The Z Axis and its Role in the War Against Joy

Apparently Disney got it into their heads that they ought to re-release some of their successful films in theaters. I am all for that idea. I remember roughly 6 years ago going to see Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in the theater with a lifelong friend who had also grown up with Indy as his hero. The theater even had Guinness on tap. It was a perfect experience.

Imagine my surprise at discovering that The Lion King, probably my favorite Disney movie, was playing at my local theater. My wife and I would love to one day take our daughter to see the Disney movies we grew up watching. They are certainly better than some of the other garbage being marketed to children these days. But we'd want her to see the movies we saw.  This wasn't The Lion King, it was The Lion King 3D.

Disney as I knew it

Disney's 3D Extravaganza!

I have gone to great lengths in the past to explain that just because a movie is 3D doesn't mean it is somehow superior. So far only one movie has used 3D correctly, and it was The Smurfs, Fern Gully, Dances with Wolves,  Avatar.

Avatar... oh, wait...

Wow, Smurfette! Have you been working out?

James Cameron, a film-making legend, put so much time, thought, energy, and money into making a film that is a visual masterpiece. I won't say that he put even 1/100th of that time into creating an original story. Also he didn't break the cardinal rule of film making, letting Michelle Rodriguez's character live through the movie... I mean, come on... who lets that "woman" "act"?

His entire film was planned to be a 3D experience from the get-go. Nowadays, thanks to the success of Avatar, just about everything imaginable is adding 3D effects during post production.

Hollywood, this does not work!

Wearing the 3D glasses reduces the amount of light that reaches your eye, so your precious film is now darker than it is supposed to be. There were entire moments in the tragedy that was Tron 2 and the respectable superhero movie, Thor, that I flat out could not see. It was just too dark.

I realize that it has been proven by a gigantic douchebag that there is money to be made by the torture, rape and murder of classic movies held in the highest regard by a die-hard fan base of idiots who liked the prequels. This crime has been called "digital enhancing". (and yes, expect them in 3D)

The aforementioned giant douchebag

A finished work is a finished work, film is film, and 3D is 3D. It's not like Da Vinci, 20 years after painting the Mona Lisa, said "You know what would be great? Now that there has been 20 years worth of advances in art, I will take my painting and wrap it around a marble figure of a woman. Now I can have the sculpture I always wanted".

Disney intends to re-release Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, and a few others in 3D by 2013.

You should boycott 3D movies that aren't The Hobbit or Avatar sequels.

You should punch George in his neck-fat.

You should admit that the prequels are terrible movies.


You should not badmouth the three Indiana Jones movies... (That's right, three. Go on... say something)