As a kid, I had a lot of excitement for 3D movies. All my family and friends wanted to experience the hype we saw in promotional TV ads. I remember movie trailers for Jaws 3D and Friday the 13th Part 3 with tag lines like, "Now, you can't even keep Jason on the screen." We had to pickup a pair of special glasses at a 7-Eleven and hope the line at the theater was not too long. What I realized now that I didn't as a kid, is that Hollywood used 3D to make up for a crappy script. You also have to consider the movies I just mentioned. They were not Oscar contenders. Forget good acting or a good plot, seeing a large machete or shark thrown in the middle of the screen would make you forget that this movie is really bad. But I guess that's what movie producers are hoping for and why we go see some of these films; that we as movie goers will be caught up in the effects and forget that we could have seen the same bad movie in 2D for less. Technically, 3D films are less bright and you still need glasses to assist with convergence, which has been know to produce nausea and headaches.
Even today, with the resurgence of 3D films, I still see it as a gimmick--way for studios to increase revenue at a time when streaming media has gained so much popularity. Most 3D films could have stayed 2D. Good storytelling doesn't require special effects. Films like UP, 9 and How to Train Your Dragon would not have been better in 3D. The rich colors, music scores, characters and most importantly, a good story, made these films stand on their own. Hopefully, the studios that produced these films, don't go back and remake them in 3D.
There is another side to 3D technology that I think has plenty of potential but doesn't get a lot of attention. Hollywood may be using 3D to entertain, but I think the technical folks behind the creation process can bring that knowledge to teachers and educators. 3D should not be something you only experience in a dark theater with popcorn. I believe 3D has the ability to create new ways to visualize subjects such as anatomy, biology, astronomy. Entertainment maybe where 3D technology has been and where it is now, but education could be where goes in the future.