I don’t mind the use of novelty and gimmickry in movies or any other branch of entertainment. It’s cool. Having something startle you by jumping out at you is fun—for a while. Before long, it can get tired. But what 3D often does for movies is that when it gets added, sometimes late in the shooting process, it makes people feel compelled to throw in some little details that they think the 3D audiences will find funny and affecting, and then the fatcats can justify charging their extra fee because people will want to see the version that has the chainsaw look like it’s actually going to slice their face off. This is done at the expense of keeping audiences engaged in the moment and the action and the characters and the story and it’s not like that’s completely unbeknownst to the producers of a movie but it shows where their priorities lie. And this wouldn’t be a problem if it wasn’t quite so pervasive. When it’s everywhere, it gets annoying.
These aren’t insurmountable challenges. Film history has plenty of cases of technological advances being hijacked by people looking to make a quick buck only to become incorporated into the process as a legitimate and artistically sound endeavor. Hell, film itself started out as basically a low-class gimmick. It’s easy to forget this, but you’d think film critics and historians would be less pessimistic about something like 3D when the very medium they have devoted their lives to enjoyed years of the same derision they’re heaping upon 3D movies today. Like most of these things, it’s probably best to wait and see where it goes. Constructive criticism of 3D is helpful, and so these complaints are good to voice.
If the smart folks continuing to work to improve 3D can make some reasonable strides in these areas, though, perhaps the immense potential of 3D movies can finally be realized. That’s a prospect worth feeling excited about.