3-D Remake of Titanic in 2012

With newspapers like U.S.A. Today reporting that Titanic will be re-released in 2012 as a 3-D movie, 100 years after the doomed ship hit an iceberg, movie buffs are speculating on what other old movies might be remade into 3-D. The huge financial success of James Cameron's Avatar, shot in 3-D, and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, converted into 3-D after shooting, opens the floodgates to popular older movies resurfacing in 3-D, not unlike an aging actress who tries to resuscitate her drowning career with a face lift.

Other popular movies that are likely to be converted to 3-D are the Star Wars series and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, according to a recent article in the Sunday Times of London. "Hollywood execs must be breathing a huge sigh of relief!" commented Times reader Pete Rogers. "Instead of having to wonder what film to remake or churn out a sequel for next-or what 80s series to make into a film-they can remake every action film ever as a 3-D."

While movies like Titanic at least have a story line, many of the movies that are likely to be remade in 3-D, such as George Lucas's Star Wars franchise, are noted more for their special effects and action scenes than sophisticated plots or characters.

A recent comic strip illustrated this trend away from literary film-making with a teenage boy raving to his father about a 3-D movie he'd just seen that was loaded with special effects. "What was it about?" asked the father. The son looked at him curiously, as if his father had just turned into a dinosaur. "Who knows?" he said. "That's not the point."

For many movie-goers these days, the plot is not the point. Nor are the characters. What draws modern ticket buyers into movie theaters is pharmatainment, the thrill seeking high derived from multi-sensory high-tech visual and sound effects that flood movie viewers with a roller coaster rush of adrenaline.

For people who grew up with movies that contained complex, riveting plots and three-dimensional characters (psychologically and emotionally 3-D, not visually), the trend toward style over substance threatens to turn Hollywood movies into animated big screen comic books.

Times reader Steve Irving was concerned about the effect 3-D movies will have on the future of movie making. "If 3-D becomes the new standard then no new studio projects that rely simply on story and characterisation are likely to see the light of day," he wrote. "Avatar may have been visually stunning, but it was otherwise bereft of any virtue. It will be a sad day if the magic of cinema is forever replaced by the spectacle of it."

Sources:

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2010/03/james-cameron/1

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article6982297.ece

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1258336/Titanic-3-D-James-Camerons-Avatar-followup-2012.html