This content has been archived. It may no longer be relevant

Has Sam Worthington been typecast as a 3D actor? What with staring in that rubbish ‘Avatar’ malarkey and now ‘Clash of the Titans’, both films that are (will be) massive 3D hits. Will we see Mr. Worthington in the next 3D blockbuster?

Who knows, but what I do know is that we’ll see a LOT more films in 3D in the future. But why? Granted, when I watched ‘Alice in Wonderland’ in 3D I was pretty impressed with the landscape shot at the end of the film, the perspective of the Jabberwocky and Alice really did stun me. Unfortunately, the rest of the film and other 3D films that I’ve seen, I’ve just not been impressed with.

3D is still a gimmick to me, it’s brought more people to the cinemas now that you can’t really download and enjoy a pirate copy of a 3D film (honestly, who does enjoy pirated copies of films? They’re terrible quality, just go to the cinema, losers), but if Hollywood keeps churning out films in 3D people will get sick of it sooner or later. We tried 3D twenty odd years ago, again we’ve made massive leaps, but it’s just not there.

There thankfully hasn’t been a lot of “tacky” 3D usage, unless you count ‘Final Destination 3D’, with things flying at you out of the screen, but unless you require perspective shots all the time, you’re not getting that real sense of depth. Another thing that bugged me, that I was quite aware of during ‘Alice in Wonderland’, was that the film wasn’t being shown in Widescreen. I don’t know if this is because of the 3D or if it was just during a few scenes that I became aware of it, but in my opinion, widescreen has been a “gimmick” that worked, a staple of modern cinema if you will.

I spoke to a friend of mine about going to see ‘Clash of the Titans’ which is playing at my local cinema but only in 3D in the evening showings. Knowing these will be busy I opted to see the film in 2D but he wants to see it in 3D only. Why? What is the allure of putting on a pair of specs to watch a slightly more enhanced version of a film, with tickets that are way overpriced just because it’s shot in 3D. ‘Clash of the Titans’ was not going to be in 3D, it was only after the success of ‘Avatar’ that the distributors decided they wanted this in three dimensions and ordered it be done, regardless of the fact shooting had wrapped.

With 3D television the next big thing, are we getting carried away with this? Sky subscriptions are already ridiculously high, with an extra tenner for HD broadcasts, what are we going to be paying for 3D? Baring in mind there are only a dozen or so films in 3D at the moment and only some football games been shot in 3D. Is this really the future?

I honestly think this is only a fad and will soon fizzle out. Give me substance in films rather than an extra dimension. I go to the cinema for the story, for the film, to get sucked in and lose myself for a couple of hours in another world. I don’t go to get simulation pokes in the eye.