Though there were several films before it that used the technology, filmmaker James Cameron’s 2009 film “Avatar” was the event picture that brought modern 3D cinema presentation to the masses.
To this day, it remains the best example of how 3D can be done well, the whole film is deliberately designed around the tech and to be viewed from that perspective, offering a whole new level of immersion not really seen before to make the world of Pandora a tangible place.
Of course, the 3D craze has since imploded. Poor quality ‘conversion’ jobs, a failure of 3D TVs, and general audience fatigue with the tech saw it fall out of favor to the point that it’s now rarely seen and certainly not an attractive marketing point for a movie.
Still, Cameron himself tells Slashfilm that he sees the original’s use of the 3D format to be its most significant contribution to modern cinema in general:
“I would say that the 3D was generally embraced for a period of time. ‘Avatar’ won the best cinematography with a 3D digital camera. No digital camera had ever won the best cinematography Oscar before. Then two out of the three subsequent years, the same cameras were used by the cinematographers that won the Oscar. So you got 3 out of 4 years where the Academy embraced digital cinematography. And all 3 of those films were in 3D.”
Despite the apparent slow death of the format, Cameron thinks the 3D trend won’t fade into irrelevancy:
“3D appears to most people to sort of be ‘over.’ But it’s really not over. It’s just been accepted. It’s just now a part of your choices when you go to the theater to see a big blockbuster movie … I liken it to color. When color films first came out, it was a big deal. People would go to see movies because they were in color. I think around the time of ‘Avatar,’ people used to go to see movies because they were in 3D … I think it had an impact on how films were presented that’s now just sort of accepted and part of the zeitgeist and how it’s done.”
Cameron’s upcoming “Avatar: The Way of Water” will utilise 3D technology and will likely be the biggest 3D release in years. Whether it will inspire a resurgence… we’ll see.
