I haven’t seen Tron: Legacy yet.
This is not a tragedy, but I do regret it, a bit. I may, in fact, go see it by myself in theaters. Why? Because I’ve been told that if I plan to see it at all, it’s worth seeing 3D (and possibly IMAX, if I’m willing to spend 20 bucks on Tron.)
I’ve done this before. A year ago, no one particularly wanted to go see Avatar by the time I was in a position to see it, but I plunked down the cash and saw it in Imax-3D by myself. And I’m glad I did; the films’ merits were best showcased by the format, and I don’t think I’d have appreciated it as fully watching the Netflix DVD or, perhaps worse but more likely, streaming it over my variably reliable wireless connection.
This is not to say I’m a 3D nut: quite the contrary. I’ve been vociferous in my disapproval for retroactively added 3D – one of the worst things about the terrible Last Airbender was the washed-out, poorly-rendered 3D effects, and it really added nothing to Alice in Wonderland for me.
However, there is a difference for me between a film shot in 3D, and a film that the studios are trying to milk for extra cash. It’s not that the former is always good, but I will pause and seriously consider paying more for the in-theater, 3D experience.
It boils down to directorial intentions.
Now, as a former literature student, I know that authorial intentions are a contested subject, and film studies seem to be no different, from my more limited experience. We can’t know what a filmmaker was thinking, shot for shot. Even in the age of interviews and the ubiquity of directors’ commentaries, artists are often uninteresting or flat out wrong about their own work.
That said, however, I do think artists – including filmmakers – should be able to show their work to best effect.
Of course, this is a pipe dream, in some ways. Especially for Hollywood films, they are as much or more product than art, and repackaging is par for the course. Colorization, the process of adding color to film originally shot in black and white, is generally frowned upon by film critics, but often undertaken by studios hoping to reach an audience who might avoid older films without it. Though I understand wanting to open a film to a broader audience, the director and the cinematographer made choices of composition and lighting based on the monochrome format. Including a colorized version on a DVD is one thing, but I am nothing but sympathetic in cases like John Houston’s, regarding broadcasting or re-releasing a colorized film.
In some ways, the DVD has been a boon, in that it has allowed for the option of including both (as my copy of Miracle on 34th Street does). The combination of DVDs and wide-screen TVs has also done great things to popularize letterboxing. (I had the worst time convincing one of my aunts that I wanted letterboxed DVDs when I asked for movies as gifts.) Many sets will include both versions, but formatting for a square screen is slowly fading out, which is just as well for me. Pan-and-scan, as cropping for fullscreen was often called, seldom took composition or framing into account.
There’s certainly a contingent of viewers who feel like this fuss about colorization or aspect ratios or composition is a tempest in a teakettle. After all, many viewers grew up exposed to films on square TVs, cut with commercials, edited for time and content. The good films hold up, for the most part, and who cares about the bad ones?
But the truth is that films that deserve serious consideration deserve to be seen the way the filmmaker intended. This isn’t always possible, of course; not everyone can afford a state-of-the-art home cinema, or to see every movie they watch in the theater. But it pays to take the effort to get close, when given a choice. As for the less-than-serious films, that’s up to the viewer. I’ll eventually see Rabbit Hole at home, and be no worse off for it, but the enjoyment I got from Iron Man 2 would have been partly lost, watching it at home.
So, since I do intend to eventually see Tron: Legacy out of my deep childhood affection for the original, I really should get my act together and go out this weekend. If I’m going to like it, I should try it at its best. That’s all a filmmaker can ask.
The Exploding Macguffin 