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Re:Sony and LG stop making 3D TV sets by burkaman on Tuesday January 24, 2017 @10:04AM (#13471824)
I know you've heard this argument before, but isn't that the same thing people said about color movies? This sort of reminds me of arguments about Snapchat. A lot of people really enjoy 3D, trying to logically convince them that they actually shouldn't like it is not going to work.
Re:Sony and LG stop making 3D TV sets by vidarh on Tuesday January 24, 2017 @10:53AM (#13472317)
Chaplin fought against sound in movies on a similar basis.

Not an absolute rejection, but a concern that it took focus away from other parts of the story-telling and wasn't necessary.

He supposedly sabotaged attempts to add speech to Gold Rush (1925) after the actors pushed for it.

City Lights (1931) was basically his ode to silent movies, famous for its endless retakes of the initial meeting with the blind flower girl [1], while he tried to figure out how she could mistake the Tramp for a rich man without words. In the end the solution was simple, and both funny and provided motivation for the Tramps desire to help her: The Tramp walks through the car of a rich man to avoid passing a police office, and so when he stands before her she has just heard him slam the car door. He accidentally knocks the flower he's purchased out of her hand and realises she can't see that he has picked it up. As he hands her his money, the owner of the car comes and drives off and the girl thought he had left without his change, and he didn't want to break the illusion and so walks off without money he badly needed for himself.

It's one of my favourite movies because it masterfully made his point that you can tell a complex story without it feeling like you're missing something because you can't hear dialogue.

He added speech in his next movie - Modern Times - but his character still didn't speak dialogue (but did sing).

It was first with The Dictator (1940) that Chaplin himself spoke on screen: Finally he had something where the speech added clear value by conveying more than he knew how to convey with just pictures.

In the same way I think we will see more and more movies eventually come out in 3D as the industry gets enough experience with it to see where it adds clear value and leave it low key other places, rather than add it to make a spectacle of it.

I think one of the first to do it well was Prometheus. A friend saw the 2D version and afterwards told me elated that it felt like it was made as a 2D movie - no weird camera work solely to make 3D effects stand out etc.. Meanwhile I'd seen it in 3D and been blown away at how good it looked in 3D. The effects were clear and beautiful but not in your face. Crucially they didn't alter the visual language noticeably.

[1] http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/378808/City-Lights-Movie-...

Re:Sony and LG stop making 3D TV sets by woofyman on Tuesday January 24, 2017 @11:39AM (#13472868)
>I think one of the first to do it well was Prometheus

Too bad they didn't put as much thought into the script.

Re:Sony and LG stop making 3D TV sets by vidarh on Tuesday January 24, 2017 @04:51PM (#13475936)
Personally I loved it - it's one of my all time favourite moies. I find a lot of the criticism of it tends to boil down to whether or not people believe the science expedition was meant to be a serious effort vs just an thin veneer of a cover for Weyland. There's nothing to indicate that it was meant to be serious. E.g. it has the wrong set of specialties for an expedition looking for live aliens, for starters, and Weyland clearly see everyone but himself as expendable.
Re:Sony and LG stop making 3D TV sets by coldtea on Tuesday January 24, 2017 @10:09AM (#13471867)
>I know you've heard this argument before, but isn't that the same thing people said about color movies?

No in any large numbers. Besides, 3D cinema has been coming and going as a fad for 6 decades now.

But even if it was true that people said that about color movies, people can say the same thing about different inventions and be wrong in one case and right in another.

>A lot of people really enjoy 3D, trying to logically convince them that they actually shouldn't like it is not going to work.

Well, they are not that many to sustain 3D TVs (as TFA tells us), and they have never been that many to make it not be a fad in the cinema either.

In which case, whether some enjoy it is a moot point.

Re:Sony and LG stop making 3D TV sets by baddox on Tuesday January 24, 2017 @11:29AM (#13472752)
> No in any large numbers.

This implies that "large numbers" of people complain about 3D. I suspect this isn't true, and that it's really a very loud very small minority.

> But even if it was true that people said that about color movies, people can say the same thing about different inventions and be wrong in one case and right in another.

Yes, but the point is that some evidence needs to be provided. Since some statements are wrong and some are right, the argument needs to be more than "it's true because I said it."

> and they have never been that many to make it not be a fad in the cinema either.

What does this mean? At what point do you concede that it's not a fad in the cinema?

Re:Sony and LG stop making 3D TV sets by coldtea on Tuesday January 24, 2017 @01:24PM (#13474008)
>This implies that "large numbers" of people complain about 3D.

No, it just implies that they don't care about it enough to e.g. sustain a 3D TV lineup.

>Yes, but the point is that some evidence needs to be provided. Since some statements are wrong and some are right, the argument needs to be more than "it's true because I said it."

The article is one piece of evidence, isn't it?

>At what point do you concede that it's not a fad in the cinema?

At the point it surpasses regular viewing and studios don't stop making such movies 5-10 years down the road?

Re:Sony and LG stop making 3D TV sets by burkaman on Tuesday January 24, 2017 @10:19AM (#13471981)
Well, I love 3D movies but I've never been interested in a 3D TV, I think because watching movies in a theater and at home are very different experiences. If I always watched TV sitting up straight without leaving my seat, I'd probably buy a 3D TV.

I don't really understand how enjoyment is a moot point. Enjoyment is pretty much all that matters for a consumer entertainment product.

Re:Sony and LG stop making 3D TV sets by bnolsen on Tuesday January 24, 2017 @10:26AM (#13472047)
pretty much the whole population who can see perceive color. about 15-20% don't see in stereoscopic 3d. I'm one of those and i like seeing this 3d trend die...
Re:Sony and LG stop making 3D TV sets by burkaman on Tuesday January 24, 2017 @10:51AM (#13472300)
Why? Maybe it's just my area, but I've never seen a 3D release that isn't also available in 2D. I guess it's slightly annoying when once in a while you can tell a scene was designed for 3D, but I don't think it's that big a deal.
Re:Sony and LG stop making 3D TV sets by emodendroket on Tuesday January 24, 2017 @10:10AM (#13471875)
But do they really enjoy it as more than a novelty?
Re:Sony and LG stop making 3D TV sets by burkaman on Tuesday January 24, 2017 @10:11AM (#13471883)
I guess I can only speak for myself and people I know, but yes.
Re:Sony and LG stop making 3D TV sets by vidarh on Tuesday January 24, 2017 @10:57AM (#13472350)
It varies a lot. E.g. the Transformers movies are poster-children for overdone 3D for the sake of making the effects look cooler, while in Prometheus the 3D looks fantastic but is subtle enough that they don't become the focus of any of the shots.
Re:Sony and LG stop making 3D TV sets by baddox on Tuesday January 24, 2017 @11:34AM (#13472806)
Like with "fad," it's important to define "novelty." Is it a novelty if cinemas profitably offer 3D for 20 years before moving to some other technology? What about 50 years?
Re:Sony and LG stop making 3D TV sets by emodendroket on Tuesday January 24, 2017 @08:30PM (#13477611)
Yes, it can still be a novelty even if it exists for a long time. The question is whether people continue to value it after it's no longer novel and surprising; if a steady stream of people try it once or twice for years on end it could last a long time while still being a novelty.
Re:Sony and LG stop making 3D TV sets by baddox on Tuesday January 24, 2017 @10:30PM (#13478218)
I don't really understand that argument. It seems like everything would be a novelty under that definition. Will we be watching 2D movies in 100 years? What about 1,000 years? Even ignoring the halting problem, how can we possibly guess what is and isn't a novelty under your definition?
Re:Sony and LG stop making 3D TV sets by emodendroket on Friday January 27, 2017 @11:22PM (#13504898)
> how can we possibly guess what is and isn't a novelty under your definition?

By observing the typical behavior of one person using it?

Think of a Chinese finger trap. It's been around forever. And yet one person is not going to play with a Chinese finger trap every day. Once you experience it and figure it out there's not much to do with it. That's a novelty.