Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D

[joerules]

I'm having a difficult time seeing this movie. I've scheduled time for it three times now and actually showed up at the theater twice, I just can't bring myself to actually buy the tickets and sit down to watch it.

I have no idea why. I'm sure it'll be fine. It may not be especially amazing or groundbreaking but I have no doubt that it will be a nice little adventure with one or two nice effects. It's not even like it got bad reviews. Audiences didn't really respond to it, but the critics were hardly tearing it to shreds. Still, I just couldn't get my foot in the door. I couldn't get excited about it. I'd almost rather see Mamma Mia.

What is it about this movie?

[Tom Brazelton]

I think what turns me off about it is that it pretty much looks like it should be a 40 minute IMAX movie at an amusement park somewhere.

Or maybe you're shoring up your Brendan Fraser tolerance levels for The Mummy this weekend?

Personally, I'd see it if I didn't have anything better to do because I'm a huge sucker for promotions like 3D and seek in encourage that kind of think from Hollywood.

Anything that differentiates the typical movie-going experience is okay in my book.

[joerules]

I worry that 3D is just a gimmick. And it's a damed if you do, damed if you don't situation for me. If they use it too much i'll say they exploited it. If they use it too little I'll ask, "What's the point".

[trevor]

3-D is what the theaters are hoping will give them a one-up over the home theater experience, which they claim (along with internet piracy) is taking away from their box office earnings.

Or so I've surmised.

[Tom Brazelton]

Oh, it's totally a gimmick! I've come to terms with it.

I know that I have to pay an extra $2 to see a movie in 3D, but I'm okay with it because that's the experience I'm after.

[afr0puff]

It's a bad/cheesy movie. Fraser hams it up like you wouldn't believe. It's a movie for kids or like tom mentioned, it's amusement park stuff.

The 3D stuff is hit or miss. Sometimes it looks phenomenal, other times it's too much of a distraction causing my eyes to lose focus on what's actually happening. It's miles ahead of Superman 3D, considering this was actually shot using 3D cameras.

I was much more impressed with the subtle 3D stuff like the trees swaying in the background, than any of the foreground stuff. Even when it's not in your face like Jaws coming through the screen, the foreground stuff just didn't seem right. I wonder if there is a way to dial down the 3D so it doesn't pop as much. That would have helped the overall effect when things didn't NEED to pop.

One of the biggest problems with 3D is finding where to sit in the theater. Too close and the eyes have a hard time focusing on the 3D. Too far back and seeing the rest of the audience in your field of view, ruins the "magic" of being in the movie, even though the 3D looks better.

I'm one of those that likes to sit close enough to the screen where it fills up my field of vision. Not so much where I have to move my head to see something in the corner, but enough so that I have to dart an eye instead. That being said.... that is WAY too close for 3D.

Am I sold on 3D movies? No... not yet. There is too much of an eye strain right now when compared with it's 2D counterpart. The biggest problem with 3D is when the camera pans. Static shots look amazing, but when the camera pans, the 3D loses drastic quality and causes a nauseating effect.

The good news is that Cameron has already dismissed the 3D in this movie as garbage, so there is still hope for proper film makers to use this technology. He also says he solved the panning problem by playing with the film speed, IIRC. They showed a trailer for a 100% computer generated 3D movie right before it, which looked way better than Center of the Earth, however, they over did the 3D causing some cross eyed moments when shit is literally moving around on your nose.

[joerules]

Well this is both promising and terrifying. Thanks, Ersal.

[Tom Brazelton]

You're totally on the money about finding the right place to sit in the theater.

I sat a little higher than the middle of the theater and off to the right during Beowulf and it was a little fuzzy for me.

[afr0puff]

Oh... and they let me keep the 3D glasses!!! I can see the whole world now in 3D!

It's been a while since I saw a proper IMAX 3D movie, but I think those welders mask type glasses/goggles where its a single rectangular lens make the 3D look better than the dual lens setup. I've never worn glasses, so maybe I just found the bridge part of the glasses too distracting.

[Styles Bitchly]

Fuck 3-D! Fuck it in it's stupid ass!

I'm colorblind and I can't see 3-D. I went to Disney back in May. The 3-D "It's Tough to be a Bug" show? I saw no 3rd dimension....except during a flashback scene that was shot in black and white. I saw the glory of 3-D for the first time in 30 years. Then I just got even more pissed off cause I knew what I was missing.

I've seen the Muppets 3-D show about six times over the years...but there is no 3-D to be had there either.

I hate 3-D

[afr0puff]

The new 3D doesn't use the traditional red/blue lens. It uses opposing polarization. Would that still have an effect on the color blind?

[Tom Brazelton]

Maybe he's just 3D blind?

Me? I'm smell blind.

[Styles Bitchly]

The new 3D doesn't use the traditional red/blue lens. It uses opposing polarization. Would that still have an effect on the color blind?

You wouldn't think so but from what I can tell it does. I'm not sure. The Bugs Life thing I spoke of had glasses that were just black lenses and I couldn't see the 3-D. I basically saw what you see if you take the glasses off and everything looks tripled. Occasionally something would pop on screen that I could see. I don't know enough about 3-d technology to know if that's the polarized kind or not though.

The black and white scenes though were in full 3-d for me.

It's also been suggested that I try wearing my glasses instead of my contacts but what that has to do with it is beyond me.

Edit: I've started googling and reading forum posts and such on the topic and it seems the colorblind community is split (are we a community?). Some say we can see 3-d. Some say we can't. I guess it depends on the severity. Strange.

[joerules]

Comic is up and oddly enough I felt like I could have talked more about this one in the review. The movie by and large is average but there were a lot of things about it that I really enjoyed.

Even for the things that bothered me, at the end (SPOILER WARNING) when he asks the kid about Christmas break and hands him the book about atlantis - I kind of got excited! I would totally see that even though it so ridiculous that they'd do it over break. "Hey Sean, what are you doing over break?" "Finding Atlantis."

If this movie did better I'd actually be tempted to do another comic playing around with that.

[Tom Brazelton]

Even for the things that bothered me, at the end (SPOILER WARNING) when he asks the kid about Christmas break and hands him the book about atlantis - I kind of got excited! I would totally see that even though it so ridiculous that they'd do it over break. "Hey Sean, what are you doing over break?" "Finding Atlantis."

"And this weekend I'm going to judo-chop a Yeti!"