However, movies like (and this one was a bit sick-making anyway, just from the camera work, so I almost hesitate to mention it) Cloverfield where immersive 3D could have made a huge difference to the scariness (because space and spatial awareness was such a big deal in the film) and potentially the nausea from having a handheld camera (especially if it was like some of the films in the late 50s in the US where the chairs moved slightly with the film or, in modern times, like Star Tours at Disneyland), I could see it.
I only bought into the conceit after half an hour when I realized that the film wasn't going to chicken out and move to traditional camera angles. If it was 3D, then that immersive quality would have been lost - it was only because it maintained the integrity of the handheld camera wielded by an observer that it worked.
It was unfortunate that the stigma of the 50s and 80s 3D lingered onto the current system, as it *does* have benefits over either of those methods (which actually aren't all that far apart), but the use of the 3D by the directors who have opted for it hasn't pushed it much beyond those initial experiments in the form. Hell, some of the recent films have been
worse in storytelling and film-making than the 50s films. The big leap forward won't come until someone can develop a system which isn't limited by angle of viewing or the set-up of individual screens (you still have to tweak contrast, brightness, and other filters to get the very best image.
I mentioned this way back when the gimmick started, but bad films are bad films, irrespective of whether they are 3D or not. The cream of the crop will always rise to the top - in the case of 3D films, we have yet to see a film so exceptional that it makes the process mandatory in the viewing of the film. There are films which look good on a standard def television, so even the claims for HD are a bit much for me to take - I like the television, sure, but am I blown away? Nope.
Although I will say watching films designed to be shown in 3D in 2D is annoying if only because then you have to put up with that stupid trick of characters purposely putting stuff really close to the camera or throwing stuff directly at the camera, only without the gimmick attachment. And without the 3D effect, that just looks goofy as all hell.
As I sad about the 50s films? Yeah - the lessons haven't been learned. I have sat through spears, arrows, sticks, stones and mountains being thrown at the screen, and not for one moment did I feel like the director was paying any attention to the 2D. There is a lot of "oooh, I can do this" when people first get the cameras, but it wears off fast.
Not sure if this is widely known, but the reason Blu-Ray won out over HD-DVD because of porn (big surprise there), but the uptake in 3D has been a lot less involved. Every massive development in home entertainment has been spurred by those folks, and by staying back in this fight, the leaps haven't been made. Remember that the leaps in home video (smaller, better quality, cheaper recorders) was due to that market, so we can thank porn for 3D being so expensive and useless.
I'm told we own 109 films.
I claim that compared with some people this is virtually nothing. Go on then astound me cantina.
How many films do you own?
The last time I counted (and this is a fair while ago) I notched up about 9k before I gave up and did something more productive with my time - and I deliberately didn't count all of the season box-sets of television, of which I probably have somewhere in the region of two or three hundred. Those are all mixed in, and I really don't want to go count again for fear of discovering that I have hit the 10k mark unwittingly. Probably have, but ignorance is bliss.
At least you didn't as about computer games...
What are your all's thoughts on Time Travel stories? Done to death?
Time travel will never be done to death, because most people head straight for WWII or the big events - go ahead and try to name everything that has used either Titanic (Time Tunnel, TimeCop...), the wild west (Doctor Who at least twice, the second TimeCop film...) or some other moment everyone knows.
I like a good time travel story. There's so much you can do with them!
And so few people take them to the limit...
Romance (The Time Traveller's Wife and Lightning), War (Rebel in Time), Apocalyptic (or similar, Stirling books), funny (Technicolor Time Machine, Hitchhiker's Guide), morality tale (The Time Machine)...
And the always popular mind-screw - Donnie Darko gets bonus points for being completely incomprehensible in the original cut.
No, that's a good definition, and now I understand what you're talking about. It's not something I had considered, but it can certainly go into the idea notebook.
There's a really famous story about a character going back in time and becoming his own father, then having a sex change and becoming his own mother, and... it gets very complex very quickly. That, to me, is the definition of timey wimey.