The Nightmare Before Christmas in Disney 3D

[Image: jack skellington]I went to see The Nightmare Before Christmas at El Capitan (Disney’s fancy theater in Hollywood) on Wednesday night for my friend’s birthday. They usually show the movie for about a month every year starting in October, and I tend to go every time because I just don’t get tired of this film.

This time, though, Disney has somehow redone the entire movie with their 3D enhancement technology. Basically, they give you a pair of Blues Brothers-like 3D glasses and the movie really gets an extra dimension.

I have no idea what the process is to convert a movie, but given that Nightmare was basically a 10-year claymation project to begin with, I can guarantee you that they didn’t re-shoot it. But I saw a huge difference, not in having things “jump out” at you, like 3D is classically used, but just adding a real sense of depth to the sets - I really felt like background was…farther away? It was really impressive.

Also, surprisingly, a bunch of the effects came from ILM, a company that’s been on my no-no list ever since they screwed up so badly with Jar-Jar Binks and Weta did so damn well with Gollum.