I remember a student assembly when I was a sophomore in high school. It was rare the entire student body of Jefferson Senior High School in Alexandria, Minn. was allowed to gather all at once — we normally only got to gather class by class.

At any rate, we all piled into the gymnasium for the big event: Watching “The Creature from the Black Lagoon” in 3-D. School officials handed out the top-rate, cardboard, red-and-blue-lensed glasses and the film was projected on the screen above the stage.

The movie was campy, to say the least, and not very three dimensional. Even back then the creature wasn’t very scary, but you’ve got to love the fact that the Hollywood of the 50s expected us to be frightened by a bad rubber suit. As far as the 3-D images, I saw better ones on my Aunt Norma’s old stereoscope.

3-D films saw a brief resurgence in the 80s, with the emergence of IMAX movies, but still, watching them was more of a hassle than anything else, at least to me, and tended to prompt bouts of motion sickness and headaches.

Flash forward to today. While I’m not a fan of 3-D, I knew I couldn’t avoid the latest trend forever.

I had the opportunity to see the new Harry Potter movie in 3-D on NAS Whidbey Island last weekend, and I have to say I didn’t hate it. The glasses have improved so there was no headache or motion sickness to distract me. Today’s digital projection technology is a vast improvement over the old, and the filmmakers did a good job, too.

The 3-D was subtle, but I have to say it did make it more fun. I probably won’t opt for 3-D all the time, but once and a while it’s worth it.

-Kathy Reed, editor