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Comment by ars | Hacker News Reader

They said the same thing about "Talkies", and I'll quote from wikipedia:

"....the new development was treated with suspicion by many filmmakers and critics, who worried that a focus on dialogue would subvert the unique aesthetic virtues of soundless cinema."

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To be fair, they of course were right. There are unique aesthetic values in silent film, and adding dialogue does do away with them (otherwise they wouldn't be unique values). They simply discovered that people consider it a worthwhile tradeoff.

Absolutely -- and the same applies to color photography. There are still good reasons for shooting in black & white. Color film may be more easily engaging as the images are more familiar, but it is not inherently better aesthetically.

Adding sound didn't mean we had to start listening in an entirely new way hereto unknown to humans.

Actually that's not true. Never before has sound not originated from the actual location of the sound maker.

In this new Talkies all the sound comes from one speaker on the floor and it doesn't sound like it's coming from the actor at all.

Obviously I'm being facetious, but there is no reason to suppose people won't learn to handle cinema 3D.

Adding sound isn't anywhere near the same as adding crappy pseudo-3d effects.

Most films don't use the 3d well though. It's like if sound was added, but instead of using it give viewers dialogue with inflection, directors mostly used it to add in wacky sound effects for slapstick comedy. However, the fact that it's generally abused now doesn't mean it won't be used well later.

If you can't notice the 3d, what's the point. If you can notice it, it distracts from what is going on. It's a no-win situation.

Of course it's a win-win situation for the studios selling people 3d.

You're conflating a lot of issues here. This "If you can notice it, it distracts…" is a lot like the objections to talkie cinema. 3D you can notice isn't inherently any more distracting than any other element of the feature, including sound, color and texture. But equating "noticeable 3D effects" with "crappy pseudo-3D" is not valid.

The comparison isn't even worth bringing up.

  Talkies = NO SOUND vs SOUND. It's binary.

  3D = "20 visual cues about 3D" vs "19 visual cues about 3D"

We already see movies in 3D without adding the rather crude stereoscopy effect.

Sure it is - it can enhance immersion. Imagine being able to control scent in a movie, so that you get the smell of the scene. If done badly, yes, it can overpower the experience of the film, but done well, it would significantly enhance the immersion of a film, despite "not noticing it"/not specifically drawing your attention.

That's a better comparison.

3D is like smell-o-vision would be - a gimmick, distracting, and adding nothing to the story.

The only case of non-abuse I know of is Herzog's upcoming cave docu.

Have you seen Coraline?

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