Avatar isn't the first film to claim to be the ultimate 3-D experience, with the format going through two real boom periods in the 50's and then the 80's.
To go along with the release of Avatar worldwide this week, we here at FemaleFirst decided to take a look back through our multicoloured specs and see what the biggest films to hit three dimensions have been.
They may not be the best, but at least they tried the hardest.
Number 1 – Up
Easily the best film to receive the 3-D treatment yet, Disney Pixar’s tale about an elderly man attaching balloons to his house to achieve a life long dream was a smash hit this summer.
With 3-D used as a device for expansion, not as a cheap gimmick, Up showed others how to truly use 3-D in a way to increase your viewing pleasure. Matching beautifully the paint box colour palette and simplistic art style of the film, Up is the bench mark for all other 3-D movies to follow.
Number 2 – Coraline
Pre-empting the great surge of summer animated films that needed glasses to watch properly, Coraline showed, even before Up, how to use the latest improvements in 3-D tech.
It told the story of Coraline, a young girl who upon moving to a new house discovers a doorway to a magical land, where everything is made for her and everyone gives her all the attention she could ever want. Trouble is, they want her to stay forever and behind the kind words lay nasty intentions.
Helped hugely by its stop motion animation, which added with the 3-D added a weight and solidity to its players that the following computer animations simply didn’t have.
Number 3 – Beowulf
Robert Zemeckis is, like James Cameron, a great ambassador for both CGI and 3-D. The man behind Forrest Gump and Back To The Future had another go at using ‘digital’ actors after the successful Polar Express with his version of Beowul.
This interpretation of the ancient story saw a computerised version of Ray Winstone (with a lot of digital help around the mid-drift) taking on the ancient tale set in the age of the Vikings, helping save a digital Anthony Hopkins protect his village from the monster known as ‘Grendel’.
Although the film was in actual fact mediocre, the experience was something to behold. Shown on the enormous, house sized IMax screen and with fancy goggles on, you could almost forgive the rubbery faces and plodding pace.
Number 4 – Friday The 13th Part 3
One of numerous films to have the third instalment in 3-D, none offered as much as this early 80’s horror movie.
Giving the audience the most intense horror experience yet seen in this format, Friday the 13th not only saw the introduction of the killer’s iconic hockey mask, but also saw the audience get 
a yo-yo flying at them and a spear going straight for their eyes.
Easily the horror that tried the most to make the new way of filmmaking and for that reason alone disserves to be on the list.
Number 5 – House Of Wax
Let’s get this straight; this is the 1953 version, not the rubbish Paris Hilton vehicle of 2005.
Not to say that the original remake, if there can be such a thing, is a landmark of cinema, but was defiantly one of the more successful and iconic users of 3-D during the format’s first golden period of the 1950s.
Starring Vincent Price as the deformed wax museum owner and western star Charles Bronson as his assistant Igor, House Of Wax shocked audiences at the time with what would become the trademark ‘coming-at-you’ moments.
That the finest of these, a moment when a ball was hit repeatedly at the audience on a string was even put into this year’s Monsters vs Aliens as a reference says something.
Number 6 – Terminator 2 – Battle Through Time
Ok, ok, it’s not a movie, it’s a theme park ride, but it was simply massive in scal
e.
The ride, which was installed at the Universal Studios theme parks in Orlando and Los Angeles in America along with Osaka, Japan, Battle Through Time was one of the most ambitious viewing experiences to date.
Despite only being ---- minutes long it cost an estimated $60m, making it the most expensive film ever made per minute. Accompanied by a live action stage show Battle Through Time was James Cameron’s test run for Avatar.
Bringing Linda Hamilton, Eddie Furlong, Robert Patrick and Arnold Schwarzenegger back together for one last try and confronting amazed audiences with a giant liquid metal spider, there’s no doubt that Battle Through Time deserves it’s place on spectacle alone.
FemaleFirst Cameron Smith
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