Something bothered me the entire time I was watching Thor in 3D – not how closely the plot echoed Disney’s Hercules, or Anthony Hopkins’ dial-a-performance – no, it was something persistent through every single second of the flick. It was too dim.
The last 3D movie I’d seen was Tron: Legacy, where the black-and-blue palette effectively masks any sense of the film being too dark. It’s one of the more pernicious side effects of 3D. But in at least one theatre in Boston, the Globe finds that 3D lenses are being left on projectors even for 2D films (in eight of the theatres’ 19 screens), resulting in movies that looked “strikingly dim and drained of colours”. The difference is stark: 3D lenses make the picture up to 85 per cent darker, Chapin Cutler from Boston Light & Sound tells the Globe.
The reason projectionists aren’t pulling off the 3D polarising lens? Your average projectionist doesn’t know how. And if they screw it up, the DRM on the particular Sony 4K projector they’re using that requires these external 3D lenses kicks in and pulls the plug. And AMC, according to the Globe’s report, practices willful ignorance, choosing to keep 3D lenses on for 2D flicks. Prepare to be crazy infuriated when you click over to the Globe for the full story: [Boston Globe via BoingBoing]