I finally went to see another movie in the theater last night. Actually, my very first after Avatar, and it turned out to be Shrek – Forever After in 3D. It was a sweet, little movie, and I enjoyed it very much. Probably more than the previous two. But what really irked me wasn't anything about the movie itself but the trailers that ran before the movie.

There was The Last Airbender, whose trailer was in 2D. I had actually seen it online before (the trailer, not the movie), and it made me really keen on wanting to see the film. Now I'm not so sure, mainly because on the big screen the special effects looked a little too cheap. I have a feeling that that might ruin the movie. But what was much worse were all the 3D trailers. There was Die Konferenz der Tiere (The Animals' Conference, which until today I didn't realize was actually a German movie) and Despicable Me, both animated movies. And then there was Step Up in 3D. Apologies to anyone who might be genuinely interested in the movie, but... I personally had a gag reflex.

While I thought Konferenz der Tiere and Despicable Me weren't particularly funny but bearable, the trailer for this dance movie (i.e. Step Up) absolutely wasn't. At first I thought: Oh God, no, please not another High School Musical movie! And even though it wasn't, it could very well have been if you switch "musical" with "dancing". But it wasn't so much the storyline or the acting that turned me off, it was the horrendous quality of the 3D effects. It really looked bad. And I mean bad. Add to that the fact that the dialogues were outrageously cheesy and every second scene had one of those in-your-face 3D effects, it made me scream inside, "Please stop! I can't take any more of this!" Bottom line: I wouldn't go see this movie even if someone paid me to do so.

The last straw that made me want to go grab someone's collar, shake them and go, "James Cameron, what have you done?!" was that when I left the theater, there was a barrage of posters for The Last Airbender in 3D. Does every single movie have to be 3D now? Just to go with the trend? Seriously, folks, while 3D is a great tool and can enhance the theatrical experience quite a lot, it is not a mandatory gimmick. If you have a good script, great actors and a solid story, believe me, it will work in 2D just as well as in 3D.

I firmly believe 3D can also ruin a movie. I can't judge first hand because I haven't seen it, but I've heard people say that The Clash of the Titans in 3D was really bad because the special effects sucked big time. And I believe the problem with that is that the movie was not shot with 3D in mind but that they edited it for 3D in post-production. Which already sounds like a bad thing. And it seems to be becoming a trend because The Last Airbender has undergone just that same 3D conversion process, and I've read they're planning to do with Harry Potter 7 too.

So, did I at least like watching Shrek in 3D? Sure I did! Just like I loved Avatar in 3D. And I attribute that to the fact that both movies didn't use 3D as a novel kind of gimmick just to be hip and trendy and new. It all felt very natural and there were only very few effects that were done deliberately for 3D. It was very much not in-your-face. But the bottom line is, I think I would have enjoyed Shrek just as much in 2D, which would have had the advantage that the cinema would have been only 25 instead of 60 kilometers away and the ticket would have cost almost half as much. A useful message to take home for future reference. Now I only wish Hollywood could learn that lesson too.