3D Movies Lived And Died Before The Aussie Government Got Its Act Together

The age of 3D has come and gone. There was that wonderful golden age of Avatar and Beowulf and Coraline in the mid-to-late 2000s, where visiting the movies and seeing a flick in 3D was something you’d actually do. These days, not so much. No-one really cares about 3D any more, but it has taken the Australian Classification Board a solid six years to get up to date with the fact that 3D films aren’t different enough to their 2D peers to require re-classification.

3D movie image via Shutterstock

Mark Serrels at Kotaku tells us all about how the Australian Classification Board is hilariously behind the times when it comes to keeping up with the rapid pace of change in technology. The board has just made it possible for games to be classified using a questionnaire, which is a significant improvement from the old system. But at the same time, the change in classification means that finally, the 3D version of a movie or game doesn’t require additional classification on top of the original 2D.

The real kick-off point for 3D movies in Australia, if you exclude the special exception of IMAX, was around 2009 when Avatar burst onto and out of silver screens around the country. That’s six years ago now. That’s a long time to take to catch up with goings-on in the world of entertainment, but it’s taken that long for the Classification Board to update its rules. To be fair, 3D gaming hasn’t died off, but that’s because it hasn’t really taken off yet — the one-off investment of a new graphics card and a new monitor is too much for most people. So the rule isn’t entirely outdated, but it definitely should have been implemented a long time ago.

Coincidentally enough, Kotaku also points out the fact that Avatar had to be classified six times, too — three times for the 2D and 3D cinema, and three times for the various 2D and 3D DVD and Blu-ray releases. That kind of duplication of man-hours, double administration costs for the publishers, and overall ridiculousness is now over. Maybe, as the new rules roll into place, the Classification Board will be quicker to adapt in the future as well. [Kotaku]


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