Sneaky27 Posted:

I think you misunderstood what I was getting at when I called your argument a strawman. Here is what I was getting at.

Strawman: Arguing against a point your opponent does not hold.

Pardon me if i’m not fully understanding your intentions here. You’re arguing that not everyone who likes movies likes thought provoking ones and might enjoy just watching pretty pictures.

That’s it more or less right?

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The technological advancements that Avatar has made are below that of what ILM had when Star Wars was made. Avatar does not take advantage of any new concepts, and the technological advancements that were made in order to produce the movie really aren’t anything grounbreaking. I’d argue that Pixar has had more of an impact on the advancement of “Digital 3D” than Avatar ever will, regardless of the fact that it’s more or less Live Action.

Anaglyph stereoscopy still has a place, it’s easy and cheap to do, literally anyone can do it and not require any special hardware or computer software to pull it off (Tripod and a Camera, along with The GIMP is all you need, and that’s not out of the reach of anyone) and it costs the viewer next to nothing to procure the proper glbumes.

While it may not be the best solution, it isn’t going to go away any time soon. Perhaps in a few decades current technology will be cheap enough to be as ubiquitous as anaglyph is today, but at that time there is sure to be something better.

I really think it boils down to cost. To produce a movie in 3D requires twice as much film (or digital space), requires more time to process, and requires time to compile the two images into just one. And that’s just anaglyph technology. When you factor in the latest technology there’s more time and money involved. I should make it a point that i don’t know the finer points of newer 3D technology, but i am well versed in photography and traditional cinematography.

This cost is usually pbumed on to the viewer in the form of higher ticket prices. This translates to less people wanting to watch a movie in 3D.

From wikipedia i’m finding the following sales figures:

$700mil From Avatar

$200mil of that IMAX

Average Cost of a Movie Ticket (2D): $8

Average Cost of an IMAX 3D Ticket: $12

$500 million at $8 works out to be 62.5 Million Tickets Sold

$200 million at $12 works out to be 16.7 Million (16.666etc.) Tickets

Sure, not everyone has the option, but i think that this price difference is enough to point at a conclusive reason in why people aren’t buying into 3D.

A family of 4 would likely spend $16 more to see the movie in 3D (i don’t know about everyone else, but the local theaters charge the same amount more for kids to see 3D as adults). While that isn’t a whole lot, when you take into account the high cost of Concessions it starts to look like a big $16.