Virtual unreality

Believe it or not, the flimsy, fashion-faux-pas-plastic-glasses-you-wouldn’t-be-caught-dead-in-on-any-normal-day is the key.

Donning said glasses opens the portal to literally another dimension — of the third kind, that is. In this world, the possibility of a gun barrel being pointed right in your face, of an avalanche falling right on top of your head, or of a freaky, grinning cat’s head floating not so subtly towards you becomes so real you can almost touch it.

Almost, but not quite.

For even though you shrink back into your plushy leather seat or cover your face from the onslaught of oncoming images, you know that these things can’t hurt you; that they don’t even brush past the edges of reality. In fact, you, the spectator, hold the fate of the entire three-dimensional world in your hands, with a single weapon rendering everything obsolete.

Indeed, to paraphrase the inimitable campaign slogan of US politics: It’s the glasses, stupid.

* * *

It’s amazing how the resurgence of the 3D experience has gotten everybody scrambling to their nearest IMAX theater. Never mind the fact that they’ve already seen Avatar in local cinema houses and on pirated DVD. The ultimate movie experience will remain incomplete until they witness Jake Sully and his band of blue humanoid giraffes actually duking it out off-screen.

Funnily enough, 3D movies have been around since the 1950s with the earliest form of 3D going all the way back to 1890 — back when we were still under Spanish rule. Mind-blowing, I agree. And while the lovable theme parks of our childhood (yes, Enchanted Kingdom, that’s you) were already featuring 3D films at the turn of the 21st century, it’s only now that the stereoscopic fever can be said to have truly erupted…arguably due to Avatar’s 3D film version reaping megaton success at the box-office.

Case in point, one cannot help but detect the blast of enthusiasm emanating from the industry bigwigs, since only every movie in the works seems dead-set on coming out in 3D. From the tentative roster of upcoming three-dimensional blockbusters, we have, in the new-blue corner: Transformers 3, The Addams Family, and the fourth Twilight movie (heaven forbid), among others. Meanwhile, we have, in the remake-red corner: Titanic, Jaws, 300, and, get this — a retelling of the Genesis creation story from the Bible. Yes, the Bible. In 3D. Nothing is sacred anymore.

There are various ways of looking at this expeditious rise in the entertainment industry. One point, of course, has to do with the fact that this trend means that humanity is once more on the brink of a new frontier, in cutting-edge technological innovation, and then some. In fact, Panasonic, that giant manufacturer of electronics galore, released just this month its 3D home entertainment system — the Panasonic Full HD 3D plasma home theater system. Complete with the Panasonic 3D active shutter lens eyewear, of course. One can’t be too careful in simply labeling this contraption a TV system with personal plastic sunglasses. Good God, no.

There has also been talk of a new 3D viewing system without the gaudy glasses, as well as talks of integrating 3D into video games.

Advancements in the entertainment industry lead you to wonder — at what cost? Blind consumerism is already at an all-time high, and the revival of 3D has only served to intensify our human propensity for commodity fetishism. The worst part is, what we’re currently going gaga over doesn’t even exist — except in the world of the hyper-real, the world of endless image reproduction and simulation. Don’t even get me started on how the 3D movement has intensified commercialization by a hundred-fold.

Adam and Eve, in all their naked glory, rendered in three-dimensional form? Come on.

Amid all this virtual insanity, what people fail to realize is that their living vicariously through the 3D spectacle can only go so far. The fantasy ends once we remove the glasses.