3-D glasses have become a pop culture icon. Even today, they exist in a handful of cereal boxes and within the pages of a few novelty comic books.

But now 3-D glasses are seen in the theaters once more. From as far back as the third installment in Robert Rodriguez’s “Spy Kids” franchise to Disney’s newest release, “Chicken Little,” 3-D seems to be making a comeback.

In an age where computer animation can render many objects three-dimensional with increasing realism, why is Hollywood relying on the archaic 1950s craze of 3-D glasses to deliver the next generation of blockbusters?

“In Hollywood, as with most things, we look to the past for the future.” Said assistant professor of communication Gretchen Bisplinghoff.

The History of 3-D

A common misconception is that 3-D viewing got its start in the 1950s. According to associate professor of communication Robert Miller, 3-D dates all the way back to before the silent era of films.

Through processes like stereoscopy, audiences could view moving or still images in 3-D as far back as the 1800s. The problem was most of these showings only allowed one viewer at a time. However, at the time, many saw the movies as a novelty instead of an actual industry.

By the 1950s, the movie business, now an industry of its own right, was in trouble. Televisions were spreading through homes in America, threatening to overshadow the movie business entirely.

“When the threat of television loomed, there were all sorts of doom and gloom predictions,” Bisplinghoff said. “Commercial necessity drives necessity of invention. What can we give people at the theaters that they cannot find in their homes?”

In 1960, horror director William Castle released a movie titled “Thirteen Ghosts” in which audience members required special glasses to the see the ghosts. Another Castle release, “House of Wax,” is considered to be one of the first, and best, 3-D films. Following Castle’s success, other filmmakers began to feed what became the 3-D movie craze.

“Most of the movies were poorly-made, and all it would amount to would be someone throwing a spear at the camera,” Bisplinghoff said. “They were a response to the moment, and they faded.”

According to communication professor and graduate director Jeffrey Chown, Alfred Hitchcock was the one artist who made use of the potential of 3-D filmmaking, using the technology for the film “Dial M for Murder.”

But Miller disagrees.

According to Miller, there are many instances in cinema history in which 3-D was used again and again. From images of Freddy Krueger and “Jaws” in 3-D to even a period of 3-D pornographic movies in the 1970s, the use of 3-D goggles seem to be a recurring trend.

The Technology Behind 3-D

One possible reason for the rise and fall of 3-D trends could be the potential discomfort the glasses can cause viewers.

“There’s a headache factor, due to the way our eyes have been trained to converge on objects close and diverge on objects further away,” Miller said. “It becomes like crossing one’s eyes. If you do it long enough, your eyes will start to hurt.”

The basis of 3-D movies comes from using two cameras to shoot two pictures of an object, in order to represent the right and left eye. Depending on where an audience member sits in the theater, he or she could suffer from either mild discomforts or even headaches.

“The problem is that you have to have those goofy glasses in order to impose that perspective.” Bisplinghoff said.

If 3-D is going to survive in any capacity in the future, it will need to push past the potentially headache-inducing glasses for which it has been associated with.

“There’s a process that uses still photographs composited in different portions of the images, with the perspective changed,” Miller said. “This process has been used several times on documentaries that aired on the History

Channel.”

Unfortunately for the movie industry, it seems 3-D is not just for the silver screen anymore. It has been rumored high-definition plasma screens might be used sometime in the future to simulate 3-D without the painful glasses.

The Future of 3-D

Despite the success of “Chicken Little,” Bisplinghoff doesn’t believe 3-D success will solve Hollywood’s financial problems. According to Bisplinghoff, the rise of 3-D represents only a temporary fix in the movie industry.

“I think probably they are looking for an edge to last summer’s box office slump.” Bisplinghoff said.

While the 3-D craze continues, Miller contends the search for true 3-D might be a similarly profitable venture.

“If someone finds a way to deliver two different images to the corresponding right and left eye … It would be worth a great deal of money to the person who finds it.” Miller said.