Today I took some time out to see Cave of Forgotten Dreams. My main reaction is that I really would have appreciated less verbal exposition from Werner Herzog. The most gripping portions of the film were invariably those which focused on the cave art with no commentary. These were the scenes where Herzog also seems to have leveraged 3D technology the most seamlessly. In contrast many of the outdoor shots were really disorienting, especially where were trees in the background. There was shot near the end where a person was approaching the camera with branches framing the background, and it was so jarring that I just looked away.
Not surprisingly all of the standard “talking heads” exposition really didn’t benefit at all from the 3D; it just distracted you while people were trying to explain various archaeological details. Speaking of which, I wish there was more of the scientific background here. Obviously that’s going to be my bias. Herzog naturally provide a spiritual rationale for why the original artists did what they did. That seems more plausible than anything else, but I still assume that the probability of any given hypothesis we offer being correct is going to be …