Earlier this year, I went to see an animated cartoon at the movie theater and when I got there, there was a hugantic line for it. I asked the ticket person why there were so many people and he said because the movie was in 3D. The theater already had something like 14 screens, so I just kinda figured that they had divided the third theater into four sections, A thru D, and this was maybe the grand opening. Turns out, 3D is a description of the type of animation and, OMG, it is so cool!
First Generation Digital
Back in the 1940’s and 1950’s, digital animation was seen as the heighth of movie technology, right behind sound and color and nudity. Cartoons such as Snow White and Jungle Book were super successful partly because the technology was unlike anything else around in other theaters. See, many cartoons were drawn by hand, so seeing a cartoon made on a computer was a pretty incredible for people back then. This was the earliest generation of digital drawings or 1D.
1D Mary Poppins + 1D Penguins = 2D Amazing
Later, Mary Poppins and Roger Rabbit introduced the world to what is considered 2D, where it had digital drawings on top of a layer of real film. Initially, some people must have been scared because maybe they thought that they were going crazy or had a flu. Can you imagine? “Cartoons and real people together? Impossible in this modern day! I must be going crazy or got the flu from *old person’s name*.” Eventually, everyone accepted technology as something new and here to stay and realized they couldn’t stop the change of tides (kind of like my grandparents did when they finally bought a cd player. It was like breaking teeth with them!). Today, movies like Alvin and The Chipmunks still use 2D technologies because it is neat to pretend that the world is a place where cartoon characters are your neighbors and you can hug them. How amazing would it be to be able to go next door and be all, “Hey, Alvin. Can I borrow Season 2 of The Hills?”
Coolest Neighbors Ever! (...sorry Mrs. Castillo)
Since the past few years, computers are so crazy fast and smart that Hollywood people who were good with computers were able to make the next generation of drawing: 3D animation. Tri-digital animation uses three layers of digitized drawings and puts them together so that they seem more and more like real life.
Lots of people in Hollywood are giving thought to considering this new electronic technology, but Disney is leading the animated movies by making 2009 the year of the tri-digital movie. First, Bolt was released but not a lot of people liked it because I think a lot of people thought John Travolta was too old to play a dog. Then, Up came out, but they released it both in 2D and 3D because they weren’t sure what people would like. Pretty soon, almost all of Disney’s pictures were 3D: Monsters Vs. Aliens, Ice Age, G-Force, the list goes up and up.
Go Away, Change! I'm Afraid Of You! Nooooo!
If a 3D movie is playing near your house, you should totally go because it can be really fun. With three levels of digital drawings, it seems almost like you could reach out and touch stuff. At first, it was so cute to watch a little girl sitting in front of us and trying to grab the cartoon characters, but she got frustrated and started crying, “I wanna touch the man’s thing!” so her mom took her out of the theater.
Like all good things, however, there is a downed side…
Kids Risk Their Eyes' Vision To Look At Eclipse
By law, the movie theater has to give everyone special glasses made of paper and saran wrap (cheapskate much?) and you have to wear these special glasses in order to watch the movie. It’s really dangerous not to wear them because, just like you’re not supposed to look directly at the sun during an eclipse, it can really damage your eyes’ vision. I had a really scary moment when I took my glasses off for just a second because I thought I saw a cute guy walk past and when I looked back at the movie everything was getting blurry. I went to my eye doctor the next day and got checked out. Luckily, there was no serious damage, but I was really scared, for a while. I was totally worried I’d have to wear a monocle for the rest of my life.
Don't Look At Me!
Even though the police force the theater to give you glasses, I imagine there will be someone who will start suing a lot because their eyes got messed up or their vision impaled from the movie. Once that happens, tri-digital movies will be a thing of the past because no studio will want to get sued.
My advice to you: Enjoy it while you can because it won’t last forever.
