3D TV is coming. Evil or opportunity?

I can clearly remember my first 3D experience. It was lame. A Three Stooges movie as I recall. Larry, Moe & Shemp spent the whole time carefully waving sharp objects in front of the camera before assaulting each other with them.

I didn’t think I would ever go to another 3D movie again, however a few years later I found myself slipping on those strange glasses for the premiere of Jaws 3D. It had some good moments from a 3D point of view, but only because I was comparing it to the Three Stooges.

I don’t think I have watched anything in 3D since, so I was quite interested when I heard all the hype about what James Cameron had been able to achieve with 3D in the new millennium¹.

It seems the ripples from this movie are being felt throughout the entertainment industry. There is no doubt we will be seeing more movies in 3D. Certainly the action blockbusters will hardly be able to resist and it will take a really good screenplay to hold an audience without it from now on. It seems even the new James Bond film has been delayed in production so 3D technology can be utilised.

But the most notable advancement will be seen in the world of television. Soon 3D television will become a permanent part of our lounge rooms. British based pay TV broadcaster, BSkyB, has announced it will launch Europe’s first ever 3D TV channel in April.

The USA, for once, is lagging behind a little, however 2010 could still be the year Americans go 3D with Discovery, Imax and Sony agreeing to create a joint 3D cable channel sometime during the year and ESPN launching an all-sports 3D in June starting with the FIFA World Cup. Almost immediately there will be over 80 live sporting events in 3D. The growth of this industry, from seemingly nowhere in such a short time is mind boggling.

However, there is one industry which is set to out-produce every other – the porn industry. According to the Sydney Morning Herald the porn industry has been shooting 3D movies at such a rate it already has a catalogue of movies available for distribution.

Several hours of porn are shot using 3D cameras and uploaded to the site every week. It can be accessed for $US19.95 a month.²

Apparently the porn industry is often a key factor in the development of new technologies, having led the way into VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, the internet and high-definition.

This syndrome is so regular it has prompted one journalist to praise the porn industry purely for forcing the world to advance into new technologies. At least Oliver Hartwich otherwise calls porn a “vice”.

All this leads me to wonder how long it will take the Church to recognise where the battle is. The Fireproof movie showed what can be done when the Christian film industry decides to produce good quality Christian material. Will it now take up the challenge and offer a 3D product which is neither sport nor porn?

I suppose we first need to decide what benefit there is producing 3D Christian movies beyond simply keeping up with the Jones’s. I guess that goes for the other industries as well. I can see how sports coverage would benefit but I’m not sure I even want to think about why porn wants to be in 3D.

From the Christian perspective, my thoughts turn to Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments motion picture. You can’t tell me if DeMille was making that movie today, he would not be using 3D. It was cutting edge for its time. The Red Sea crossing scene made eyes pop in 1956. Today that would be just as jaw dropping in 3D and I think more would be made of the plagues as well.

At the risk of sounding defeatist, it seems we have to admit the Church has already been left at the starting gate in the 3D race. There will, no doubt, be Christian 3D movies in future and we will all rejoice to see the Church utilizing the technology. We will probably all consider it a good use of resources, but it will come along years after the technology is considered cutting edge.

Certainly there must be hard questions asked about how much the Church should follow the world in any development like this, but if you look at the internet as a classic example, we seem to agree now that it can be an effective tool for evangelism. Why does this agreement always have to come along a decade after the technology is developed?

If the technology is there, I say use it! And let’s use it now while the world is curious. Who knows what seeds may be planted in 3D.

Footnotes

1.       For the record, the special effects in Avatar are generally as good as the hype, however I do have serious reservations about the movie due to its pantheistic undertone. For a good discussion of this, listen to the review by Ken Samples.  

2.       ASHER MOSES, Porn studios lead the stampede into 3D TV, Sydney Morning Herald, January 11^th 2010.