Author: Riley Kimball
Over the next five years, all six “Star Wars” movies will be re-released, each converted into 3-D. On Feb. 10, “Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace 3-D” marked the first of the saga to hit theaters. “Titanic,” the second highest grossing movie of all time, will be in theaters again in April, and five classic Disney movies, including “The Lion King,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and “The Little Mermaid,” have been converted into the third dimension. This deluge of 3-D conversions and re-releases present moviegoers with the industry’s barely-concealed efforts to capitalize on a new technology; if the movies are successful, studios will continue to move further away from producing new ideas and instead will increasingly turn to cranking out old hits in 3-D.
It is no surprise that studios are releasing these films in 3-D. “Star Wars” is the second most valuable franchise (just behind “Harry Potter,” perhaps due to its inclusion of 3-D scenes), and “Titanic” won 11 Academy awards in 1998; since a ticket for a 3-D film costs almost double the price of a regular movie ticket, studios have the opportunity to make a profit. By putting these movies back in theaters, studios can bring in new, younger viewers keen on experiencing the most up-to-date technology, as well as older audiences eager to relive their favorites, all the while charging much more for tickets. Converting movies into 3-D costs a small fraction of what a normal movie does and could bring in as much as the movies did during their first release in theaters according to Los Angeles Times. “Star Wars Episode 1” alone has grossed $925 million and Titanic, over $1.84 billion. With pricier tickets, the production companies stand to make fortunes.
Post-completion 3-D conversion is a method studios use to free up the directors and lower costs. 3-D cameras are much larger and weigh more than a standard camera, making them difficult to use for more complicated shots. Consequently, directors use normal cameras to film the movie, and another company turns it into 3-D on a computer, according to Slate. This can range in quality according to how rushed a movie’s post-production is; the 3-D visuals in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2” were well-received, while those in “Clash of the Titans” were practically nonexistent, showing that it was clearly an attempt at cashing in on this novel phenomenon.
Today, much of what movie studios produce is based on existing franchises. Sequels, reboots and license dominate the marketplace. This is best exemplified by “Battleship,” a movie about Rihanna repelling an alien invasion from a Navy ship based on the board game about deducing coordinates. 3-D conversions that deplete existing ideas for extra money make financial sense, but if this practice is supported now, the state of the movie industry will decline even further. Sequels and franchises may not be very inventive, but they are better than seeing the same movies released year after year with different visual effects added. If we support these 3-D conversions, we will encourage the film industry down this unimaginative and pricier road.
This begs the question: what does 3-D add? It can certainly immerse viewers, at least those who do not suffer eye fatigue. “Toy Story 3” may not have been packed with incredible visuals, but the 3-D effects placed the viewer more immediately in the shoes of the many sympathetic characters. “Transformers 3” and “Tron: Legacy” were heavy visual experiences and as such benefited from the depth of images. But it does not make average imagery somehow more beautiful, connect viewers to otherwise unlikable characters, or account for a broken plot. Instead, re-releasing high-grossing films in 3-D format only exacerbates the current habit of production companies to recycle old ideas and to avoid the laborious task of genuine creativity.
Things brings us back to the issue of re-releasing “Star Wars” in 3-D. The new trilogy was critically reviled, both for its absurd plot and its enormous cast of obnoxious characters. 3-D will not improve any of these issues, but it will undoubtedly improve the imagery, perhaps becoming the one saving grace of the new films.
If 3-D is to gain legitimacy as a new form of cinema, it must cater to fans of film, not kids looking for dramatic explosions devoid of substantial plot lines. The upcoming “Prometheus” by Ridley Scott is promising, and Pixar’s “Brave” will likely continue the studio’s sterling record. But the slate of seemingly never-ending franchises like “Spider-Man” and “Step Up,” the slew of post-conversion action movies like “The Avengers,” and the onslaught of Disney and “Star Wars” re-releases indicate an increasing reliance on flash and not substance. Surely knowledgeable audiences would be outraged if Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane” was converted into 3-D so as to profit off of it, just as no pair of eyes could survive four hours of a sepia-toned 3-D “Gone with the Wind.”
So ell studios that rehashing old content is not an acceptable business model. Make the hard choice not to indulge nostalgia and stay home when Episodes 2 and 3 hit theaters. They’re still bad movies, just in 3-D this time.
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