That said, though, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.
The latest fad is 3D. The basic technology has, of course, been around for decades in one form or another (3D filmmaking apparently started as early as 1936, but it didn't really catch on until 1952), and for the last few years we've been in a bit of a strange-hold. Why, exactly, I'm not sure; I think it boils down to dissatisfaction both on the part of the audience and on the part of the distributors. If you ask most people, they'll say movies "aren't what they used to be," or some cliche similar to that; and I'll bet that if there were a way to confront distributors, they would echo a similar sentiment about ticket sales and how - even though the dollar figures keep going up - the number of actual people attending keeps going down. We could debate whether either sentiment has any firm footing for hours and get absolutely nowhere, but that's really missing the point. The point is that 3D is the latest tactic distributors have latched on to in order to boost sales, and for the most part it seems to be working. That is, generally, 3D tickets outnumber 2D tickets for the same title; a 3D version is more often hailed as the "must-see" version (just think of Avatar - the 2D was all but impossible to find theatrically); and there are a sizable number of people who willingly go to a movie they otherwise wouldn't see, simply because it is in 3D.
Now, don't get me wrong - I'm not naive. I realize that when you get down to it, distributors are sales people: they will always be looking for something to "get asses in the seats." It started with the synch-sound film, then color, then widescreen, then 3D, then smell-o-vision, and so on... as you can see, though, many of the first big ploys to bring in crowds were really technological breakthroughs, whereas the more recent ones are more technological trivialities. (I'm thinking of Final Fantasy: Spirits Within, so heavily marketed as the "first" full-length photo-realistic computer-animated film. Very few talked about the story or whether the movie was any good - it was the buzz word at the time simply because it was "first." That's not a breakthrough, that's just trivia.)
The most important thing to keep in mind, no matter the goal, is the question "Does this diminish or strengthen audience experience?" That is not so easy to answer. Some, like techno wizard James Cameron, clearly think the future of filmmaking lies in 3D, which is appropriate because his film Avatar has really been the only film to date that has made a compelling argument for the necessity of 3D (Avatar was not particularly good as a story, but as a spectacle and as a technological achievement, it's pretty remarkable). Other big Hollywood names with just as much clout, however, are also staking their claim, and they don't exactly agree with Cameron's view. I was so happy, for instance, when Christopher Nolan took a stand against 3D, citing technical drawbacks of both the filmmaking and film-viewing process; and in nearly every review for the last few years, Roger Ebert has trashed 3D, citing a dimmer image. Perhaps the most compelling argument, though, came from an Ebert supplemental article from the great Walter Murch:
Nolan, Ebert, and other like-minded film authorities were doing damage; Murch delivered the coup de grace. Just read that article! How lucid, how succinct! And how can you argue that? Gear-heads like Cameron and Nolan can say all they want about foot-lamberts, viewing angles, stereoscopic this, yadda yadda that - most of it just goes over our heads, and for the most part we don't see a difference in the final product (personally, while I respect and admire Ebert's opinion, I don't have the luxury of comparing 3D and 2D versions of the same film to see which is brighter or dimmer)... But when you flat out say that 3D just doesn't work biologically, well, that's kind of hard to argue. Hats off to Walter Murch.
In the end, this topic is really rather fruitless. I'm looking at this from a more philosophical, egalitarian perspective ("What's best for the viewer?"). Film executives and distributors, while not necessarily ignoring this question, have a much more utilitarian view: "How much will this cost, and how much money will it make?" And as long as the general public is willing to consistently shell out a few extra dollars per ticket - diminished viewing quality or not - then I'm afraid 3D will be around for the foreseeable future. It feels as though the fad has hit its crest, but we still have to ride the wave down to normalcy.
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