Warner Brothers is celebrating its 90th anniversary by re-releasing many of its classic films including The Wizard of Oz. The movie will be converted to 3D for the DVD, but will be released first in theaters in the new format.
This was no doubt brought on by other conversions of 2D movies to 3D, re-released in theaters including; Star Wars, Titanic, and strangest of all various traditionally animated Disney films. The timing of this re-release is no coincidence, Sam Rami’s Oz: The Great and Powerful will be released this March in 3D, and Paramount will look to capitalize on what is sure to be a spike in the interest surrounding Oz.
When rendering a film shot in 2D to 3D, the results can range from decent to horrendous. The problems that face a film being converted to 3D are numerous, and even if the conversion is done well the entire undertaking is frankly very unsettling and totally unnecessary.
Converting the 73 year old classic film to 3D is nothing more than a pathetic cash grab, reminiscent of the colorization controversy of the 80’s. There was severe backlash against Ted Turner’s colorization of classic black and white films including; Casablanca and It’s a Wonderful Life, and if this becomes a trend we could see similar controversy once again.
