Why 3D Doesn't Work and Never Will

Roger Ebert, posts a letter from Walter Murch, “the most respected film editor and sound designer in the modern cinema,” why 3D doesn’t work and never will:

The biggest problem with 3D, though, is the “convergence/focus” issue. A couple of the other issues — darkness and “smallness” — are at least theoretically solvable. But the deeper problem is that the audience must focus their eyes at the plane of the screen — say it is 80 feet away. This is constant no matter what.

But their eyes must converge at perhaps 10 feet away, then 60 feet, then 120 feet, and so on, depending on what the illusion is. So 3D films require us to focus at one distance and converge at another. And 600 million years of evolution has never presented this problem before. All living things with eyes have always focussed and converged at the same point.

I hate 3D. Loved Avatar, but everything else so far was just darker, more expensive, and gained nothing from the 3Dification. If my local theater gave me a choice, I would never opt for 3d.