I look forward to seeing Coraline in 3D or 2d (it doesn't matter much to me) because I love Henry Selick, the director, who also directed Nightmare Before Christmas, which you know I love, and James and the Giant Peach, which you may not know I love. He is a badass animator who can do otherworldly life like nobody else. He makes main characters come alive and meanwhile doodles in the margins. (Witness Tim Burton's Corpse Bride or "Vincent," which feel stiff and empty.) He is the best. And he's an animator of the old school, Ray Harryhausen type, who does everything possible with practical effects instead of defaulting to digital whenever it gets hard. He embraces constraint and lets it fuel genius. I have the ultimate respect for him, and assume that if anybody could make 3D art, it would be him.
And in fact both reviews and interviews have stressed the delicacy with which he uses 3D, the elegance of it all. The way it doesn't intrude, but fades into the background. However, I will give you by contrast the opinion of REL, who loves 3D and sees every single movie that comes out in 3D no matter what it is. She goes to 3D for the whizz-bang, for things flying out of the screen at her and for crazy perspective shifts. She was really disappointed in Coraline because while she liked it as a movie, she was horribly let down by how non-3d and non-gimmicky it was. In other words, the same thing the reviewers liked is something your base 3D audience is disappointed by.
Which points to a suspicion I have that the movie didn't need to be 3D. Everyone I knew who was excited about it didn't care that it was in 3D. They figured they'd see it that way because that was the big thing, but their excitement was for the movie (either because Selick or because Gaiman). They were pleasantly surprised that the 3D didn't kill it. (Witness the 3D section of the last Harry Potter movie, which got all whizzy and roller coaster in a fun 3D way right when things are supposed to seem grim and dangerous.) On the other hand, hardcore 3D audiences who see it because it's 3D are not satisfied - it doesn't fill what they want out of a 3D movie. I hope Coraline does very well; it deserves it. But I think it points to the ways in which 3D is a bad bet for the future of film - and for the past few years, studios have been talking about it as a magic bullet. I think you can make a profitable 3d film, but I think it will always be a niche, just like Westerns are a niche, and you can't fix movies by making them all 3D any more than you can fix movies by making them all Westerns. Or musicals.
(Sidebar example: I saw The Dark Knight in IMAX, and was distracted every time the screen went into IMAX mode (which changed film stock and aspect ratio) and it was an effort of will for me to pay attention to the plot instead of to spend the time guessing how the shots were framed for the non-IMAX wide release and speculating on which one the camera operator preferred.)
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And in fact both reviews and interviews have stressed the delicacy with which he uses 3D, the elegance of it all. The way it doesn't intrude, but fades into the background. However, I will give you by contrast the opinion of REL, who loves 3D and sees every single movie that comes out in 3D no matter what it is. She goes to 3D for the whizz-bang, for things flying out of the screen at her and for crazy perspective shifts. She was really disappointed in Coraline because while she liked it as a movie, she was horribly let down by how non-3d and non-gimmicky it was. In other words, the same thing the reviewers liked is something your base 3D audience is disappointed by.
Which points to a suspicion I have that the movie didn't need to be 3D. Everyone I knew who was excited about it didn't care that it was in 3D. They figured they'd see it that way because that was the big thing, but their excitement was for the movie (either because Selick or because Gaiman). They were pleasantly surprised that the 3D didn't kill it. (Witness the 3D section of the last Harry Potter movie, which got all whizzy and roller coaster in a fun 3D way right when things are supposed to seem grim and dangerous.) On the other hand, hardcore 3D audiences who see it because it's 3D are not satisfied - it doesn't fill what they want out of a 3D movie. I hope Coraline does very well; it deserves it. But I think it points to the ways in which 3D is a bad bet for the future of film - and for the past few years, studios have been talking about it as a magic bullet. I think you can make a profitable 3d film, but I think it will always be a niche, just like Westerns are a niche, and you can't fix movies by making them all 3D any more than you can fix movies by making them all Westerns. Or musicals.
(Sidebar example: I saw The Dark Knight in IMAX, and was distracted every time the screen went into IMAX mode (which changed film stock and aspect ratio) and it was an effort of will for me to pay attention to the plot instead of to spend the time guessing how the shots were framed for the non-IMAX wide release and speculating on which one the camera operator preferred.)