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5 Negative Aspects About 3D

I’ve decided I’m a 3D optimist. Ultimately, I think the format is going to improve in the hands of skilled filmmakers and technicians with able hands and keen eyes and will be as much an institution of the moving image as color is today. If the type of people who currently say 3D is a gimmick won the argument back in the day when color film was becoming popular, we’d be watching G.I. Joe in black and white. It seems inevitable that the technology has such tremendous potential that to abandon it because of a few—ok, quite a number of hiccups would be totally shortsighted.

[h2]1) Making an audience of people wear glasses is dumb[/h2]

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There’s no way around it: right now, the only way to watch movies in 3D is to wear plastic glasses. That’s the way the technology works. I couldn’t explain exactly how this is; I just watch the things. But what I know is that every movie I go to that’s in 3D has those glasses that they hand you on your way in.

This is, to put it mildly, suboptimal. It’s horribly inconvenient for people who already wear prescription eyeglasses to expect them to just be totally cool putting on another pair of glasses over their glasses so they can see through the 3D glasses while they see through their myopia-correcting lenses. They’re cumbersome, get dirty from popcorn grease, often have to be angled perfectly on your face to keep the image from going blurry, and they look ridiculous. They may have improved from those tacky paper ones from the early days of 3D, but they’re still an unfortunate necessity of 3D imaging in its current form. If I had the answer to this, of course, I would be a rich bastard. All that’s in my power is to implore those men and women whose intellect far surpasses mine to please, please come up with something. For the love of all that is right and good in the world. You’re our only hope.

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