Spiders 3D

[Taygan315]

I dug it. 3D was really good. Looked like a native 3D movie. If this was a conversion it's a damn fine one. This will be a guilty pleasure for me.....like Piranha (the first one) and Bait.

[Jsmith82]

I loved this movie haha!

There were some light issues with the 3d rig where camera 1 would pickup a reflection camera 2 wasn't, but overall the 3d was very impressive. It reminded me of Drive Angry, I'm curious if they used the same cameras and / or setup. Lots of depth, some very heavy parallax - it amuses me that this movie has better 3d then the majority of blockbuster 3d films!

Movie wise, I was totally entertained. If you go into a direct to disc science fiction movie about alien spiders that came to earth on a Russian satellite expecting to see grammy award winning performances and heart filled tear jerking speeches, get out of town mac. This is good ol' fashion low budget fun, the acting was horrid, at least from the leading character. The military actions were funny as well, like watching dumb and dumber - Army addition. The effects and CGI were very well done! Very convincing! This is the type of popcorn flick you can throw in with friends over, and have a great time watching.

At 16.99 (Best Buy), this was a successful blind buy and what I would now call a no-brainer addition to the 3d collection . I had read this may be the first in a few more 3D Syfy movies to come from this particular director, I hope they keep it coming!


Edit:

Spiders 3D: Silicon Imaging 2K Cameras

Drive Angry 3D:Silicon imaging Sl-2K Cameras

I do not know enough about 3D camera rigs or types to confirm this, but I was able to dig up the information above on the rigs used for each film - the 3D in this film is so comparable to the 3D in Drive Angry, to the parallax to the look of it to the reflective lighting problems, if I had to give a quality comparison that would be it.

[tigermoth]

If you enjoy the so bad/stupid their good type movies like Bait 3D, Spiders 3D, Shark Night 3D and Drive Angry 3D you should make no hesitations in picking up Amphibious 3D. It is king of the so bad their good 3D movies. This is 100% party movie kind of dumb fun. The first three minuets are converted into 3D but the rest of the movie is filmed in 3D. Plenty of pop out shots and strong 3D shots with layering out of the screen. The 3D isn't strong all the way through but still stronger overall than the four other films I first mentioned. I think you will have to import a copy from Europe or Asia if you want it?

[cyberbo60]

Originally Posted by tigermoth

If you enjoy the so bad/stupid their good type movies like Bait 3D, Spiders 3D, Shark Night 3D and Drive Angry 3D you should make no hesitations in picking up Amphibious 3D. It is king of the so bad their good 3D movies. This is 100% party movie kind of dumb fun. The first three minuets are converted into 3D but the rest of the movie is filmed in 3D. Plenty of pop out shots and strong 3D shots with layering out of the screen. The 3D isn't strong all the way through but still stronger overall than the four other films I first mentioned. I think you will have to import a copy from Europe or Asia if you want it?

cant find this movie anywhere

[hotandserious]

Originally Posted by cyberbo60

cant find this movie anywhere

I picked up the German release a few weeks back:
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Amphibious-Blu-ray/61284/

It has English audio, but I can't recall if it is region free or not

[Villiam Hayes]

Originally Posted by hotandserious

I picked up the German release a few weeks back:
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Amphibious-Blu-ray/61284/

It has English audio, but I can't recall if it is region free or not

It's at least A and B.

[Jsmith82]

I found a preview in stereoscopic format:

Amphibious 3D Trailer - YouTube

[CM Matty]

Originally Posted by Villiam Hayes

It's at least A and B.

can anyone confirm that based on personal experience? i know the site says A and B, but everywhere else I've looked says B only for this version.

how violent is it? closer to syfy fare or closer to yuzna's older stuff?

[tigermoth]

Originally Posted by CM Matty

can anyone confirm that based on personal experience? i know the site says A and B, but everywhere else I've looked says B only for this version.

how violent is it? closer to syfy fare or closer to yuzna's older stuff?

I haven't seen his other movies but there was a few moments of extreme/graphic violence. Bodies ripped in half ect.

[Zivouhr]

Originally Posted by Taygan315

I dug it. 3D was really good. Looked like a native 3D movie. If this was a conversion it's a damn fine one. This will be a guilty pleasure for me.....like Piranha (the first one) and Bait.

Originally Posted by Jsmith82

I loved this movie haha!

There were some light issues with the 3d rig where camera 1 would pickup a reflection camera 2 wasn't, but overall the 3d was very impressive. It reminded me of Drive Angry, I'm curious if they used the same cameras and / or setup. Lots of depth, some very heavy parallax - it amuses me that this movie has better 3d then the majority of blockbuster 3d films!

Glad to hear it. Best Buy raised it to 19.99 just as I was about to bite when buying Hobbit 3D. Will keep this one on the buy list, thanks for the info on the 3D of Spiders.

[UFAlien]

Just checked this out. Dreadful, not even in a fun way. I love Asylum / SyFy channel crap, but this was just boringly bad.

The 3D was pretty sad too. This is a perfect example of why native does not equal good. As has been mentioned before, there are a lot of issues with retinal rivalry - reflections, shadows, highlights, etc. not matching between lenses, which looks odd and distracting onscreen. This is some of the worst I've seen - it's in almost every shot, and sometimes it goes so far as having a bright, saturated color in one eye and a washed-out gray in the other on the same object.

Most of the movie was fairly shallow, with only a few scenes I noticed that had noticeably deep parallax. Even those are essentially worthless anyway because of how incompetently the movie was shot. It was done exactly like any 2D TV movie of the week, with absolutely no regard paid to stereography or actually composing things in 3D space. The credited stereographer is Philip Brown, whose only other 3D work was on Eldorado, which was apparently even worse. There's very little pop-out and the attempts at it are usually fairly unsuccessful.

A handful of shots throughout were very obviously and poorly converted, though the majority remains native. Even in native shots, though, CGI makes everything fall apart because the visual effects people show a remarkably consistent total inablilty to render the effects at a depth that matches the footage they're being inserted in. Spiders, glass, explosions, and whatever are almost NEVER where they are supposed to be in 3D space, often appearing "in front of" objects they should be way behind, or vice versa.

In summary: the 3D in this film may be native, but the obvious and complete lack of effort makes it totally sloppy and pointless. Just like the rest of the movie, then. Avoid, hard.

[Gae]

I was going to download the "Amphibious" trailer and watch it in Stereoscopic player but when I compared the separation between both sides and read UFAlien's comments I didn't bother.

I guess if you use properly calibrated 3D cameras (like those used in Drive Angry and other movies like Sanctum) then the 3D should look decent. Unfortunately, it seems like a lot of 3D productions are trying to create 3D by just plonking two cameras or lenses side by side and not doing it very well. I've done this "Cha-Cha" method with a single standard photo camera and its very hit and miss.

Gae

[UFAlien]

Actually Gae, I was talking about Spiders, not Amphibious. I did watch that trailer in Stereo player and it actually looks pretty good.

[Gae]

Originally Posted by UFAlien

Actually Gae, I was talking about Spiders, not Amphibious. I did watch that trailer in Stereo player and it actually looks pretty good.

Yes, I know. I was talking about Amphibious.

I'll check the trailer out now though...

Gae

[Zivouhr]

Originally Posted by Taygan315

I dug it. 3D was really good. Looked like a native 3D movie. If this was a conversion it's a damn fine one. This will be a guilty pleasure for me.....like Piranha (the first one) and Bait.

Thanks Taygan. Another positive 3D review for this one.

Originally Posted by UFAlien

Most of the movie was fairly shallow, with only a few scenes I noticed that had noticeably deep parallax. Even those are essentially worthless anyway because of how incompetently the movie was shot. It was done exactly like any 2D TV movie of the week, with absolutely no regard paid to stereography or actually composing things in 3D space. The credited stereographer is Philip Brown, whose only other 3D work was on Eldorado, which was apparently even worse. There's very little pop-out and the attempts at it are usually fairly unsuccessful. //

In summary: the 3D in this film may be native, but the obvious and complete lack of effort makes it totally sloppy and pointless. Just like the rest of the movie, then. Avoid, hard.

I'll keep it in mind, knowing you have a sharp eye for 3D errors. Thanks.

I wonder about how far apart the double image separation (without 3D glasses on) is for the main subjects of the 3D shot? It varies depending on the goal to keep everything inside the screen or let it pop out a bit, but is a good indicator of how strong or weak the 3D is. If they overlap almost perfectly, that would indicate a flatter foreground object kept inside the screen, or very weak 3D if the background doesn't separate more so.

Drive Angry's 3D is impressive for layers as a suggested comparison, so I'd have to check Spiders 3D out to be sure.