Things are scarier in 3D?

These are the the 3D glasses that were handed to my dad and I upon purchase of two tickets to see 1991's Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (a title contradicted by New Nightmare, Freddy vs. Jason, and the upcoming Nightmare on Elm Street remake). My dad rarely would go out to see movies, but having grown up during what Wikipedia refers to as 3D's initial "revival" age, he was intrigued by the gimmick. And I needed someone over 18 to buy me (then 10 or 11) a ticket, so we both had an excuse to head down to CNN Center and experience Freddy in 3D.

Here's a detail of the glasses that shows the really specific directions which are presented as a rather stern warning:


Try reading the text with a voice in your head and give proper emphasis to the bold words. Kind of odd, right?

It's such a stupid movie, I even thought so then. Only about five minutes at the end are in 3D, and it mostly consists of crudely animated worm things that are anthropomorphizations of Freddy's evil... or something like that. I barely remember at this point, and I have little desire to revisit the movie. I don't think I saw a 3D movie again until Spy Kids 3D aka Headache Island vs. Steve Buscemi on a Flying Pig and also Ricardo Montalban is There.

The fact that James Cameron, et al are giving 3D another push is comical to the point of absurdity. Maybe this time things will pan out differently, and audiences will really embrace the gimmick, driving up movie studio profits and getting people back out to the theatre in droves. I think having a good 3D movie would certainly help things, but unless Avatar is as good as or better than Aliens or Terminator 2 (I don't have to see it to definitively say it won't be), 3D will go the way of... well 3D... and 3D before it.

Lest we forget what time does to pop culture, particularly something as whimsical and fickle as popular cinema, here are some more details from the glasses. Details that amuse me much more than any memories I have of seeing the movie that brought this relic into my life.





So before you spend too much of your day thinking about what Kanye West said or did, remember, today's star is tomorrow's Kid 'n' Play. But y'all knew that fame is fleeting, I just wanted an excuse to type "Kid 'n' Play." ... I bet Suburban Commando is as good as I remember it being...