Experts: 3-D movies threaten the very foundation of the industry

Movie critics and other film aficionados were up in arms today over B-movie slasher horror flick My Bloody Valentine 3D, which released just this past Friday to little fanfare, acclaim or a even a noteworthy box office draw to speak of. Nevertheless there was an uproar over the flick that continued today. The problem? The movie was in 3-D.

“The new-found interest in 3-D film making is unfortunate, to say the least,” said one mainstream movie executive, who did not want to be named because he was secretly working on a 3-D horror film of his own. “While the medium draws in new audiences, the film is cheap and the presentation is cheesy. It threatens the very core of the movie industry and it needs to be stopped now.”

Indeed, many of the audiences buying tickets to see Valentine in theaters over the weekend were not your typical theater-goer. One viewer, Frank Consuelo of Cambridge, Mass., said he hadn’t been to see a movie in five or six years due to the spiraling out of control ticket prices and what he perceived to be an unfair and biased focus on summer blockbuster action movies. “Movies just got too complicated, expensive and full of themselves to be any fun anymore,” Consuelo said. “At least with 3-D there’s some nostalgia from when I was a kid and 3-D glasses at the cinema was a pretty normal thing. This new flick wasn’t half-bad either, because it didn’t take itself too seriously.”

Many of the viewers leaving the theater after viewing Valentine said the 3-D movie had actually re-energized their interest in seeing other movies at the theater, and not necessarily in 3-D. Said one unidentified 20-something girl who was out with her friends, “The 3-D got me into the theater after a long hiatus, and now I think I’ll come back next weekend to see that Jennifer Anisten dog movie one.”

But the new non-traditional audiences and increased ticket sales for all movies at the multiplex weren’t enough for the experts, who argued that an “incoming wave” of cheap 3-D shovelware movies would crush the serious, mature side of the movie business forever.

Experts also criticized the special 3-D glasses that movie theaters must now carry to accommodate the non-traditional movie experience. “There’s just too much clutter in the theaters with these glasses attached to everyone’s face,” said Dale Dempsey, who was camping out in a small overnight line to see Underworld: Rise of the Lycans before anyone in his high school class. “And they look stupid–like something my 10-year-old kid brother would wear.” Dempsey said he had not yet seen Valentine, but didn’t plan to, because it was for girls and old people from the 1960s.

Independent research from the Fake Movie Research Group has found that in 2008/2009, when Valentine and several other 3-D movies were out or set to be released, the entire movie industry actually saw substantial growth across all genres. Nevertheless, the movie critics would not be swayed when presented with this factual information.

Yes, this is a work of *poor* satire. But for some reason, while I was writing it, I couldn’t help but have this inkling of a suspicion that I’d heard a similar argument being made in another very popular industry about a very popular gamingcompany. Right. Now.