Hindsight and retrospect

Jaws was a great movie. I still love it as a cinematic experience. Being able to imagine the shark in your minds eye without having to be able to see it (technical difficulties meant it wasn't ready when needed) made it much more than it would have been had the shark been visible all he way through.

But is it actually a scary movie?

People didn't want to go swimming for ages after watching. But if you watch it nowadays it actually seems pretty tame. Can you imagine anyone who wasn't genuinely scared of sharks already deciding not to swim in the sea as a result? I can't.

The ride at Universal is more of a comic invention than a genuine thrill - and it is played for laughs rather than thrills.

It's all retrospect and hindsight.

Let me commit heresy. I don't find Citizen Kane a particularly good movie. Technically it's brilliant but the story is weak and the performances are stilted. Yet it is constantly rated as one of the great movie events of all time. Why?

3D movies: Traditionally a gimmick, Hitchcock filmed Dial M for Murder in 3D and it was released generally on 2D. Why? In hindsight we see that 3D was a mistake

Yet now James Cameron is looking to redefine the cinematic experience using, you guessed it, 3D. Granted the technology has moved on a lot since then - and Cameron will push the technological envelope as far as anyone can (remember the morphing Terminator in T2?).

Will we once again look back in restrospect and say this was a bad move. oOr will we look back and say 'In retrospect the move to 3D was too long in coming and we should have done it years earlier?"

It's a great thing is hindsight. And always 20:20.