Pop quiz! Don’t worry, it’s multiple choice. What has been the most significant technological development in the history of American cinema? Is it A) 35mm projection, B) Sound, C) Color or D) Digital 3-D?

Well, personally, I go with sound, but the growing support for answer D is starting to alarm me.

More and more films are being released with 3-D versions, thanks to the ease with which advances in digital film are making it possible. Reuters reported last week that some 14,000 cinemas nationwide would soon be converting to digital, in part to equip them for 3-D projection.

Michael Lewis, chairman of Real D, a major producer of 3-D projection systems, said of the move, “3-D is the big game-changer and the compelling reason for doing digital cinema.”

And he’s not alone. Jeffrey Katzenberg, head of DreamWorks Animation, told reporters Tuesday that 3-D is “nothing less than the greatest innovation that has happened for all of us in the movie business since the advent of color 70 years ago.”

While I appreciate the deference to sound, I think we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves when we’re saying 3-D is the inevitable future of cinema.

Digital film hasn’t even taken over the marketplace yet. While a number of directors have jumped on the digital bandwagon, old school purists like Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott and Oliver Stone have refused to give up celluloid.

Even bosom buddies George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are split over the digital issue. Spielberg is playing the purist and sticking to celluloid film. Lucas, who’s never met a digital effect he didn’t like, is totally in the tank for digital film. Some nights, I wake up in a cold sweat after nightmares about Star Wars 3-D. At least Spielberg is getting his way for the new Indiana Jones movie, which is being shot on film.

And while 3-D is a neat little trick, I cannot imagine it becoming the dominant medium, even if Katzenberg vows that all future DreamWorks cartoons will be released with 3-D versions.

But as much as I want to get on my soapbox and call 3-D a travesty that will never be the medium for real art cinema, a hard look at film history gives me pause.

When The Jazz Singer was released in 1927, most serious directors thought that “talking pictures” were a cute fad that would soon fall by the wayside. And we all know what happened: Movies with sound were made for approximately four years before the public grew tired of them, and then no talkies were every produced again.

Seriously though, besides Mel Brooks’ spoof Silent Movie, what was the last major release that didn’t have sound? Color was also slow to gain serious acceptance, but now black and white is reserved for very low-budget indie films and dramas like Schindler’s List that want to make themselves especially depressing.

Yet at the risk of looking like Charlie Brown about to attempt another football kick, I really don’t see 3-D becoming the norm, at least not to the point of replacing 2-D film entirely.

Right now, there are fewer than 1,000 theaters in the United States capable of digital 3-D, out of roughly 37,000. Movies provide enough escape on their own; they don’t need to be 3-D to convince me of their realism. In fact, I’ve always felt that 3-D was distracting. Who knows though? Maybe someday I’ll be telling my grandkids about 2-D film, and they’ll give me that same look I give my parents when they insisted that iPods just don’t have the same sound quality as an 8-track.

Patrick Thompson is a senior in the College and a former senior Guide editor. He can be reached at thompson@thehoya.com. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes appears every other Friday in The Guide.