3D Films - Criticism

Criticism

Most of the cues required to provide humans with relative depth information are already present in traditional 2D films. For example, closer objects occlude further ones, distant objects are desaturated and hazy relative to near ones, and the brain subconsciously "knows" the distance of many objects when the height is known (e.g. a human figure subtending only a small amount of the screen is more likely to be 2 m tall and far away than 10 cm tall and close). In fact, only two of these depth cues are not already present in 2D films: stereopsis (or parallax) and the focus of the eyeball (accommodation).

3D film-making addresses accurate presentation of stereopsis but not of accommodation, and therefore is insufficient in providing a complete 3D illusion. However, promising results from research aimed at overcoming this shortcoming were presented at the 2010 Stereoscopic Displays and Applications conference in San Jose, U.S.

Film critic Mark Kermode argued that 3D adds "not that much" value to a film, and said that, while he liked Avatar, the many impressive things he saw in the movie had nothing to do with 3D. Kermode has been an outspoken critic of 3D film describing the effect as a "nonsense" and recommends using two right or left lenses from the 3D glasses to cut out the "pointy, pointy 3D stereoscopic vision", although this technique still does not improve the huge brightness loss from a 3D film. Versions of these "2-D glasses" are being marketed.

Director Christopher Nolan has criticised the notion that traditional film does not allow depth perception, saying "I think it's a misnomer to call it 3D versus 2D. The whole point of cinematic imagery is it's three dimensional... You know 95% of our depth cues come from occlusion, resolution, color and so forth, so the idea of calling a 2D movie a '2D movie' is a little misleading." Nolan also criticised that shooting on the required digital video does not offer a high enough quality image and that 3D cameras cannot be equipped with prime lenses.

Film critic Roger Ebert has repeatedly criticized 3D film as being "too dim", sometimes distracting or even nausea-inducing, and argues that it is an expensive technology that adds nothing of value to the movie-going experience (since 2-D movies already provide a sufficient illusion of 3D). While Ebert is "not opposed to 3-D as an option", he opposes it as a replacement for traditional film, and prefers 2-D technologies such as MaxiVision48 that improve image area/resolution and frames per second.