You know things are bad, when a guy who's spent a good chunk of his career obsessing about a sunken ship thinks he can do things better. Yes, James "what has he done for us lately" Cameron has entered the world of 3D movies. The worst bit is, Ubisoft has jumped on board to make a 3D game of said movie and the words "3D" and "glasses" are being used in quick succession.
Forgive me if the mere utterance of "3D movie" takes me back to my childhood, when the TV guide came with a free pair of paper glasses, featuring one green or blue and one red lens. Oh the bitter disappointment that was Jaws 3-D and eponymous blob didn't really do it for me either, in glorious shades of grey, with a bit of red and green.
The fact that James Cameron is at the helm (if you'll excuse the pun) of this 3D ship doesn't instil me with much confidence either. Yes, yes, I know Aliens rocks, but The Abyss does not and Titanic is frankly the most overrated movie ever, ever, EVER! Not only is it the most overrated movie ever (yeah, just had to say it one more time), but then Mr. Cameron had to bleat on and on about the "mystical" sunken ship, bringing us documentaries and more guff about the biggest white elephant to sail the seven seas.
Cameron has apparently come through his Titanic obsession and now moved onto 3D movies. But not content with that, he feels he needs to ‘fix' the games industry too and put us all back in giant goggles with electrodes stuck all over our bodies. Remember when Mark Hamill moved on from the Star Wars trilogy to make interactive movies? And we all know how that ended.
Avatar is Cameron's latest movie and many will be pleased to see him return to sci-fi, especially as Sigourney Weaver is on board, along with Michelle Rodriquez. Cameron aims to make a fully 3D movie and is determined to take advantage of stereoscopic projectors in cinemas.
Talking to Cnet, Cameron said, "Stereo production is the next big thing. We are born seeing in three dimensions. Most animals have two eyes and not one. There is a reason I think."
Yeah, the reason is evolution. Two eyes makes it easier to judge distance and hunt for food, you know in that survival of the species type of way, rather than, ooh it makes car chases look cool kind of way. Cameron thinks he's the first person to state that 3D games would be awesome.
"You are in the game," he said. "This is the ultimate immersive media." Whoa, somebody give the man a peanut. Why is that movie types always think the games industry needs them to come up with great ideas? If it's not Gore Verbinski telling us to innovate, rather than chasing mindless sequels, despite his own Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy flogging a good thing to death, then it's Mr. Titanic coming up with the most unoriginal idea since Superhero Movie.
So that's where the games industry's been going wrong all these years. Guys, all we need to do is make 3D games, cos like we see in 3D, not like 2D and it would be like way cooler. Oh duh – why didn't we think of that before!? Thank the maker for these movie types with all their crazy, genius ideas.
Ubisoft is working on the game version of Avatar and apparently has a stereoscopic game running using a standard Xbox 360 and yes, you guessed it – 3D glasses. According to Cameron, displays on laptops and the like can be made stereoscopic so that we can dispense with the special glasses. He thinks we need 3D Windows, in fact everything needs to be 3D.
Let's just hope nobody tells Cameron about the other dimensions, otherwise he'll have another kick ass bee in his bonnet. Ah, to hell with it. Oi Cameron! Stick string theory in your pipe and smoke it – not so clever now are we!?
Most played: Mass Effect
Most wanted: Fable 2