3D animation

wow, my art history and animation history class just collided pretty much in the same week. I had just learned about Giotto in my art history class. He created wonderful paintings trying to create a since of depth with bigger foreground and smaller background, but the biggest thing was he overlapped his figures which before was unheard of. I'd never thought about the realism in 3D with depth. It's a common sense thing but hard to achieve. I was watching trailers and clips from Tron. I have to say that some of the stuff they were doing was really advanced. It's interesting to see that this movie possibly influenced one of the top animators of our time. Indeed 3D movies are the present because they can create realism far beyond what an ink backdrop can do.

I think, however, many of the movies now are overkilling the digital media. I'm not saying that Pixar should drop its productions nor Dreamworks (which I still have yet to see How to Train Your Dragon) but there are the other companies that pop out cheap movies without a good story or something to engage the audience. They also have a more cartoony look about them unlike the realistic Pixar, Dreamworks, and some of the CGI only movies. I'm more of an artist that prefers drawn animation, i don't know if that's because I was raised to appreciate it or I've always liked art in general. Regardless, I wouldn't be surprised in 20 years if all the movies would be made like Avatar and we all get chronic headaches for 3D glasses.

Which is another thing are we striving for realism so bad that everything is turning into 3D?