Did you know that Tim Burton‘s Alice in Wonderland was not conceived or created as a 3-D film? Nope: it was jury-rigged postproduction for 3-D because, well, Avatar proved that 3-D is awesome! And everyone can charge more for it! (Did the ticket prices for 3-D just jump in your neighborhood? They did in mine, from $16.50 to $17.50 … and that’s before service charges if you buy online.)

It’s not like the fakeness of Alice‘s 3-D is a fact that has been bandied about. I did not know this until after I had reviewed the film. It did occur to me while watching it that the 3-D was pretty pointless, not to mention distracting. But Burton thinks this is fine. Dig deep enough into Disney’s press notes for the film, and you find this tidbit:

I didn’t see the benefit of shooting in 3-D.

That’s Burton talking. I guess he hadn’t seen Avatar at that point.

Poo-poo James Cameron if you must, but Alice went a long way toward proving that his decade-plus of work in pushing the technology and then all the time and money and effort that went into creating Avatar as a fully, genuinely 3-D project worked. Whatever qualms you may have with that film’s stories or characters, the fact is that the 3-D is so beautifully immersive that you feel like you’re walking on Pandora next to Jake Sully.

In Alice, the Cheshire Cat may be In. Your. Face, but you never feel like you’re walking through Wonderland next to Alice.

See also: the wonderful How to Train Your Dragon, which was created in 3-D from the ground up, and which actually puts Avatar‘s flying sequences to shame.

And now we’re faced with Clash of the Titans … in 3-D, of course. The film was not shot in 3-D, but that won’t stop multiplexes from charging a hefty premium for you to see it retrofitted with Kraken tentacles flying out at you and stuff. The advance buzz on the final 3-D film? It ain’t good.

Look: When Michael Bay is crying artistic foul on anything, it’s gotta be bad. (He’s being pressured, apparently, to let Paramount and DreamWorks do a 3-D pass on Transformers 3, and he’s not keen on the idea.)

We need to come up with a label for these fake 3-D movies. I assume Hollywood will not go for slapping a “In Real Fake 3-D!” sticker across its products, but surely there’s a middle ground to be found, one that gives ticket buyers the information they need to decide whether it’s worth paying extra for a 3-D ticket or whether a normally overpriced 2-D ticket will suffice. What do you think: What should we call fake 3-D movies?

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MaryAnn Johanson is in actual 3-D all the time at FlickFilosopher.com. (email me)

Tags: 3-d, avatar, clash of the titans