March 28, 2024

By JAZLYN SLACK

Imagine you’re going to see a movie with your friends. You buy your ticket, grab some popcorn and the usher rips your ticket and hands you a pair of glasses. After sitting in an uncomfortable seat for two hours and fiddling with those glasses that never seem to fit your face, you’ve spent at least $20 or more, and are leaving the theatre with a huge migraine. All thanks to the unnecessary 3-D movie.

Let’s start with the prices. Not only are you paying at least $5.50 for popcorn, and more if you want a drink, but you have to add the extra $3 before tax to watch a movie where things may or may not pop out at you. General admission for a 2-D movie at Empire Theatres is $9.99. If you want to watch a movie in 3-D, plus you’ll end up paying $12.99 + tax.

After you spend all your money, you get to sit in the theatre for two hours with those ridiculous glasses on your face. Now they probably wouldn’t be so bad if they actually fit, but when you have to push them up the bridge of your nose every five minutes, you’ll find it gets not only annoying, but distracting. They’re big, they’re chunky and after watching a two-hour flick with them on, eventually your eyes start to feel funny, leading to that migraine everyone loves; just kidding.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some movies out there that are made for 3-D such as Avatar and Jackass 3, but the majority are a waste of time and money.

James Cameron, producer of Avatar and co-developer of the 3-DFusion Camera System, told John Gaudiosi of reuters.com that you can’t take a 2-D movie and convert it into a 3-D film.

“We can’t take cheap routes to offer a 3-D title in the marketplace,” Cameron said. “I’m not a big fan of 3-D conversion because I think it produces what I call 2-and-a-half-D. It doesn’t have the depth of native 3-D that’s actually been photographed in 3-D. Post conversion tends to be a little harder on the eyes and not give you a good depth experience. The audience is reacting and they’re saying, ‘Wait a minute, I’m paying a premium price for a ticket and I’m not getting the added value that I wanted from 3-D.’”

Next time you go to see a 3-D movie, look and see if it was shot in 3-D, or if it was just a 2-D movie converted post-production. If that’s the case, save some money and see the 2-D film instead.

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