Ever since I was 13 I have had to wear glasses. I imagine my eyesight wasn’t all that great before hand either, but I’d never really noticed it. I guess if you live your entire life seeing things a certain way you just assume that’s how they’re supposed to look. Whether it was the extra work secondary school provided me with that made the strain on my eyes start to tell, or whether it was just the realisation that every male in my family had glasses and it was odd that I didn’t that made me decide that the opticians was a good place to go, I’m not sure. But whatever it was, the opticians is where I went. Initially my specs were tinted. They looked a bit like the sort of things an 80’s pop singer would wear in a video set on a beach, where he was surrounded by semi-naked foreign woman sipping cocktails as the digitally enhanced sun shone down on their glistening bodies. Alas, I was not an 80’s pop singer, I was a lanky 13 year old boy with a bad hair cut and the curse of puberty setting in way before any of my friends, meaning my voice sounded ridiculous and I looked ridiculous. Bright blue glasses did not help this situation. My maths teacher once told me to, “Take off those ridiculous sunglasses,” as if I would have chosen to wear them if I had any alternative. Fortunately I had a medical card proving I needed them, so got to keep them on for the rest of the lesson. Lucky.
Anyway, this is beside the point. Ever since I was 13 I have had to wear glasses. They are a lot less blue now, thank God, and my current pair were brought purely to make me look like the bitter, wino writer I one day intend to be. Whatever the design, glasses have been required.
Now there’s something everyone should understand about glasses: the majority of people who have to wear glasses would rather not. People who wear them because they think they make them look good are just tits and should be ashamed of themselves. You wouldn’t wear a sling round your arm if it weren’t broken because you thought it looked good, so why wear glasses unless you have to?
So, bearing that in mind, why is it someone thought it would be a good idea to create technology that is specifically designed to force you to wear glasses? Really uncomfortable, massive, black, hard to wear glasses should never be linked to something you’re meant to enjoy, which is why 3D films are a fad that can never last until something is made to make the glasses obsolete.
The things are hard enough to wear (and make you look stupid enough) when you don’t already have glasses of your own, but imagine my discomfort upon placing these plastic lumps over my pre-existing specs and having to pay an extra pound for the privilege. Having to constantly readjust both pairs throughout the 2 and a half hour experience, having to force my ears to allow for two pairs to fit on and having to squint all the time just to figure out what was going on is not my idea of a good evening out.
The film, that I’d already seen before in 2D and was simply seeing again for a friend, was good. I liked it, both times. But was the extra discomfort really worth those 30 seconds of decent 3D footage? No. Had the film leapt out of the screen at me, had it made me feel as if I was really there, then maybe I wouldn’t have minded so much. But none of this happened. In reality I just had to pay extra to be less comfortable and to get a massive headache at the end of it all. To add to all of this, before the film began I saw an advert for a 3D mobile phone. I won’t be rushing to the shops any time soon.
One day someone important will realise this is all a fad and create a way that you can watch 3D without having to go through it all. Until then I’ll just sit and moan in solitude, complaining to myself about something that in a few weeks time I’ll probably end up doing again.