It has been well established by now that the movie I'm a part of, Monsters vs. Aliens, is the first animated, fully stereoscopic 3D film. Although other studios have released a few movies in stereo already (Meet the Robinsons, Beowulf to name a couple), our movie is being produced in stereo 3D from the get-go, whereas before the stereoscopic part was added in post-production after a movie was finished. This is a HUGE transition for us and the industry as a whole, so DreamWorks Animation has been really working hard to make sure all of its employees are educated on the subject. I'm practically a stereoscopic 3D expert after the amount of classes I've had to sit through.

Journey to the Center of the Earth, a fully stereo 3D live action film, was just released this past weekend and the studio decided to screen it for the "Monsters vs. Aliens" and "How to Train Your Dragon" crews. I was glad because it meant we all got to take a break and watch a movie during work hours. Imagine how bad it was when I came out of the theater an hour and a half later wishing I had used my time to update shot status documents instead.

It was literally one of the most God-awful movies I have ever seen. It was truly horrible, so bad it defied all logic. I need to make it clear that "Monsters vs. Aliens" is literally doing everything in its power not to fall into the crappy-3D-gimmick category that "Journey to the Center of the Earth" did. Unfortunately for us, that movie just gave theater-goers the first impression that all stereo movies are stupid pieces of cheesy crap. Literally everything you're not supposed to do in stereo 3D was done in this movie: deep space wasn't utilized to its potential, stereo windows were ignored, the plot hinged on what could be done in stereo, and bad gimmicks were in abundance.

Just because it's 3D doesn't give you the right to make characters hold out their hands forever (Lookie! My hand is in front of your face! Wooooooo!) or make things fly out of the screen at you. Stereoscopic 3D works best when things are floating in the middle of the screen, and boy did this atrocious movie make use of that. They had birds that flew in the middle of the screen, tape measures that pointed out at you, random objects falling towards you, people/dinosaurs that spit at you, and - I kid you not - floating rocks. Yes, there are floating rocks in this movie. While stereoscopic 3D is indeed a gimmick to get people to go to theaters, you shouldn't forget that the movie will also be released in a mono version for TV and DVDs, not to mention other non-3D theaters. It's so incongruous, and people can tell right away when the mono version they are watching was originally made for 3D.

It also had a lot of issues with the stereo actually breaking. This is a common issue that we're having right now on our movie, but the difference is that we actually CATCH IT and FIX IT. This was not so with "Journey to the Center of the Earth." They had tons of issues with reflections rendering in the right eye and not the left, skin translucency breaking in one eye (usually the left), several CG elements kept popping in different eyes, and CG bump-mapped textures flattened out as they got closer to the screen.

Also, FYI to all you directors out there, DEPTH OF FIELD IS NOT YOUR FRIEND IN STEREOSCOPIC 3D. In stereo, you are literally seeing that Z-dimension on the screen, and your eyes react as though they were looking at a real-life scene. That means you may want to focus on something in the background, but with depth of field on, it's permanently out of focus and your eyes will freak out until you focus back on whatever it was the camera is focused on. Depth of field is especially bad if there's blur on the foreground, it works in mono films but is horrible on your eyes in stereo. A tiny bit of depth of field is great, but used to the extent that you would in a 2D film will get you into major trouble.

As if the super obvious gimmicks weren't enough, the movie itself was a total work of FAIL. The plot was basically nonexistent, the characters were wooden and unlikable, and you couldn't suspend your disbelief due to the sheer absurdity of the stunts. Look, I like adventure movies as much as the next person, but really good adventure movies don't blatantly violate ALL laws of physics, thermodynamics, and biology.

Why Brendan Fraser, why?! I love you so much, why did you have to act in this P.O.S movie?

The stereoscopic 3D people working on Monsters vs. Aliens have really been nit-picking the hell out of it and now I understand why. MvA has to work perfectly in both mono AND stereo, we can't pull stupid crap like "Journey to the Center of the Earth" did. At least I can sleep well knowing we're using stereoscopic 3D to merely add something extra to the film, not carry it.