Speaking at the Hero Complex Film Festival over the weekend, Nolan unleashed a torrent of mannered and thoughtful anti-3D speak that will likely get refuted by a publicist at some point in the next day or so. Said the director:
"The truth of it is when you watch a film in here, you're looking at 16 foot-lamberts, When you watch through any of the conventional 3-D processes you're giving up three foot-lamberts. A massive difference. You're not that aware of it because once you're 'in that world,' your eye compensates, but having struggled for years to get theaters get up to the proper brightness, we're not sticking polarized filters in everything. ... It's all based on all the visual-effects technology, you know, that we're currently most engaged in with match moving, so forth, and rendering 2-D imagery into a 3-D space. ... On a technical level, it's fascinating, but on an experiential level, I find the dimness of the image extremely alienating."
Yes! Thank you! Despite all that crazy science talk -- "foot-lamberts," whaaaat? -- Nolan gets right to the major issue with 3D: It's too darn dim. And that you have to watch these movies through crappy plastic lenses only makes matters worse.
Sadly, despite admitting to being "not a huge fan of 3D," Nolan did acknowledge that he wouldn't rule it out for Batman 3: "Well, let me put it this way: There is no question if audiences want to watch films in stereoscopic imaging, that's what the studios will be doing, and that's what I'll be doing." But that doesn't mean he has to like it.
ยท Christopher Nolan's dim view of a Hollywood craze: 'I'm not a huge fan of 3-D' [LAT/Hero Complex]