3-d

Chris Knight's avatar

So yesterday evening, my lifelong best friend Chad and I met up in Durham to do something we had never done before. For all the things we’ve done together, we had yet to see a Star Wars movie together in the theater.

Okay, we’ve done that now. I’m thankful that we got to fix that. But that’s the only good thing that came out of last night’s screening of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace in 3D(?!?).

Yeah, a Star Wars movie in 3D. I know, it looks good on paper, buuuuut…

Now I have to be honest: there are some parts of the movie that look far better in 3D than they deserve to be. The podrace sequence, f’rinstance. But I’m inclined to believe that’s only because it’s already moving so fast that your eyeballs are being vicariously assaulted before your gray matter gets time to register ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Two months ago I discussed some reasons why I wasn’t particularly led to jump aboard the 3D television fad just yet. The most prominent among them was my understanding that we could fairly soon expect 3D teevee technology that worked without those clunky glasses (which many are now saying not only induce headaches but are just a plain ol’ nuisance to deal with).

Welcome to the future.

Toshiba is set to be the first manufacturer to roll out glasses-free 3D television, according to news site Breitbart citing a Japanese newspaper. The electronics and entertainment giant “has developed a new system that emits a number of rays of light with various angles from the screen so that viewers can see stereoscopic images without glasses”. It’s added that “People can enjoy images in three dimensions from various positions and suffer less stress.”

If true, this will be the big breakthrough that ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

At E3 today Nintendo head honcho Satoru Iwata unveiled the Nintendo 3DS. This is the latest iteration of its acclaimed DS hardware… and it does games in 3D.

But here’s the kicker folks: the Nintendo 3DS pulls off three-dimensional gaming without those funky glasses!

And this highlights the biggest reason why I’m not about to buy into the 3D television “revolution” going on right now (incidentally ESPN’s new 3D channel is showing up in the updated listings but it’s not only not airing yet, my receiver box is snidely informing me that I need a 3D capable set in order to pick it up at all). This is such a rapidly evolving technology, it makes the least amount of sense to be an early adopter than I’ve seen with burgeoning new gear ever. Especially given that the glasses needed to enjoy 3D television sets are priced around $150 ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Is it 1998 again? ‘Cuz I’m getting the same feeling now that I did when word first broke all those many moons ago that Peter Jackson would be making a film trilogy of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.

Well, ever since the third and final installment The Return of the King came out more than a half-decade ago, there’ve been whispers on the wind about Jackson adapting The Hobbit as well, as a prequel film. And for those of us who’ve been paying attention, it’s been a very crazy ride toward no assurance that this would be happening at all (conflicts with the Tolkien estate, Jackson’s dispute with New Line, etc.)… which makes me hope all the more that it’s gonna go down this way.

GeekTyrant reported last week that The Hobbit will be THREE movies, with Guillermo del Toro directing the first two chapters and ...

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