar, the many impressive things he saw in the movie had nothing to do with 3D. Kermode has been an outspoken critic of 3D film describing the effect as a "nonsense" and recommends using two right or left lenses from the 3D glasses to cut out the "pointy, pointy 3D stereoscopic vision", although this technique still does not improve the 30% colour loss from a 3D film. Versions of these "2-D glasses" are being marketed.

Film critic Roger Ebert has repeatedly criticized 3D film as being "too dim" (due to the polarized-light technology using only half the light for each eye), sometimes distracting or even nausea-inducing, and argues that it is an expensive technology that adds nothing of value to the movie-going experience (since 2-D movies already provide a sufficient illusion of 3D). While Ebert is "not opposed to 3-D as an option", he opposes it as a replacement for traditional film, and prefers 2-D technologies such as MaxiVision48 that improve image area/resolution and frames per second. Director Christopher Nolan has stated that while two dimensional film displays at 16 foot lamberts of luminance, the addition of 3D sacrifices up to three foot lamberts, which he criticises as, "A massive difference. You're not that aware of it because once you're "in that world," your eye compensates, but having struggled for years to get theaters up to the proper brightness, we're not sticking polarized filters in everything."

Another major criticism is that many of the movies in the 21st century to date were not filmed in 3D, but converted after filming. Filmmakers who have criticized this process include James Cameron, whose film Avatar was created in 3D from the ground up and is largely credited with the revival of 3D, and Michael Bay, whose film Transformers: Dark of the Moon was also created in 3D from the ground up and has been considered the best use of 3D since Avatar.

Director Christopher Nolan has criticised the notion that traditional film does not allow depth perception, saying "I think it's a misnomer to call it 3D versus 2D. The whole point of cinematic imagery is it's three dimensional... You know 95% of our depth cues come from occlusion, resolution, color and so forth, so the idea of calling a 2D movie a '2D movie' is a little misleading." Nolan also criticised that shooting on the required digital video does not offer a high enough quality image and that 3D cameras cannot be equipped with prime lenses.