Friday, November 9, 2012

Like Timmy, I was on the fence about Jurassic Park 3D

I just saw the news via Wired's GeekMom blog that Jurassic Park is returning to theaters this coming April.  In 3D.  My first reaction was, "Do they have to 3D EVERYTHING?"

There is a teaser trailer for it.  I next thought, "What's the point of a teaser trailer for Jurassic Park 3D on my computer?"  I saw the film 13 times in the theaters when it first came out, even more times than I saw the Lord of the Rings trilogy films combined.  Jurassic Park was magic for me.  I wanted Laura Dern's boots.  I wanted to be a chaotician.  I wanted us to clone dinosaurs.  SO BADLY.  My point being, I'm more than familiar with the trailer, and obviously it's not going to actually be 3D.

I'm kinda sick of 3D this and 3D that, even though most of the time it's done pretty well.  One problem with going to see a movie in 3D is that if you want to take the glasses off, the movie looks crappy.  Our kids are all about wanting to take the glasses off about 20 minutes into any given movie.  Furthermore, making a movie become 3D when it wasn't originally shot with 3D in mind is not always going to work.  It was a colossal failure for Clash of the Titans, if I recall.

But heck, I'll watch this trailer...



And as the music swelled and all those memories came rushing back and tears considered forming in my eyes, I jumped off the fence.  Of course that is exactly why there is a teaser trailer... to remind you about the magic.

Count me in.  They could have just re-released the film like they did for Jaws at our local theater.  Because in the end, getting to see Jurassic Park one more time in a theater... in IMAX this time? I'm ready to go back.  To Jurassic Park.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Sign me up! One of the great soundtracks from film that works well with the film itself. I loved this movie in 2D, so I expect to love this version 1 whole D more!

Marlowe said...

I certainly do NOT want us to "move on" from the best technology that we've seen in movies since color... I don't mind the few minor complaints people have against the current version of the technology - at least it's advancing.

To me, having any movie in 2D is a waste of a D. I don't consider 3D a "trend". I do consider 3D pricing a "trend" that will break, but the tech itself (which should NOT be exploited to charge more in theaters - except to cover the expense of the $0.05 glasses) is the next step in natural film technological development.

As for Jurassic Park 3D, I may go back to see the CG dinosaurs in 3D, but unless they completely reshoot it in 3D, the 3D effect is going to be very fake.

I saw the most recent Superman which had parts "retro-fitted" to 3D and it was awful. Years later when they decide, part-way through filming, to release a film in retro-3D (a flawed process that tries to add dimensional depth to a flat image) it fails.

I will say that with one exception. I saw Nightmare Before Christmas in retro-fitted 3D a few years back and I could not detect a single depth flaw.

Sean.

Marlowe said...

(Hey, as a side note as I tried to reply to this... Captcha is getting VERY good... it can even block real humans now by having codes so unreadable even humans can't read them!)

Unknown said...

Marlowe, I know what you mean about the CAPTCHA. It's a pain in the BUTT. And the audio versions are even worse in my opinion, they sound like something from beyond the grave trying to get into our world.

I do think 3D is getting better all the time, and it's one of the biggest ways a theater can still draw a crowd, they HAVE to do it to compete with home theater (and even that is getting better all the time).

It's mainly the point you made about Superman. Retro-fitting is a risky proposition. And when they re-released Jaws to our theater and played the Blu-Ray, they had lines around the building. They don't NEED to make Jurassic Park 3D to get my buy-in. Just releasing older classics maybe remastered and cleaned up is plenty. I LOVE that theaters are starting to do this.

Marlowe said...

I think we're going to see a major trend in cinemas of going back and re-releasing old classics, and it's about damn time! I'd LOVE to see Godfather on the big screen.

Here in Norwood a woman just bought the old Norwood theater, which for anyone who grew up in Norwood was their place to see movies as a kid. She spent six million dollars of her own money restoring it and the place is gorgeous!

One thing she's doing other than bringing in live acts is showing old movies. I've already seen "Mary Poppins" there, as well as "The Red Balloon" and just recently they showed "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" though I missed that one. Was in Canada that weekend. But next up is "Singing in the Rain" and I'm embarrassed to say I've never seen it, and now, thankfully, I can see it for the first time on a big screen in gorgeous surroundings.