While it seems unnecessary, I'm not really surprised that they'd be doing 3-D rereleases of computer animated films like
Finding Nemo or
Monsters Inc. But it seems really weird to me to be doing 3-D up-conversions of 2-D cell animated movies like
Beauty & the Beast, The Lion King, or
The Little Mermaid.
I wonder how these releases would be doing without the 3-D gimmick. I mean, rereleasing their classics for short theatrical runs used to be standard practice for Disney anyway. In fact, up until the mid-1990s, that was the only way you could see
Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs. I definately have clear memories of going to a rerelease of
The Jungle Book when I was a kid
. And I'm trying to remember if they did a similar thing for
101 Dalmatians or
Pinocchio or
Bambi or
The Aristocats.
I think that if a film was made for 2D, it's artistically inappropriate to convert it to 3D -- just as it's inappropriate to colorize a film that was made to be black-and-white, or to pan-and-scan a film that was framed for widescreen.
I would agree, but (using the color analogy), that would only apply to films like
Schindler's List that were purposefully made in the older format. A movie made
in 2D wasn't necessarily made
for 3D.
Colorization efforts have dramatically improved, btw.
The colorized versions of
Holiday Inn and
My Man Godfrey are particularly good. (The Youtube uploads don't do either movie justice.) I wouldn't be surprised if colorizations were indistinguishable from native color films in another decade or so. 3D conversion, likewise, will surely improve with time - and computer power.
The colorized version of
It's a Wonderful Life on Paramount's 2-disc Collector's Set from 2007 was pretty good too. Although I suspect noir-ish Bogey classics like
The Big Sleep, Casablanca, &
The Maltese Falcon would all look like ass in color. But colorization techniques are looking better. But then, lots of color films from that era look kinda unconvincing anyway. If I didn't know better, I'd swear that
The African Queen had been colorized & badly.
As for 3-D, I'm generally not crazy about it. The glasses just aren't very comfortable for someone who isn't accustomed to wearing glasses. On occasion, it does help to create a more immersive experience when the film is all about transporting me to another world, like
Avatar or
Tron Legacy. Michael Bay also used it to excellent effect getting right up into the action of
Transformers: Dark of the Moon. But other films have left me singularly unimpressed, like
Conan the Barbarian, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, &
Resident Evil: Afterlife. (Although, I'm still kinda tempted to see
The Three Musketeers in 3-D.)
