A lot of people have their panties in a bunch over the recent spat of 3D films. Roger Ebert alone has tweeted about it roughly 7000 times and mentioned it in literally hundreds of reviews. What are the complaints? 3D is just a gimmick. It adds nothing to the filmgoing experience. It dulls and muddies the image. It’s just an excuse to jack up ticket prices. Okay, there are some good points in there. But there’s also some that can be argued. The biggest 3D success yet has been James Cameron’s Avatar. Everyone seems to be in agreement that while the movie was pretty bad, it did some interesting things with the 3D technology. Most people credit that to the fact that Cameron used high tech 3D cameras, and didn’t just convert film to 3D afterwards. I would argue that Cameron’s success in the medium had more to do with the blocking and construction of his scenes, which all made sure to painstakingly utilize the possibilities of a three dimensional image in order to create a deep, layered field of action. What Citizen Kane did to revolutionize focused action occurring both in the foreground and the background, Avatar did times ten.

What if the studios had stepped in and mandated that certain projects be 3D. FSR wondered aloud and we came up with 10 films that could’ve, nay, should’ve been made in vivid 3D.