Why You Can Trust CNET The 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' 3D Blu-ray is out and it's pretty awesome
3D home viewing may be on the wane, but if you have a 4K 3DTV, watching the latest -- and only -- Star Wars in 3D is a gratifying experience.
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When "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" was released for home viewing in April, one big thing was missing: The 3D version of the film, which many people paid extra to see in the theaters.
OK, so maybe not that many people cared, but some did. I did. That's because I'd just bought a 65-inch 4K LG OLED, which offers arguably the best 3D viewing experience on a TV and I didn't really want to buy the 2D version of "The Force Awakens" if a 3D package (that also contained the 2D Blu-ray) was on the way.
Like a few other people, I wasn't happy that Disney held back the 3D Blu-ray release till today, but it's not so unusual for a studio to double-dip or triple-dip with a blockbuster like "Star Wars" and put out multiple versions of the film on home video, whether they be collectors or special editions, extended, 3D, or UHD (otherwise known as 4k Blu-ray).
In any case, the "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" 3D Blu-ray arrived today in the office and we promptly inserted the 3D disc into a Playstation 4 Pro that was outputting to LG's top-of-the-line 65-inch OLED E6P, with passive 3D technology and a built-in Harman Kardon speaker.
The speaker didn't exactly shake the room, but the picture looked great. The irony about 3D is that although it's been dying in the home market and TV manufacturers are no longer touting the feature -- or are eliminating altogether -- it's finally really good on TVs like LG's OLED 4K models. (I'd argue that if it had been like this from the start, it wouldn't be dying).
That's because with a 4K TV, you get a true 1080p 3D image, so it's like watching a Blu-ray; the picture is clean and really sharp (with a 1080p TV, the resolution gets cut in half in 3D). Also, passive 3D TVs like LG's OLEDs don't require powered glasses. The glasses are like the glasses you use in the theater and the image is brighter. (For a more complete rundown of why 3D is so good on 4K TVs with passive 3D read this article).
I sat down with our video guru David Katzmaier, who's not a fan of 3D but a fan of 3D on the LG -- and we had a little screening of "="" 3d="" blu-ray"="">"The Force Awakens" 3D Blu-ray.
What we immediately liked was that the 3D wasn't done in an in-your-face distracting kind of way. Nor was it restrained. In other words, it strikes a good balance and really adds depth and dimensionality to a lot of scenes, whether it's on the desert planet Jakku, which editor Scott Stein complains looks too much like Tatooine, or the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. Also, that extra dimension really rounds out BB-8, excuse the pun.
There are some nice pop-out effects, but as I said, they're not overdone. And while you do get the occasional cardboard-cutout effect, which can make things look a little fake, in all this is one of the best post-production 3D Blu-rays we've seen this year (by post-production I mean that the film wasn't shot in native 3D) and certainly worth buying if you have a 4K 3DTV.
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