I’m in the Dark Here
Cidu Bill on Jul 1st 2010
I’d get the joke if only the Forths were wearing the 3-D glasses. But what’s happening here — is everybody in the wrong theatre?
Filed in Bill Bickel, CIDU, Francesco Marciuliano, Sally Forth, comic strips, comics, humor | 23 responses so far
WhitneyD Jul 1st 2010 at 12:22 am 1
Perhaps it’s also a comment on studios seemingly releasing everything in 3D these days?
Paul G Jul 1st 2010 at 01:11 am 2
I think it’s a Corey Hart flashmob.
Winter Wallaby Jul 1st 2010 at 01:49 am 3
I guess there were two 3D movies playing, and they walked into the wrong one.
George Jul 1st 2010 at 02:00 am 4
Some of the 3D setups are pretty lousy. The projectors aren’t powerful enough and/or the screen isn’t reflective enough, resulting in a dark image.
There are so many 3D movies, I guess you could walk into the wrong one and if the setup is bad, not realize what movie you’re watching.
I don’t understand the Tony Stark comment…Iron Man 2 isn’t in 3D. Also, I’ve never heard of Helen Mirren being in a 3D flick. I think Disney has a version of “The Tempest” coming out (with Mirren as Prospero) later this year, but I don’t it’s in 3D, either.
I wish 3D would just go away for a while. It’s a gimmick that still doesn’t work quite right, and it gives theater owners a reason to jack the ticket prices even further.
furrykef Jul 1st 2010 at 02:33 am 5
George - I agree. I went to see Avatar in 3D and I hated the 3D. My stepdad, who was sitting right next to me, loved it for some reason. Maybe ’cause his eyes are better than mine? Who knows… all I know is that the enhanced depth perception was quickly forgotten, but the ‘barrier’ that the glasses put between me and the screen never was. Somehow they destroyed my ability to pay attention to the film and I found myself having difficulty remembering basic things like characters’ names.
The worst part was you couldn’t really take the glasses off. Well, you could, but then everything would be blurry.
Lola Jul 1st 2010 at 07:00 am 6
I LIKED the 3D in Avatar…at first. I went to see it twice because there were three versions, two of them 3D. The first I saw was the Digital 3D and I was so impressed I thought maybe the other would be even better. The second time I went to see it in IMax 3D and that was so over the top it seemed like a parody of itself. Not enjoyable at all.
Detcord Jul 1st 2010 at 07:52 am 7
I was impressed with the Avatar 3D presentation and, given Lola’s comments, I think it must have been Digital. I’ve not been a fan of 3D since I saw one of the Superman flicks in 3D at IMAX. It made me nauseous to the point that I had to leave. To be fair, that was the one where you had to put the specs on, and then take them off at certain, signposted, segments of the movie. Very weird.
I did test the specs while watching the movie and, subject to my comments above, furrykef’s and George’s observations seem pretty accurate.
Karen Jul 1st 2010 at 08:13 am 8
I hate, hate, hate 3D movies. I hate that some movies I would love to see (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, coming in December) are going to be in unavoidable 3D. Note to filmmakers: just because you CAN, doesn’t mean you SHOULD. My younger kids hate the glasses, but if they take them off the images are wonky. I wear glasses all the time, so putting the 3D glasses over my own glasses is a pain in the neck.
The Bad Seed Jul 1st 2010 at 08:23 am 9
Note: current 3D glasses are not dark at all, only polarized. Besides that, if everything’s just dark for Hil, wouldn’t it be the same for everyone, unless she’s wearing normal sunglasses that someone put in the box?
Ellen C. Jul 1st 2010 at 08:32 am 10
I think that the joke is that the forgot to take off their sunglasses when they went into the theater. Everyone else is wearing 3-D glasses. That’s why everything is darker, the characters don’t look right and Sally wonders whether they are in the wrong theater. But if that’s the case, then her glasses should look the same as in the first frame, and they should be nopticeably different than the rest of the audience. So maybe that’s not the joke after all…
Steve K Jul 1st 2010 at 08:50 am 11
Here, check out this informative article on 3-D. It explains why, despite studio hype, this is essentially unchanged technology. It explains why some people can’t see the 3-d, and some people can only sort of see it, and there’s nothing technology can do to fix it. It explains why 3-D will always hurt your eyes.
I admit, I enjoyed Avatar in 3D. It takes a real attention to the 3D process to do it right. Very few movies do it. (computer animated ones are best, because of the level of control they can exert over the 3D process)
http://www.slate.com/id/2215265
Pirk Jul 1st 2010 at 10:41 am 12
I’m thinking maybe the illustrator didn’t get the writer’s joke, and that the Forth family was supposed to be the only ones wearing the glasses.
Elyrest Jul 1st 2010 at 11:48 am 13
I haven’t seen any recent 3D films, but I saw the original 13 Ghosts in the theatre when it came out in 1960. It wasn’t 3D, but you had to wear the wonky glasses to see the ghosts. Their catch was that you couldn’t see the ghost without the glasses so if you didn’t want to be scared you didn’t put them on. Only worked so-so, but I was young and I didn’t really care as I just wanted to see a scary movie and the lead character was a kid too. I wear glasses now and the last thing I want to do is put glasses on my glasses.
retropink Jul 1st 2010 at 12:07 pm 14
I would like to think the joke is a hybrid of Whitney D and Winter Wallaby’s comments. After all, I can’t think of any other reason Helen Mirren would be in a 3D movie — only b/c it seems like EVERY movie is now in 3D.
Until the 3D movies look as good as IMAX credits, I think we should stay away from the technology. Nothing is as depressing as 30 seconds of “look what this film *could* look like!” & then the actual film failing miserably.
Judge Mental Jul 1st 2010 at 01:23 pm 15
I saw Avatar relatively early when it came out (in 3D), and wasn’t impressed with the 3D. A couple of days later, against my better judgment, I agreed to go with a friend. We went to the same theater where I saw it the first time, and saw it in the same auditorium. This time the 3D effects were exponentially better. About half way through I had to use the restroom. I had to turn in my glasses to the usher, and get a new pair when I returned. At this point, the effects were on par with what I saw during my original viewing. I can only presume that some glasses are better than others.
I guess my point is that even everyone had identical vision and taste, it would be possible for two people sitting next to each other to come away with a totally different 3D experience.
Mark in Boston Jul 1st 2010 at 05:10 pm 16
Some of today’s 3D movies are flat movies converted to 3D by computer technology that doesn’t always work. “Clash of the Titans” is one, and the reviewer in the newspaper noted that the computer sometimes put the wings on the wrong side of the flying horse.
I didn’t see “Clash of the Titans”; I saw the original, which was one of the worst movies ever made.
George Jul 1st 2010 at 05:20 pm 17
Wow. They made you turn in your glasses? You actually had an usher? I didn’t know they still had those. All that I ever see in the auditorium are the end-show cleaners.
Here you’re encouraged to turn in your glasses at the end of the show, but it’s not mandatory. My understanding is that they run the glasses through some “cleaning” process and use them again, but I wonder how many get through damaged or otherwise messed up.
I don’t like the idea of paying a premium price but getting “used” (and perhaps defective or germy) glasses.
Anyway, the other thing I don’t like is that 3D is being touted for TVs. Didn’t many just spend a lot of money to upgrade to HD and digital transmissions? I kind of remember TVs lasting for years, perhaps decades, before becoming “obsolete”. It also bothers me that the commercials pushing the technology show images that pop out BIGGER than the dimensions of the screen. Sure, they seem to come out of the screen, but the illusion can’t spill out over the bezel, can it?
Back to 3D hurting….and possible being a health hazard, especially to young kids:
http://www.audioholics.com/news/editorials/warning-3d-video-hazardous-to-your-health/
turquoise cow Jul 1st 2010 at 06:41 pm 18
Well, the rest of the audience doesn’t look particularly pleased, either (although maybe that’s because the Forths are talking during the movie) so maybe whatever it is they’re watching, which I can only guarantee is NOT Iron Man, is not very good or not very well executed by the theater.
Igelino Jul 2nd 2010 at 05:12 am 19
3d technology is a neat toy. But in a theater, it seems to me they’re selling snake oil. Many old black-and-white movies had nice content, and the 3d stuff would just detract from it. Maybe the studios got too many complaints about the lack of content, so they threw in “3d” as a distraction. : )
Steve K (11) interesting article. It didn’t occur to me that the different focal lengths in real life could be a cue for our depth perception. Our CS department in college showed that binocular vision isn’t a requirement - but that’s the only thing that current 3d tech provides us over normal viewing. They also showed that head movement was a very important cue - but to do that, the picture has to change dynamically based on the individual viewer’s head position.
Interesting stuff.
Ian Osmond Jul 2nd 2010 at 07:16 am 20
The Bad Seed#9:
Yes, 3D glasses are polarized, and not otherwise tinted. But that means that each eye is getting only about half the photons that you’d be otherwise getting. The projector is showing two very similar movies, one with photons polarized to go more-or-less vertically, one with photons polarized to go more-or-less horizontally. So each eye gets only half the light. So, yeah, a 3D movie IS only about half as bright as a 2D movie — the glasses really DO make everything half as bright.
It doesn’t LOOK that extreme, because our eyes are really good at adjusting to various light levels. But it really is darker.
The Bad Seed Jul 2nd 2010 at 08:45 am 21
Ian Osmond #20: Yes, I do know how polarization works, it’s not a new technology. My previous pair of prescription eyeglasses were polarized but clear and untinted, so nobody ever noticed anything different about them, although of course they did reduce the amount of life passing through. I’d only notice the polarization when looking through polarized glass like a car window, and, of course, that effect was different depending on which angle I tilted my head (how the 2 polarizations lined up). But they didn’t act or look like sunglasses, they looked like clear lenses to me and everyone else.
My commment above simply meant that the artist of this strip seems to think that current 3D glasses are tinted like sunglasses (or maybe he thinks they still have one red lens and one blue lens), but in reality the glasses don’t look much different than clear lenses when you look at them - they look maybe as tinted as 5%-tinted prescription lenses, not like sunglasses. When you look at them, they don’t look that extreme, so the drawing is not depicting what they really look like. Really.
Todd Jul 6th 2010 at 12:32 am 22
I know this is about 3d movies, except for one comment. But as far as 3d TV goes, if I have to wear glasses to watch TV, I want the TV to be in the glasses.
Dan Jul 6th 2010 at 03:29 pm 23
Real 3D TVs shouldn’t make you wear glasses. If they can pull that off, I’m all for it, as long as the TV itself is suitably tricked out (can handle the resolution, etc.).
Pirk - I think you’re right. The artist for SF seems to not get the writer’s jokes a lot of the time, so maybe this was just a screwup.