The Charge at Feather River, a 1953 Western based loosely on the historical Battle of Beecher Island, is barely remembered today. Hardcore film buffs might just recall it as the film which featured a minor character called Private Wilhelm, after whom the “Wilhelm Scream”, a sound effect used in many subsequent films, was named

...although a real movie nerd will tell you that the sound effect itself was first used in an earlier film, Distant Drums...

Anyway, what is usually forgotten is that it was one of the first films to have a three-dimensional version, as well as the usual two-dimensional. Cinema audiences were indeed shocked by tomahawks apparently flying at them out of the screen, but it was a gimmick and not a great financial, technical, or aesthetic success. For the next fifty plus years, nothing much happened with “3D” cinema.

However, the commercial triumph of James Cameron’s Avatar and the delightful How to Train Your Dragon might mark 2010 as the year 3D finally lived up to its potential. Problems remain. The technology is still far from perfect, and the need for special glasses remains an obstacle.

The greater problem may be that both producers and customers are still reluctant to commit fully to a technology that will devalue everything that went before. The introduction of sound made silent films redundant very quickly, and colour later did the same to black and white films – although over a longer period. That was partly because back catalogues did not matter much in the early days of cinema, but they have been growing in importance ever since and are now substantial assets on many balance sheets. It will reduce the value of old 2D films in the vaults when the day comes when all new films are being made in 3D.

Yet that day will come, and it will impact on far more than the movie industry. Video games are following – the technological potential of Virtual Reality is already under-exploited. We can also expect the “adult entertainment” industry to be ahead of the curve, as always. Then there will be the educational and communications applications. So how long will it be before every smartphone has to have a holograph projector?

Change has been slow but, when it comes, it will be massive. Indeed it may be so slow precisely because it will be so massive. Devices that seemed so futuristic in the 1960s Star Trek – the computer, the translator, the tricorder, the communicator, the scanners – are now real or possible or laughably primitive. Perhaps the holodeck is closer than we thought – and with it the end of the entertainment industry as we now know it.