Clash of the Titans in 3D - Unimpressive.

aristide1 · Post by **aristide1** » Sun Apr 18, 2010 2:50 pm

I was never expecting much of a plot here. I was expecting a dazzling display of 3D effects. What did I get? not much.

Perhaps I am spoiled. My only 3D experience was decades ago. It was Andy Wharhol's Frankenstein, a disgusting movie that was rendered barely acceptable thanks to the 3D effects. The aquarium scene exceeded everything done in Clash. Frankenstein's wife extending her arm into the theater was a real treat. Granted there were blurry spots all over the place, but her arm jumped way off the screen. You could actually move your vision to the side and still take it all in.

There were some useless gruesome scenes with body internals on the end of a stick, but the magic moment came when the kids entered a cave. Suddenly bats were everywhere. No seriously, the entire theater filled with bats. You turned your head to the side to watch them flying out towards the rear of the theater. People were screaming and ducking under the seats. Suddenly one bat left the group and hovered inches in front of your face. It was hysterical. It stayed there for a while. It took the crowd about 10 minutes to recover from that.

Clash offers none of this. And it certainly can't get by with a storyline. The 3D effect was weak. It appeared more like 3 flat layers sandwiched together than continuous depth. It has the same feel as when TV shows reprocess a photograph, with the center of attraction moved forward and the background pushed back. Depth? Sorta. Natural? Not even close. The depth in Frankenstein had continuousness, no layer cake nonsense there.

I suspect part of the problem was the fact that the camera people continued to use 2D techniques to film a 3D movie. They really didn't get it. When 2 people were talking they often stood one in front of another. The camera then did its selective focus thing, by using a really shallow depth of field, to focus on one or the other. It was rather unpleasant to have something in front with the same type and level of defocus as the background. And with 3D it probably would have been better to leave it all focused and let you decide what to pay attention to. It was even worse when the focus was a woman in the very back of the scene with everything in front of her out of focus. The effect was so attention getting it would have been more subtle to use big red arrows pointing to her than to use this silly technique.

There continued to be areas that did not focus properly, just like the older process. The other problem I noticed was the backgrounds, while out of focus, where often very unpleasant, not natural looking at all. My theory for that would be that the lens they used for filming did not have a very good bokeh, and rendered backgrounds in a funky manner, the kind of thing where you say, "I can't put my finger on it, but this isn't right."

In the end this could at least have been a "big" film. Actually that's all it could have been, and it failed at that. No loss though, if this is all 3D has to offer they I won't mind missing it.

Or perhaps it simply works a lot better with cartoons?

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Sun Apr 18, 2010 3:55 pm

I wont be seeing any 3D films for quite sometime simply because I dont like cinema's, and have not made the trip for about 2-years. And as 3D TV's of any merit in my home are still years away, the quality of 3D filming (which seems to be the big problem) should have been resolved before 3D films enter my universe.

Still a shame about the film (ignoring the 3D aspect), I was looking forward to a violent, fun, mystical, unbelievable riot that actually has a plot. Oh well.

The IMDB voters hardly give it a compelling score, although a 6.2 is certainly not BAD by IMDB voters harsh standards.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0800320/

Andy

bonestonne · Post by **bonestonne** » Sun Apr 18, 2010 4:19 pm

I've actually noticed this with a lot of 3D movies, where there are frames that are just horribly out of focus. I find it a little disappointing, given the quality of cameras that are out now.

I'm definitely not going to see this in theaters, or even in 3D because I've heard it just wasn't much for a Clash of The Titans movie. But I also agree that 3D TVs are years away. If I want 3D TV, i don't want to basically wear a ski mask to see it, I'd rather something much better, such as a pair of basic glasses, that actually look normal, and aren't obtrusive.

I think the 2D movies are still king of the heap, regardless of what certain 3D movies bring. Avatar may have been a very good 3D movie, but you'll get the same storyline from 2D without focus problems (although I can't recall many scenes at all in Avatar that were done poorly).

3D movies are marketed to be something they aren't really anywhere close to.

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Sun Apr 18, 2010 4:40 pm

3D movies are marketed to be something they aren't really anywhere close to.

Like actually being 3D at all, its interesting in the way that is marketed "as" 3D when it is obviously nothing more than an illusion, the rest is hype simply because 3D (illusion) films have made a resurgance to the extent that non-3D (illusion) films have had the illusion added and have been re-released.

I hope that this is just a passing fad, and all of the money and energy that is being pused with the 3D illusional films of late will be channeled into making films better (such as Clash of the Titans actaully having a decent plot).

If you want to really see something in 3D and not be disapointed, dont look at a screen at all.

Andy

sea2stars · Post by **sea2stars** » Sun Apr 18, 2010 4:50 pm

The same technique used to create the 3D in this film has been employed successfully on other films. This film was given neither the staff, time or budget to do a decent job.

Unfortunately I think that there's going to be more 3D crap thrown at people.

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Sun Apr 18, 2010 5:17 pm

The same technique used to create the 3D in this film has been employed successfully on other films. This film was given neither the staff, time or budget to do a decent job.

Thats good to know, I assume they didnt bother spending the extra time and money to improve the effect because of a lack of overall quality, or as I hope because they think that the market for it is still small and the costs would outway the benefits.

Unfortunately I think that there's going to be more 3D crap thrown at people.

Now that I would love to see

An entire cinema of people physically trying to dodge "shit" being thrown at them from a character on the screen, I would pay to go to the cinema for that

Andy

aristide1 · Post by **aristide1** » Sun Apr 18, 2010 6:32 pm

Andyb,

On IMDB I looked at ratings of several movies. The highest I found so far is 8.5 for "Saving Private Ryan" and "Aliens".

Have you seen any higher?

Updated 8.7 for Psycho.

Updated (I think this is it)
The Shawshank Redemption - 9.2

Jay_S · Post by **Jay_S** » Sun Apr 18, 2010 6:41 pm

Slightly OT, but have an of you seen the Tron Legacy trailer in 3D? Looked pretty cool. I'll have to see it out of principle, of course. I believe it's Imax 3D only, which I have not experienced yet.

mr. poopyhead · Post by **mr. poopyhead** » Sun Apr 18, 2010 10:06 pm

clash of the titans was NOT filmed in 3D to begin with... it was filmed with regular-ass cameras and then converted afterwards due to pressure from avatar's success. that's why the release was delayed, to convert the film to 3D... bolted on like a cheap aftermarket turbo kit on a honda civic (no offense to the civic drivers out there...)

whereas avatar was filmed with special cameras to make it a 3D film... that's why it was so mind blowing, despite lacking any substance...

if you don't film in 3D, i don't really see the point in converting it after the fact.... it's like making an audio recording in mono, and making it stereo in post-production. or taking a stereo recording and making it surround sound... it sounds fake and lame.

aristide1 · Post by **aristide1** » Mon Apr 19, 2010 4:22 am

mr. poopyhead wrote:clash of the titans was NOT filmed in 3D to begin with... .

Which is why it looks like those 3D processed photographs.

Fayd · Post by **Fayd** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 9:08 am

i have no idea what the new clash of the titans uses for storyline. i liked the original..

3d didnt add anything to avatar either. the movie was just dumb.

larsolsen · Post by **larsolsen** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 9:32 am

As i get a serious headache when watching 3d movies, i really don't like this new trend:( don't know why, but it's really bad and stays long after the film is over....

lm · Post by lm » Tue Apr 20, 2010 10:22 am

andyb wrote: Now that I would love to see An entire cinema of people physically trying to dodge "shit" being thrown at them from a character on the screen, I would pay to go to the cinema for that
Andy

I guess the time was not right for the group Jumalan Teatteri (Theatre of God) back in 1987. They literally threw shit on the audience.

mr. poopyhead · Post by **mr. poopyhead** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 11:20 am

larsolsen wrote:As i get a serious headache when watching 3d movies, i really don't like this new trend:( don't know why, but it's really bad and stays long after the film is over....

that used to hapen to me too... i remember watching some IMAX 3D movie and having a headache a few years ago... but i've watched 2 or 3 in the last year, and i've had no headaches... maybe the technology has changed, or i'm just used to it now...

Fayd wrote:3d didnt add anything to avatar either. the movie was just dumb.

actually, 3D added the ONLY thing worth watching...

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 11:22 am

http://translate.google.co.uk/translate ... n%26sa%3DG

Translated to English, thats pretty grim, and was actually real, and not just a 3D movie like I was thinking of.

Andy