I don’t hate 3D. I hate the way it’s being used. A lot of people seem to be interpreting that as a general loathing of the format, and that’s just not so. It’s the overusing of it that I loathe and if you saw Clash of the Titans and still don’t feel the same, then I’m not sure we have anything else to talk about. Skip to our next post.

For those of you still here, you should know that Paramount is converting yet another movie into 3D, this time it’s The Last Airbender. This is a horrible idea. Not because 3D is horrible, but because it’s not possible to properly apply it here. Much like Clash of the Titans, Last Airbender was not conceived of as a 3D movie. They’re doing another post-processed 3D conversion. And it’s not really the conversion that’s the problem. I firmly believe that can work. I think it worked, mostly, with Alice in Wonderland for instance. The difference between Alice and Clash is that Alice was shot, from the beginning, with the intention of turning it into a 3D movie. Clash and Last Airbender were not. Therefore, rest assured that this will suck.

Making 3D look right takes advance planning. Whether you shoot it in 3D like Avatar or convert it after the fact like Alice is irrelevant. What matters is that you have it in mind while you’re making it. It also helps if you’re using it on an animated movie. 3D works best on the bright, sharply defined colors, which are the hallmark of animation. Movies like Avatar, Alice in Wonderland, How to Train You Dragon, and the upcoming Shrek Forever After (which word is actually looks good in the format) have that. Clash of the Titans and The Last Airbender do not.

The problem isn’t 3D but the Hollywood rush to slap it on everything regardless of whether it deserves it. Right now we’ve only really seen 3D work right on brightly colored, mostly animated films (don’t forget Avatar was primarily computer generated). Every time it’s been used on darker, live-action features it’s been an utter failure. And now it will be yet again this summer on M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender. Call me cynical if you must, but to me what’s cynical is the belief that simply slapping “3D’ on a movie’s title will earn you extra dollars. Hopefully, after Clash of the Titans, people are starting to wise-up. Hold on to your wallets.