About 3:00pm yesterday, as a typical Virginia summer storm was kicking up, the power went out in our building, which, as this sort of thing is wont to do, set off the fire alarm, right as the emergency backup diesel generator kicked on right under the window of the desk I’m borrowing and began belching clouds of black smoke. This prompted some of the less level-headed folks in the office to start wailing “FIRE!” before being quickly calmed down.

In any case, the fire marshall folks herded the entire building into an interior downstairs hallway (it was raining hard outside, and there were tornado warnings), dark except for the lights of people’s smartphone screens and the regular flashing of the alarm lights, where we were subjected to cruel and unusual experiments involving loud noises and cramped spaces for an hour or so before the fire department finally showed up to pronounce things safe and turn the alarm off.

That pretty much blew the rest of the day. I left soon after, only to find that many of the traffic lights in the area were disabled thanks to the power issues, and traffic was terrible.

Of note is the fact that earlier in the week, I was unceremoniously shunted over to the other office for a while in order to bail out assist with testing efforts on the project I left eight months ago (I suppose it’s nice to be asked for by name, but…). As such, I had a nice long drive ahead of me involving the beltway and signal outages, so I decided to amuse myself locally for a few hours before attempting to navigate the mess.

I found, luckily, a 3D screening of Transformers: The Dark of the Moon, which was just enough to kill two and a half hours, and with matinee prices, was actually somewhat affordable for this market.

Now that the Harry Knowles context pargraphs are out of the way, I guess I can talk about the experience, as this was actually my first experience with “modern” 3D theatrical presentation, save a few amusement park 4D rides over the years. I was pleasantly surprised to find I thought it was pretty cool, and not particularly headache inducing, as is sometimes reported. The simulated depth was sort of distracting at the beginning, but as the film went on, my brain kind of went with it, and I enjoyed the experience. Part of this is probably the fact that the film was conceived and shot for 3D, rather than having been converted in post-production. The 3D trailer for Captain America, a film converted in post, shown before the main feature, was not as seamless; it looked neat, but gimmicky (not unlike those old ViewMaster slide wheels). I’ll be seeing that film, but will almost certainly opt for a 2D screening.

I think the decision to shoot Transformers 3 in 3D also made the film better. To make effective use of the technology, you need longer shots (as they say it takes the human eye and brain a few seconds to process the depth of field). As a result, it made Director Michael “quick cut” Bay slow down a bit. This lets the viewer’s eyes fully absorb the majesty of three dimensions, and in a pleasant side effect, lets the audience actually see what’s going on in a given scene.

In the end, this is a Transformers movie, so the plot’s not going to be particularly deep. That said, personally, I’ll give the film better marks than most reviewers, who largely said, “eh, at least it wasn’t a jumbled mess like number 2.” Of the three, I’d say I liked this one the best, if only because it seems to take a little time to let at least some of the robots besides Optimus Prime be characters. Not complex characters, by any stretch, but actual characters rather than simply special effects. For example, Megatron and Starscream actually get a few moments that feel like the classic dynamic from the cartoons and comics (best example was the Lincoln Memorial, short as it was), which I appreciated.

So, to summarize: modern 3D, when done well, can be pretty cool. However, don’t bother unless the film was actually shot in 3D, conversions are just kind of distracting. TF3 was actually quite good, and I think a lot of why had to do with the fact that the 3D forced the director to focus on things like scenes and characters long enough for them to sink in a bit and create a connection with the audience.

Finally: What does “recycled” mean in terms of the glasses? Do they melt them down, send them back to the distributor, or do they have a heat-activated wrapping machine in the back that they just re-seal the old glasses and put them back into circulation? For no particular reason, I held onto mine – I’m sure someone’s hacked an alternate use for ’em out there somewhere. Anybody know of one?