Thanks to the planet-busting success of James Cameron’s Avatar, Hollywood’s been jumping on the 3D bandwagon. (What the hell is this, 1953?) Aside from a deluge of new movies being filmed in 3D, traditional “2D” movies are being converted to 3D as well. While the masses may lap this shit up, as they do with anything new and shiny, this is driving some movie buffs up the damned wall. I agree with them, to some extent.

While Avatar was a breathtaking achievement in cinematography, we don’t need to make everything 3D just for the sake of being 3D. Case and point: the recent remake of Clash of the Titans. My girlfriend and I had free passes to see it, so we checked out the 3D version. While some of the effects were impressive, they didn’t really add much to the film itself. More importantly, only special effects-laden shots actually utilized 3D; random scenes of characters interacting and such were in 2D, so the transitions were sometimes a bit jarring. Avatar did things right; everything was in 3D.

Continuing my point…who the hell wants to see a comedy or period drama in 3D? Is that even necessary? I don’t think we’ll see to big of an influx of those, as 3D technology isn’t exactly cheap…but again, thanks to Avatar, Hollywood really wants to milk this. More often than not, we’re going to see big-budget blockbusters as the 3D forerunners. This is okay, as those films are designed to be spectacles in the first place. Of course, since we’ve already got a glut of really stupid scifi/action flicks (I’m looking at you, Transformers), now we’re going to get an extra helping of really stupid scifi/action flicks…in 3D. That’s right, kids, the shitty acting and plots will come right out and touch you. I can feel my IQ dropping already.

Last but not least, while 3D has certainly come a long way from the red and blue glasses of yore, it’s still not perfect. Unless a 3D film has a very high frame rate, there’s sometimes strobing effects. That’s when parts of the movie appear to flicker. Also, since most 3D films operate by overlaying two images simultaneously (leaving the polarized glasses and your brain to merge them into a 3D image), they’re a bit dimmer than usual. Avatar may have been full of bright colors, but even those were subdued somewhat by the 3D projector. Most other films don’t have such a rich color palette to begin with, and this is instantly noticeable when viewing them in 3D.

While some “old school” movie fans are screaming from the rooftops about the “switch” to 3D, I really don’t think they’ve got too much to worry about. Every 3D film that’s been released has also been shown in 2D theaters as well, so you don’t have to see it in 3D if you do not wish to. Furthermore, 3D televisions are still extremely expensive, so the home 3D market is teeny. Even when big 3D films rule the box office, their 2D DVD and Blu-ray editions are big sellers. To continue beating that dead horse, Avatar‘s home video sales have been stellar…and there’s no 3D version available yet. When that does come out by the end of the year, it still won’t sell as well as the 2D versions have.

Movie studios may bum rush new technology, but fear not; there’s still plenty of tried-and-true techniques for us movie buffs to enjoy.