An influx of 3D movies attack the big screen as Hollywood decides to take their new design to the theaters. With the success of James Cameron’s Avatar, every movie seems to have a counterpart 3D viewing option. Just this year, The Last Airbender, Step Up, and almost every animation including Toy Story 3 has been shown in 3D, and upcoming movies include Jack Ass 3, Resident Evil, along with again, almost every animation feature.
From an industrial design standpoint, 3D movies are in almost every way a bad design. Industrial design seeks to “optimize the function, value and appearance of products and systems for the mutual benefit of both user and manufacturer,” but the designs of 3D movies, in fact, minimize the function, value, and appearance of films. What is the function of a movie? To provide entertainment, whether it is tears or laughs, in the form of a story. For the most part, 3D doesn’t add to the story, it just takes away from it, as audience as distracted by “cool graphics” and big explosions with debris flying at their faces. Appearance? Most directors and professional filmmakers in Hollywood argue that 3D cheapens and lessens the aesthetic of the image. Christopher Nolan, director of The Dark Knight, clearly expresses his disapproval of 3D imaging, where once the glasses go on the image immediately becomes dimmer and smaller. This is precisely why he fought for his latest film, Inception, to be not shown in 3D. Even directors and cinematographers who take a more cautious approach, such as Star Trek director J.J. Abrams, agree that while 3D imaging may improve in the future, in the present it is inferior to great 2D imaging. One reason is because the 2D image has been whetted, if not to perfection, for over a century of filmmaking, and 3D has not.
3D fails almost every good design test. It is not innovative – with the exception of perhaps Cameron’s Avatar, the technology used in 3D imaging has not changed much since the ancient days when 3D was first used. As described above, it neither makes the product (movies) more useful nor improves the aesthetic. It is very obtrusive, emphasizing the graphics rather than what the movie is really about – a good story. It is not honest. In fact, it is the very opposite – a quick way for movie studios to trick a temporary audience into spending money for a fad, since for a 3D showing the price of movies goes up by about $5.
3D does not add value to the filmmakers or audiences. For filmmakers, with the exception of perhaps James Cameron whose movie Avatar was specifically designed for 3D, the process diminishes the director’s original vision of the film, a film he/she designed for a 2D screen. For audiences (customers), for reasons discussed above, 3D cheapens the real movie experience for them. Looking back at history, every time Hollywood runs into trouble, they try to substitute what a movie really is – a good story – with some gimmicks such as explosions, sex, and now, 3D. And how about “good design is as little design as possible?” Needless to say, 3D is such a heavy-handed attempt to achieve a deceptive end, its needless complications rival the heydays of the old studio system B-movies, an attempt that does not consider the quality of the product, but only monetary gains.
Personally, I watched Toy Story 3 in 3D and felt that it was absolutely awful. The only reason I went was because I got the ticket for free, but now I wish I had seen it in 2D. While there may be a very select few movies appropriate for 3D such as Avatar, the savvy film lover should resist this trend designed to take money from our pockets without due return in value.
