With both Star Trek Into Darkness and Pacific Rim, directors JJ Abrams and Guillermo Del Toro made it very clear that they didn’t want to shoot their movies in 3D.
Now of course both movies will be coming out next year in 3D, while Abrams and Del Toro now seem fully on board with the format.
So what gives? What changed their minds? And don’t they have enough clout and power to say no to 3D? After all, Warner Brothers tried to get Christopher Nolan to make The Dark Knight Rises in 3D, and he refused. In the case of Pacific Rim, it was reported that American films can’t get screens in China if they’re not in 3D, and this was apparently one reason Pacific Rim would get a 3D conversion.
Del Toro originally told Collider, “To force the 3D effect on robots and monsters that are supposed to be that high, you’re making them miniaturized, you’re making them human-scale. I knew that the 3D effect sounded like a great idea, but it was going to be counter” to what Del Toro wanted.
Yet Del Toro ultimately did an about face on his anti-3D stance. Apparently so has Abrams. At first he told Vulture, “I have nothing against 3D in theory. But I’ve also never run to the movies because something’s in 3D.” He then told Entertainment Weekly, “I did not fight for the 3D. It was something the studio wanted to do. I didn’t want to do it.”
But when Abrams converted a lot of the 2009 Trek movie to 3D it “looked really good. That was the thing which made me think it would be okay.” Now as Abrams elaborates to ComicBookMovie.com, “I’ve been having a lot of fun with it. We have an amazing amount of creative freedom, doing the 3D in post-production.”
Contrary to what other filmmakers believe, that a movie will only look good if you shoot it in 3D from the beginning instead of converting it later, Abrams feels this “is completely not true. In fact, we’re doing a bunch of things with the 3D in this movie that have not been done before, using techniques that have not been seen. All the exterior shots, including the shots in space, are all either shot or rendered in Imax format. It’s the first time a movie has been shot in Imax to this scale and converted to 3D.”
Star Trek Into Darkness has to be the most anticipated genre film of next summer, and it’s also exciting to have Del Toro back with his first film since 2008. Will the 3D be the incredible icing on the cake for both films, or will it take them both to all new levels of awesomeness? The anticipation to find out is palpable, and we’re looking forward to finding out ourselves.
