Bluey: Episode "Sleepytime" 3D Auto-Conversion Review
EPISODE REVIEW
For those of you who don't know, Bluey is an animated children's television series that emerged in 2018 about a 6-year-old Blue Heeler with the same name, along with her family consisting of sister Bingo, mother Chili, and father Bandit. While Bluey is the name of the show, I'd hesitate to call her the titular character. In actuality, the show takes an approach that explores all of the members of the Heeler family. And nowhere is that more apparent than in one of the most praised episodes of the series: "Sleepytime." Sleepytime follows the 4-year-old Bingo as she goes to sleep for the night, and ends up sleepwalking throughout the house.
It's a short synopsis and if you haven't delved into the show before, you might get the impression that this is yet another cookie-cutter storyline from kids shows past and will be treated as such. And honestly, I can't really say I'd blame you. Most kids shows garner a reputation for dumbing themselves down to their typical four-year-old audience through lazy dialogue, heavy-handed messaging, and oftentimes, bland animation. While shows like Paw Patrol might not damage your child's brain, I think we can all agree that the people making them only do so with one audience in mind. Bluey, thankfully, is the exception. It separates itself from the common preschoolers fair with a surprising amount of heart, humor, well written characters, beautiful animation, and even some unexpected subtlety. And the episode Sleepytime is probably the greatest example of all of those things.
It opens up with Chili tucking Bingo in, reading her a bedtime story about a chick hatching from her egg. When she's done Bingo begs for her to read one more book, and they settle on a book about the solar system. After the book reading is over, Bingo drifts off to sleep and dreams of her floating in space and going on adventures with her favorite plush rabbit Floppy. However, as she does so, she ends up wandering throughout the house and gets into some funny situations, typically at the expense of those around her. Through the episode, we cut back and forth between Bingo's dream and the real world and we get to see how the events from the latter reality affect the former reality. It's a nice piece of storytelling that while we're not too unfamiliar with, is executed in an excellent fashion. It offers some genuinely funny moments that are delivered with just the right comedic timing that Bluey can bring.
But surprisingly, there are also some moments of genuine poignancy. The episode sets up the theme that Bingo wants to grow up, but often struggles in doing so. I won't spoil how it does so or what it does with the theme. But I will say this: the episode is more creative and inspiring than it has any right to be. The way we switch from the real world to Bingo's dream adds some good comedy. But it also lends us to seeing Bingo's mind in such a beautiful and touching, but also nuanced, way, leading to some emotional moments that are more effective than anything I've seen from Pixar in the past few years. In fact, the episode ranks as one of the incredibly few times I've cried watching anything on-screen. And it's accompanied by a beautiful rendition of the orchestral piece "Jupiter" with some stellar animation that shows off just how gorgeous the designs, motions, and environments in Bluey can go. What's even more impressive is the fact that the episode does all this in just 7 minutes. It's a short but sweet experience that puts not just most kids shows, but much of modern cinema to shame.
I know it has probably taken you more time to read this review than it would to just watch the episode itself. But when something that appears about as humble as Bluey does leaves you with so much to talk about, you know it's doing something right. And with Sleepytime, Bluey doesn't just do it right, it does it splendidly. The show in general is pretty much the definition of wholesome, family friendly fun. But Sleepytime takes that and dials it up to 13, resulting in not just my personal favorite episode of the series, but a rival to most great television shows. Sleepytime is free on YouTube and only seven minutes, which should work in virtually anyone's schedule. And if you haven't seen it already, waste no more time and do so. You will leave a changed person.
OVERALL EPISODE RATING: 5/5
3D REVIEW
Unsurprisingly, no one with the right resources has ever taken to converting any Bluey episodes into 3D. Luckily, my LG projector can do just that. Granted, it can't convert as well as some of the technology we have nowadays, but it can do the job none the less. So I put my favorite episode of Bluey on and set the projector to 3D auto-convert to see what kind of results would pop up. And unsurprisingly, the results were not amazing. Now, keep in mind, I'm just speaking from the results my projector gave me, so take my review with a grain of salt if you're planning to 3D auto-convert the episode for yourself.
Go Find Fun in his review of the 1984 movie Dune on 3D Blu-ray found the 3D to be such a dud that he tried auto-converting the 2D version and found the results there to be much of an improvement. In it, he stated that the 3D conversion software in his TV figured out how to space the objects based on the lighting. I don't know about his TV, but from my experience, the 3D my projector creates is more based on movement. The reason I say this is because just the other day, I tried 3D auto-converting The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. But in the very first scene, pretty much nothing was converted. The camera shots were pretty static and most everything in the frame was equally static. The only thing I noticed that did move in the first 30 seconds was a dog, and that was the only thing placed in 3D space. Let's compare that to the results of Interstellar where during the action, the camera was relatively shaky. While the 3D results here were still quite shallow (auto-conversions have a tendency not to be very deep), there was still a lot more noticeable depth on display, making the 3D much more interesting.
Why do I bring this up? Well, this is one of the reasons why the 3D conversion in Bluey tends to "fall flat." Like most animated kids shows, the camera tends to stay static most of the time, usually only moving around whenever something in the frame needs to appear static such as a character walking from one place to the next. The 2D drawing style also doesn't help that much either, giving anything that does appear in 3D a cardboard cutout appearance. But I'll cut it some slack in that area considering that's the very nature of the show we're working with.
But yes, for the majority of Sleepytime's runtime, the 3D is just purely flat. The only real consistent 3D I get is when the characters talk and the conversion gives some discernible space in the peoples' mouths. You can't really appreciate it though, because they have to keep moving for the 3D to actually work. Now, there are some halfway decent shots when someone like Bandit or Chili walk around in the frame and the conversion knows to put them in front of or behind certain pieces of the environment. But they're few and far between. And even then, sometimes either a character or an object will be pushed forwards or backwards by the conversion at an awkward time in order to keep up with the environment. In Bingo's space dream, things are marginally better than the real world, but still flat most of the time. The only few parts where I noticed some discernible depth include when Bingo and Bluey are running across the surface of Jupiter, when Bingo and Floppy jump towards one another, when Bingo and Floppy approach a ring of rabbits orbiting a planet, and near the end when SPOILER WARNING Bingo finds pieces of a cracked egg and tries to put it back together with her inside. END SPOILERS That's about it, though. Once again, the static and 2D animated shots barely give my LG projector anything to work with, and it results in a very underwhelming 3D experience.
I guess I can't say it's one of the worst 3D experiences out there. With the exceptions of a few shots, there's nothing that caused me some eye strain. And there were several places where the 3D did produce some interesting images. I'll probably cut it some slack due to its nature as an on-the-fly 3D conversion. But while I get that converted results won't always result in anything worthwhile, Sleepytime just had almost nothing to offer and is not really worth putting on if you're planning to use your conversion software. Had this been converted by someone manually, I bet the final product might've been stunning. And I'm sure technology has progressed to the point where a solid 3D conversion can be made out of Sleepytime. But if all you're stuck with is a 3D TV or projector, then my advice is don't bother with this episode unless you're morbidly curious to see what would come out of it.
3D RATING: NOT GOOD
FINAL THOUGHTS
Bluey is quite unexpectedly, but very much undoubtedly, a highly enjoyable, refreshingly creative, and welcomingly wholesome show. It's become so well known for how it relies on its lovable characters and the wacky but familiar situations they go through for entertainment that can be appreciated by everyone ages 0 to 99. And of all the fun adventures we see Bluey and her family go on, Sleepytime is one of the best demonstrations for how funny, deep, and even artistic the show can get. I've probably exhausted discussing this episode by now. But you should get the idea that it, and the show itself, are nothing to wince at. If given the chance, go out and give it a watch. Kids or no kids, it's a superb experience unlike anything else you'll find on the small screen (or the big screen for that matter). Now, if you're like most people, you probably weren't thinking of how it would look in 3D. Personally, I believe that it has plenty of potential, but the LG projector is not the way to get the best conversion out of it. Sure, most on-the-fly 3D conversion features most projectors and 3D TVs have built into them already limit the amount of depth on-screen. But whatever depth could be there is ruined due to the 2D designs and the static camera motion, both of which my projector are certainly not capable of handling. The reason I didn't rate my 3D experience as "bad" was because the episode was only seven minutes long and I wasn't expecting much from the auto-conversion software to begin with. If you have an AI 3D conversion software, I highly recommend you take a look at this episode and give it the conversion it deserves. Otherwise, don't bother using the 2D-to-3D conversion feature on your 3D display to watch this. You're better off seeing it in 2D the way it was intended. It was a little interesting to see how my projector would handle such a strange choice for a 3D conversion. But sadly, it left me with nothing truly noteworthy to say other than "it was flat." Then again, that's probably what the creators wanted all along.
WATCH THE EPISODE HERE
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