Just a passing fad

A handful of successful 3-D films may not herald a revolution. Avatar's success was exceptional, but that doesn't establish a case to believe that cinema is about to see a paradigm shift. Remember, 3-D films were made in the 1980s. Except a few most of those films bombed at the box office and production houses returned to the safe confines of the regular, two-dimensional films.
Why must we be sceptical about 3-D films? These films need massive budgets as they depend on expensive, technologically advanced equipment.Special cameras and screens are essential for the 3-D experience. To recover the cost, these films have to be monster hits. Every film can't be an Avatar. Avatar's success was not because of the 3-D effects. The film had a powerful storyline and the story was well told. It weaved in critiques of US foreign policy and modern lifestyles to exploit a public sentiment shaped by the debates on Iraq war and global warming. The gimmicks in the form of 3-D effects only helped generate a buzz around the film.
The success of a film is rarely on account of gimmicks; it's to do with aesthetics. Take Charlie Chaplin's silent films. They are not only milestones in the history of cinema, but continue to be popular. The introduction of sound and colour films has not reduced their aesthetic appeal. Art has its own ways to reinvent itself. Special effects have a low priority in the artistic scheme. A revolution in art has to do with the way a story is told, a frame conceived, a character constructed. If an artist creates a rupture in any of these aspects as practised until then, we could call that a revolutionary practice. Judge the rest as passing fads.