Avatar 3D Blu-ray (2009) [Region Free] [Theatrical Cut only]

[morphinapg]

Originally Posted by bavanut

There are occasional shots throughout Avatar 2 that are in 2-D. Just to give it a number, let's say 1% of the film is flat. These moments tend to be brief establishing shots that cover a wide field of view from a great distance with little or no foreground action or detail. Such scenes would have very little parallax anyway if shot using wide lenses and a normal interaxial of about 65 millimeters, so I find no fault whatsoever with this visual strategy of occasional selective 2-D.

Technically those shots are 3D and if you look closely there is a very subtle hint of depth. While yes this is realistic as this is how we see distant objects, it is NOT how we expect to see them when viewing a 3D movie. In real life, we will pretty much always have closer objects to us to give us perspective for the distance. When a shot is 100% distance, you don't have that, so it looks wrong compared to what we expect to see. I think it is a much better idea to separate the lenses further for shots like that, and when those shots are 100% cgi, there's no excuse not to do that. Heck, even Peter Jackson achieved noticeable depth in shots like that for The Hobbit, with native live action 3D.

It's been over a year since I watched the first movie in 3D but I don't recall the establishing shots looking that flat. Didn't that other post say that Cameron split shots in the first movie so that the foreground and backgrounds would be captured with different levels of separation, for better exaggeration of depth in the distance? If that's the case, it doesn't appear he did that this time.