According to an article in the LA Times, both of the next two upcoming Marvel movies, Thor and Captain America, will be in 3D. I personally believe that, just like an IMAX film, you want to shoot in that media for optimal resolution, and then gracefully degrade the same source material for less robust presentation formats. Even though it results in an inferior product, there are simple ways to Upgrade 2D movies to 3D that any of us can do on our home computers. And all the new CGI software, including all the animation packages available for purchase for home use by us non-industry types, now fully supports 3D creation in all three standard formats. But isn’t the point of paying money to see a movie in the theater to get to enjoy something we don’t have the resources to create at home?
As near as I can tell from the LA Times report, it looks like the film makers of the two movies (Kenneth Branagh and Joe Johnston, respectively) don’t understand how the technology works, and don’t want to be bothered with learning the new filming techniques or even mastering the cameras. Still, if they have the right competent people on board to process the 2D footage they do film into pseudo-3D, and mix it with the 3D SFX output, and edit the combination into a coherent movie, they could end up with a watchable product. But it will never be as good as it would have been had they bothered to learn how to film a 3D movie in the first place.
Bottom line? I consider the Marvel stable of characters and story lines my friends, since I grew up with all of them. And I am exceedingly impressed by what Marvel Studios has done so far for the movies they have created, certainly much more impressed than I was with the films like Electra and others that were being outsourced before they built their own studio. So I will continue to attend each of the new films as they come out, and based on the evidence so far, continue to enjoy them.
