It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
http://www.moviefone.com/movie/dr-no-imax-3d/58226/main
An error on their part. Can anyone list anything?
Well apparently the future is holographic. Whether it's just a fad such as 3D remains to be seen. The good news for films fans is that no matter what happens, 2D cinema will always be the mainstay. I think SF amply demonstrates that you don't need technology and tricks to attract an audience.
I actually think the idea of 3D in cinema is hyped way beyond it's potential. There's talk of a so called 'immersive' experience, but do we need that with cinema, in the way they suggest? I can see the future of gaming in the 3D/Holographic arena because you as a viewer are an active participant. For that reason alone, it delivers a truly immersive experience. Film/TV is a much more passive experience, we react emotionally, but not physically. So all the physical immersion in the world won't make a blind bit of difference, we can't shape a film or television episode, we don't decide what the characters do, we study them, we judge them, but they lead the way and we follow.
Theres a really easy way to create an immersive experience. Its called a good story and characters and not a load of CGI bollocks coming out of the screen at you.
http://www.slashfilm.com/rumor-dr-no-getting-imax-3d-rerelease/
I don't buy the 3D part because I don't think it would be very easy to re-release such an old film in 3D, and I don't much care to see it happen to the Bond films. However, the idea of iMax is very tempting!
I'm partial to 3D.
* When I buy a ticket for Piranha 3D, I expect a roller coaster ride, not so much a film. I'll shuttle three red bulls in my system, put on my glasses and warm up the dirty laughter muscles. And I expect boobs, chewed off body parts and buckets of blood to be trashed in my face. ;-)
* When I buy a ticket for Tron Legacy 3D, I expect a stunning visual experience, with the 3D immersing me in a fantasy world, impressing me with expensive graphics most of all.
* When I buy a ticket for Hugo 3D, I expect a brilliant filmmaker to explore the possibilities of angles and shots that were hitherto unknown to conventional film grammar. I do not, repeat NOT, expect 3D sling shots of something or another in my face.
I use these examples because I feel comfortable saying that I had a great time with all three films. Then of course, they perfectly fulfilled my expectations.
Avatar was something else. I loved the 3D but I loathed the story, thin as paper. Truly I shouldn't expect a James Cameron film to be all about visuals and not at all about story. Ah well, post True Lies...
Episode I 3D? Ghost Rider 3D? Dredd 3D? What was the point of the 3D? There was practically none to be found. Besides the opening titles and a minor few effects, where was it? Look, post-conversion 3D is terrible. It's like wrapping last week's cheese burger in a clean Big Mac wrapper today and selling it as new. It'll still taste like manure.
Bond 3D, whether a re-release of the old Bonds with post-conversion 3D, or a new Bond film shot in 3D, is something I'd strongly object to. I'm perfectly fine with a 2D film. The extra dimension should be in the story, acting, cinematography, ... not necessarily in the spatial sense.
As I was saying I do agree with everyone here that at this moment in time 3D isn't very good. It is a matter of progression more then anything else. It doesn't immerse you into the film very well. It is a way of getting you to pay more to see a film that they also release in 2D. I did see Men In Black 3 in 3D and that wasn't too bad. There where several parts like a normal 2D film. It is too new for the films in general. Give it another 5 years or so and there maybe a vast improvement. I think they are trying a number of things to keep people going to the cinema. Including Holographic/ 3D and even 4D will be following along. Granted to immerse you into the story in the first place you need all the best elements in it to suck the audience in... just like SF recently. Eon will have to be very sure about it before they put Bond out in 3D.
Bond is doing well in the cinema with no need to be released in 3D atm, but if all the other film branches go over to 3D as the main production it could see Eon being forced into it. 3D is more expensive to produce. So it is only some films getting the treatment.
We got to look at 3D as another step like from Black and White to TV/Film in colour. At the time it wasn't brilliant when they first changed over but look at it now... just wait and see.. 3D could be a fad or in several years time it could end up becoming the norm.
I have been reading the posts on here with a lot of interest, as they reflect a number of things: our general reluctance to embrace change (I’ll come back to that – but count myself in this); a reminder of where I used to be on it (I’ll come back to that too); and the general ill-feeling towards it that has been engendered by a Hollywood system that is panicking about piracy and falling attendances. On this last point, I have some sympathy for audiences: the most acceptable and easily embraced kind of change is always driven by consumer demand, not foisted on us by suppliers, as 3D often is.
With regards to myself. My journey with 3D started back in late-2008 with the announcement that my local Vue was having 3D projectors installed. My first reaction, even as a then-32 year old man, was to really look forward to that. Divorced from everything that came later, the general principle was that we see the World in three dimensions and, therefore, if we could see film in a way that mimics this more closely then this was possibly a good thing. So I start from the perspective that we see in three dimensions, if there is a camera technology that can mimic what human eyes do more closely – which is what the technology used on Avatar, Hugo etc does (two cameras put side-by-side that can then act in concert with each other to mimic the dual aspect that gives human eyes a three dimensional image – reminder: I am not a teccy; that is about as far as I understand it), then I am willing to see that as a possible move forward in film technology. Now, notice at no point during what I said there did I say ‘wow factor’, ‘amazing’ or ‘mind-blowing’: the words usually used by Hollywood and the cinema chains to promote the format. This brings me on to my next point: over-hyped customer expectation. I went into Avatar expecting my relationship with film to be revolutionised. This isn’t what 3D is for, however. It isn’t, when in the hands of master craftsmen like Scorsese or Cameron (from a technical perspective), for throwing things out of the screen, or for any of the other gimmicky effects. It is a choice that adds that third dimension, and draws you in. The normal answer to that, and one I have read here a few times, runs along the line of ‘immersion starts with story and character’, well I cannot disagree with that; but are the two really mutually exclusive? Pink Floyd are known for doing laser shows at their concerts, but it is not like the music suffers for that: one needn;t actually affect the other at all, particular given 3D is merely two images shot from different perspectives about as far apart as our eyes. In terms of 2D, well 3D shot natively is shooting from two cameras, 2D can take one of those cameras, and you have a perfectly normal 2D image. If the filmmaker hasn’t used it in a gimmicky way, then the 2D experience will be unaffected. In fact, shooting in 3D has lead to a serious reduction in shaky-cam, as that doesn’t play in 3D at all – Quantum of Solace in 2D would likely have been more pleasant to look at had it been shot in 3D, as the worst excesses of the camera style would not have worked, and would have to have been dropped.
I think a lot of the flak associated with 3D comes from the way it has been foisted on us so cynically. Poor conversions, rushed when the technology was new in particular. Last year’s The Avengers (and Thor and Captain America for that matter) and Titanic on Blu Ray are both examples of conversions done well. I still don’t like new films being done that way, but the worst of the poor examples of the conversions to the format are now a thing of the past (I hope). In addition to this you have the glasses. Well they are just where we are now: glasses-free is coming, as are laser projectors that are much brighter. Ticket prices are higher, and this is cynical, but were it glasses-free 3D (the same technology when shooting, just presented to the consumer in a different way), not noticeably darker, and ticket prices were taken out of the equation – then what real objections would be left? We see in three dimensions, and we’d go to see a film much the same way. It seems to me that our current problems are, therefore, a mixture of: don’t like it (there will always remain a number that feel this way); get headaches from it (more common at home with ‘active 3D’, the passive cinema system isn’t a problem for all but a minority); can’t see it (10% of the population can’t see 3D – that will not change); it’s too dark (that is where technology is now when we view the images, this will improve); ticket prices (this is Hollywood and the cinema chains, not the technology); it’s a gimmick (in the hands of poor filmmakers that can be true, but in the hands of poor filmmakers the film will be bad regardless of format). I also think there is an element of the good ol’ days about it. The films of our youth weren’t in 3D and they were good enough for us. Well they were, and 2D films will likely always be the way we consume the majority of our films. 3D when new drew massive ticket sales (hence the hasty retrofits that followed), but the percentage consuming 3D offerings then began to drop. This was not a dying format, in my opinion though, just a format finding its level. When the National Lottery launched in Britain something like 97% of people played it over the first few months due to novelty, then it dropped towards to low-mid 60%, where it has stayed ever since. I expect 3D to drop to maybe 40-50%, in terms of percentage of people seeing films in 3D where they are offered both in 2D and 3D, and stay around there. Now, I did not walk out of Skyfall or the Dark Knight wishing they had been in 3D, but I remain of the opinion that Skyfall would not have been materially affected for 2D film fans had it been filmed in 3D. Batman would have suffered in the 3D presentation itself, with current technology, as it is too dark to wear sunglasses to watch – even though our brains largely adjust – when was the last time you had a memory of bright summer’s day where you remember it dark because you were wearing sunglasses? The brain adapts, as it does with 2D; which is why 3D is a choice, not a requirement.
I walked out of Avatar disappointed at the time. I became seriously anti-3D for a couple of years. It seemed like the worst example of Hollywood not understanding that their problem is one of distribution, rather than piracy or lack of gimmicks to offer: Mark Kermode – a noted critic of 3D – wrote an excellent book about this. Avatar was (and is) a so-so story, and nothing had really wowed me in the way I had hoped. Though I think I blamed 3D for some of the film’s failings – as though 3D was the reason the script was so derivative. This is now a film I like quite a bit. Providing you go into Cameron films accepting that the dialogue will be terrible, and the story will be rote (even the Terminator films have thin characters and awful dialogue – great though they are – well the first one anyway), you can enjoy excellent World building and visual storytelling – his films are simultaneously brilliant and terrible it seems to me; you either accept his limitations or you don’t, you cannot really easily deny them. If you forgive them, Avatar is brilliant; if not, it is shockingly poor. Over the years I have come to enjoy being in that World, and I do think 3D is part of that. This has been a far more subtle process that the ‘wow’ and ‘awesome’ factor that cinema campaigns would have you believe, but I watch it at home in 3D now.
The turning point was Martin Scorsese’s Hugo. I had to see it in 3D, as that was all that was being offered – a shocking and unacceptable way to treat customers in my view. 3D should be not be foisted on anyone not wanting it. I am a Scorsese fan though, so we went with it. I didn’t want to, and my wife already wears glasses, so didn’t want to wear glasses on top of glasses again (she wears clips on to her glasses now that we have it at home). I loved the film, but I also loved the immersive use of 3D. The format works well with physical structures like buildings, where they are in close visual proximity to each other – it’s better with smaller scenes with close points of reference, than it is with large scale action – again, the opposite of how it is sold to us. I came out of that film ready to at least consider 3D. Since then, experiences have been mixed-to-positive. Hugo, Life of PI (in particular) and Avatar are films that are far better, in my opinion, in 3D. The storytelling, scripts and characters aren’t any different (obviously), but the visual language of these films just becomes more varied and articulate somehow. What do these films all have in common – they are helmed by master craftsmen, shot in native 3D, and the 3D is embraced and utilised, but never the specific reason for shots or storytelling decisions: you are not constantly reminded it is that format, you are just left to assimilate the information without the filter of the brain adding the third dimension for itself. It is at once considered, then effectively ignored: again, the opposite of the marketing; where it will engage you with nothing but ‘wow’ factor – it is being miss-marketed, then Hollywood is in shock when people consider it over-hyped and over-priced. Toy Story 3 was better in 2D as it was too dark for the many dusk scenes; The Amazing Spider-Man was shot in 3D, but I preferred it in 2D, as the effect was turned down to the point that it was almost 2D anyhow, and the 2D version was brighter. The Hobbit, for me, was better in 3D – and the high frame rate issues totally went away on second viewing: almost like you have to re-learn how to suspend disbelief – there is plenty in 2D 24fps that doesn’t look real, but our brains are used to it, and so we don’t see it. It did look like TV first time. Second time, it looked like a Hollywood film, but smoother and more detailed.
The best looking films I have ever seen – off the top of my head – Lawrence of Arabia, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Oh Brother Where Art Thou, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford were all 2D (the last two both Roger Deakins by the way: giving him an Oscar for Skyfall really would have been like giving it to Scorsese for The Departed – great but not the best example of his work, visually-speaking). I am far from wedded to 3D, but I just wanted to write a counter-balance to what I have read here, as it is a choice, needn’t be a gimmick, needn’t affect 2D film presentation or filmmaking, and it is not the end of Western civilisation when divorced from the cynicism bred into us by a mixture of our own nostalgia, and the poor treatment of the consumer and over-hyping of the product by a panicking Hollywood system and financially strapped cinema chains (though that is another topic entirely).