I love rugby. I played it in college, and again for a few years as an adult. If you’ve never played, imagine American football merged with soccer. Rugby is extremely fast-paced, with lots of hits and action.
Part of that fast pace means sometimes you’re left scrambling trying to follow the game. O2 and Cineworld are riding the 3D craze with a new way to change that; they’re airing England’s national rugby games in theaters in 3D! From the Guardian‘s review, it seems like it was overall a huge success:
The international game has long been a geometric business, a quest for the patch of space. The players are basically cuboid. They look alarmingly solid in 3D, at least when they’re standing still. In the loose, with bodies appearing from curious angles, there was something spectral about it, like a Victorian ghost hoax.
Cinema has yet to solve the problem of 3D glasses (instead the glasses have been made-over into a glossy aviator homage) so we filed into our multiplex seats like 250 jazz drummers, or 250 nightclub barflies. The idea of all this is to replicate a “stadium experience” and there was a matey rowdiness about the place. They even stood up for the national anthem. And pretty soon it became clear 3D might even be a panacea for rugby’s cinematic achilles heel: the amount of time spent watching a tiny ball being booted into the clouds. A period of aerial ping-pong in the first half frankly leapt off the screen. Jonny Wilkinson’s opening penalty actually, properly sailed between the posts. Who needs flair? Who needs the 30-metre break? We have meticulously detailed ball-hoofing and an unusual clarity of slow-ball ruck.
If any of that didn’t make sense to you, you can read up on rugby here (or just leave a question in the comments, and I will do my best to answer you!). What I want to know is, when will this catch on in America? Personally, I’d love to see hockey in 3D…what about you?
Via GuardianUK