Iron Man 2 3D Test Offers Eye-Popping Glimpses of Marvel Hero, Garry Shandling
Living as we do in these technologically sophisticated times -- one in which the most popular movie in the country features a young man having his innards sucked out by a swimming pool filtration system in glorious three-dimensionality -- it's becoming more and more common for the studios to revisit their release slates in search of projects that might catch on better were a "3D" placed after the title: Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself 3D. Coco Avant Chanel 3D. Iron Man 2 3D.
Record scratch! Did somebody say Iron Man 2 3D?
Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News can barely contain his "geekgasmic fury" in reporting what several moles have told him: that Marvel and Paramount, under the watchful eyes of Disney co-chairs Daisy Duck and Goofy, ordered a one-minute test of Iron Man 2 footage to see how the film might look when adapted to 3D. While the sequel was shot on film and not digital 3D, they used a similar post-production process as was used on the Imax editions of Superman Returns and Harry Potter. The results were impressive enough to pursue the matter further, Knowles writes, and the studios are currently "fishing for bids with 3 different companies to see what the cost and time it would take to convert IRON MAN 2 to a complete 3D film."
Slashfilm failed to experience an earth-moving geekgasm upon hearing the news, as they feel the technology is not yet there to retroactively turn a 2D live action film into 3D. It's a position they're sure to reverse the moment they first glimpse the amazing things done with Whiplash's devastatingly high-voltage cat-o'-nine-tails, and, to a greater extent, Black Widow's rack -- an eye-popping effect so expertly rendered it gives the viewer the sensation that Scarlett Johansson is literally pressing her cleavage flat against their fogged-up polarized lenses.
· AICN Exclusive: IRON MAN 2 in 3D?!?! & IRON MAN 1 too?!?!? [AICN]
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Comments
The reason why 3D doesn't work -- and will never work -- comes down to human physiology, I'm afraid.
See, despite the fact that they can optically separate the two stereo visual channels, the more important thing that they can't do is change the focal distance. The problem that little hiccup implies is that we have, you know, spent our entire lives learning to see by not only processing stereo visual signals into one, but also by training our eye muscles to move and deform the eyeball depending on the focal distance.
But with "3D", you're always focusing on the same plane, despite how "near" or "far" the various elements in the Viewmaster tableau are supposed to be. And so it gives headaches to many of us to watch more than a few minutes of it -- even those of us who have worked on 3D films. (The objection one's senses have to this configuration is less for those who are younger and have less years of eyeball training under their belts. If that's your target audience, I guess you're golden.)
There's a ton of research to explain this better than I have. I'm just continually amazed that otherwise supposedly smart people like James Cameron et al. keep ignoring it and believing if they can just get enough theaters to retrofit their projection it'll solve all those problems.
Wanna eat those words?
Science proves what again?
Go on and have some more humble pie 😉