Not my article, but I agree with so many of the points made that it might as well be.
Not long ago somebody hereabouts asked my what my thoughts were on 3D, this article pretty accurately sums up my feelings of 3D at the moment.
Why I Hate 3-D (And You Should Too)

Mark

Went to the cinema on Saturday, contemplated seeing something in 3D, noted ticket price of 18 pounds. F**k Off!!!

Saw a chcik flick instead. Which I might add was heavily trailered for dance movies, in 3D.

There's a cinema near to us that makes no price differentiation between proper films and 3D films. I think this is the only one in the area that does this.
I don't think your observation of price hiking is isolated, Matt. In general I do think that 3D cinema is a rip-off.

Mark

We have to pay extra for the glasses, but you get to keep them, so the extra cost is a 1-off.

That said, I won't be going back for another 3D film.

Pretty comprehensive article and it's hard to argue against any of the points raised.
I must confess I hadn't noticed that the 3d image was dimmer but I've only seen one 3D film (Avatar) and, as pointed out in the article, it's probably the best example of a 3D film to date as it was built from the ground up to be in 3D.

My local cinema adds £2 to the price of a normal ticket, bumping the price to £9.50. Now, considering that I normally go on cheap Tuesday so I can use my Showcase Insider card which reduces the normal ticket price to £4.35 or there abouts (which I can just about swallow as the price for going to the cinema) or, if there are a lot of people wanting to go who happen to be Orange customers then it's a Wednesday. Thing is, neither the insider card nor, AFAIK, the Orange Wednesday promotion is valid for 3D films. Quite frankly I'm not THAT desperate to see a film in the cinema. I've got an HD TV and blu-ray at home and I can wait.

3D TV's also just appear to be a desperate attempt to get people to buy new TV's even though there is a long way to go before LCD/Plasma is as good in terms of colour reproduction as CRT. It's all a rush to add the next gimmick (and Freeview HD can bite me as well quite frankly).

3D felt like a fad from the off for me, and that article makes a lot of sense IMO... But then I'm the bloke who looks at Blu-ray and thinks, 'Er, not much of an improvement really, is it?'

It is a fad and the talk of 3D TV is a waste of money as well. I can cope with ordinary 2D TV well enough.

AFAIC, this 3D nonsense is merely a smokescreen to hide the fact that most films that emerge these days are complete mulch.

For instance, I made the mistake of watching The Bourne Ultimatum at the cinema. Now one cannot hide the fact that in that film there resides the kernel of a really gripping and pant-wettingly tense story. However, the casting, cinematography, settings, screenplay, acting, scripting and soundtrack were all so utterly abysmal that I've rarely returned. In particular, the action scenes, (according the current vogue) seemed to have been filmed by the Parkinson's Society; I left the cinema with motion sickness. One word: SteadyCam.

Strip off that real action fad and you're left with not very much at all. Matt Damon is rather like Orlando Bloom - he can't act and should never be allowed a lead role. Okay so your lead actor is rubbish; that doesn't mean the film has to suffer - just look at Michael Caine's early efforts.

Unfortunately for cinema goers, films these days are driven by celebrity and branding. Once you get past that initial crunchy chocolate coating woop-factor, you're usually left with foamy sugar foam crap that doesn't really taste of anything.

Piracy isn't killing the film industry - mediocrity is. And there's no way that so-called 3D will rescue bad films.

up here theres only a 1 quid difference between 2D and 3D showings, so we usually go to 3D ones when out with friends, or spending someone elses (eg my dads) money

I agree with most of this, except I think that too many films are driven by spectacle as well as celebrity and branding. Films cost so much to make and then market that the lowest-common-denominator has to be the target. This means entertainment in a very basic razzle-dazzle format where the script quality is reduced to the level of a 10 year old child. So you get loads of superhero films, seen-it-all-before action films and so on, where there's no real story to grip the viewer.....there's just a load of retina-searing effects. Just look at Transformers or Pirates Of The Caribbean 1-3 where you have films based on kid's toys and a Theme-Park ride!

I enjoy the immersive aspect of 3D but it still has to be an interesting film....3D alone won't make people flock to the cinemas once the initial buzz is over. All the mediocre films trailing in Avatar's wake will just dilute the whole experience and that, coupled with the high prices, will mean people won't bother going to the cinema. A lot will depend on whether 3D TVs will actually be any good because if they are (and I doubt it....at least for a while) then filmmakers will know that they can make their money back from DVD purchases, downloads and rentals.

While I agree it's all about the kids and the gullible these days (same as mainstream music), I'd have to say there's been a lot of improvements with the comic book and action films*, even the sh1ttier ones now have people who can actually act at least

Regarding films based around toys, it's obviously a vehicle to sell more, but the initial audience and interest will come from people in their twenties and thirties at least. Unfortunately George Lucas was ahead of the curve with Hollywood on that one

On POTC starting off as a theme park ride, I'm not fussed. The first film was good anyway, I hear and read the rest are sh1t...

*Though they're often edited by someone mainlining Red Bull it seems

Concerning the quality of film output - yes, with the benefit of time passed, we can see which films stand head and shoulders above others.
But get over this false sense that films made in some fictional 'Good Old Days' were somehow better made, acted or had better stories.
The good films stick in the mind, the bad ones fade from memory.
Any artistic endeavour that's considered 'good' or at least 'popular' will have it's dreadful peers.

3D is not the way every film will be made in the future, in just the same way that the ability to use computer graphics has made every film 100% CGI.
It's another effect, like green screen, that can be used in different ways and to different ends.

Personally I enjoy 3D films, having said that it must be the right film and be made for 3d, Avatar > Clash of the Titans.

We only ever go on orange Wednesday so the cost isn't an issue, about £7.00 for two.

I was just thinking about the Summer blockbusters of the 90s and I realised there were loads that made serious money, but were all average at best IMO: Independence Day, Batman Returns and Forever, Jurassic Park...

I think he’s right about the 3D perception. It’s the bit that for me can be an effort. Drivers will know that there is a small amount of time that when looking at the speedo and back to the road ahead in which the eyes adjust, both in focus but also convergence of the eyeballs. That time period changes with age. The ey changes with age, and defects such as astigmatisms become more pronounced. Some filmmakers understand that, some don’t. Avatar did this properly for some of the time, leading the eyes comfortably from one position to another, Clash of the Titans didn’t. There were a couple of places in Avatar where I felt that the transition was not smooth enough - I smell a time-saving edit there.

The other confusion is depth of field. You get this “naturally” with vision, but you ignore it. For 3D to work properly, you need to not have any depth of field, letting the viewer’s eyes make that happen for you. They don’t do this, so you get enforced focussing.

All this is because the 3D we get now is what I refer to as a Victorian Parlour Trick. It‘s a lovely thing to be able to do, and it’s one I personally have fun with. However, I am aware of what it is I am doing - creating separate 2D images, one for each eye. In this respect, you are attempting to fool the brain into constructing a 3D image. It works, but if I were to be honest, only “kind of”. The 3D images I have been known to produce either require coloured filters to separate out each of the images, or special lenses to bring two neighbouring images into the necessary eye. Dr Brain May’s book A Village Lost And Found is an excellent source of images, as well as a damn fine stereoscopic viewer. Yes - THAT Brian May – Patrick Moore’s butler and guitarist.

True 3D would not involve glasses. Nor would it involve the need for an anaglyph trick of any form, be it filters, polarised lenses, stereoscopic viewers, or lenticular screens to achieve the effect. A true 3D image would in essence give you a full 3D object to view, projected from a source (or variety sources). We can all hope for a Star Trek holodeck experience, but truly we are kidding ourselves if we are really getting proper 3D at the moment. We aren’t. You cannot, for example, look around an object by moving your head. You can’t make your own decision about what to look at and how to look at it.