It always takes time to learn how to use a new technology.
Is 55 years enough? Because that's how long it's been since the boomlet in 3D movies in the early 1950s. The 3D technology then -- linear polarized images -- was only slightly different from the circular polarization dominating today's 3D offerings.
The special effects -- especially computerized -- that can give 3D some extra sizzle have improved and become more cheap. Audiences are wealthier and more novelty-seeking. But 3D still involves downsides that aren't needed for most storytelling -- making some people ill or distracted, lingering focus issues, shrinking the number of angles/seats in a theater that give a good view, increasing production costs, washed out colors.
I expect 3D to continue oscillating in popularity over the years, at a slightly higher background level of use, but never becoming the usual/majority format. (Or, by the time 3D does become dominant, there will have been such major advances in displays that movies are no longer displayed on giant screens, but sent to each viewers' eye-mounted heads-up display, or neural-visual interface.)
Is 55 years enough? Because that's how long it's been since the boomlet in 3D movies in the early 1950s. The 3D technology then -- linear polarized images -- was only slightly different from the circular polarization dominating today's 3D offerings.
The special effects -- especially computerized -- that can give 3D some extra sizzle have improved and become more cheap. Audiences are wealthier and more novelty-seeking. But 3D still involves downsides that aren't needed for most storytelling -- making some people ill or distracted, lingering focus issues, shrinking the number of angles/seats in a theater that give a good view, increasing production costs, washed out colors.
I expect 3D to continue oscillating in popularity over the years, at a slightly higher background level of use, but never becoming the usual/majority format. (Or, by the time 3D does become dominant, there will have been such major advances in displays that movies are no longer displayed on giant screens, but sent to each viewers' eye-mounted heads-up display, or neural-visual interface.)