Avatar and 3D

Went to see Avatar last night. It was pretty damn epic. And pretty frustrating to watch.

The novelty of 3D film wore off in about 5 minutes, and then it was just annoying. I felt as if my eyes had stopped working. I would try to focus in on some detail- an animated computer monitor or some improbable alien flower- and I couldn't. My mind became partially convinced that what I was seeing was real, but my eyes were unable to interact naturally with the world in front of me. In order to see, I had to look where I was supposed to.¹ To some extent, this is similar to focus techniques used in 2D film, but it felt different in 3D. All of my immediate sense experience was being controlled, because not only was I passively observing a predetermined world, but the ways in which I interacted and reacted to it had already been decided.

¹ Which is interesting. With 3D, I would have expected my vision to be tricked into believing a false world, while my mind knew better. Instead it was vice versa.