With the new James Cameron blockbuster “Avatar” set to revolutionize the way we look at 3-D technology, it is about time we call into question why the American public is so entranced with this new form of entertainment.

This year alone, the industry has seen a tremendous increase in the number of 3-D movies. Particularly, animated films like “Up” and “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” have been huge successes, no doubt with help from the higher ticket prices of 3-D films. Even the fourth installment in the ludicrous “Final Destination” series was a box-office hit. We can surely look forward to a slew of new films offering the sight of teenager’s dismembered body parts flying toward us in three dimensions.

While the idea of virtually being in a movie is exciting, I have yet to experience 3-D that has offered anything beyond a silly gimmick. I have enjoyed films using the technology before as a colorful distraction, but I am still unconvinced that it is anything beyond that.

Audiences have clearly distanced themselves so far from the actual art of film that they easily fall for every marketing gimmick aimed squarely at getting people into theaters.

With the growing threat of Internet downloading and home theater systems, film studios are desperately seeking ways to get audiences paying for the theater experience. Enter 3-D.

The technology has certainly gotten better over the years, but it is not something completely new. 3-D saw a “golden age” during the 1950s, when studios also had to get ways for people to come back to the theater instead of sitting at home watching television. Eventually, its popularity faded, as it most likely will in a couple of years from now.

The fascination with 3-D is certainly understandable but unwarranted. The majority of the American public wants flashy, retina-violating imagery in cinema, and 3-D offers it to them with all the subtlety of a jackhammer penetrating the core of a nuclear power plant. Somehow, people have forgotten their ability to watch and listen to a story without having to load up on speed first.

I imagine the horror genre especially benefits from 3-D, as they attract the lowest common denominator audiences who expect nothing more than a bunch of cheap, gory thrills. Those audiences would much rather see a severed human jaw launched directly at them than simply fall to the ground in boring 2-D.

There is still hope for the technology, and while I am still unconvinced, there are small exceptions. “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” which featured its opening scene in IMAX 3-D, was a good, if not great, example of how 3-D should be used. There were no instances where I saw gimmicks crudely being thrown toward the screen, and at times I actually felt as if I was in the same room as the characters.

Unfortunately, many audiences expect to see gimmicks when they pay to see a 3-D movie, but I would like the technology to be used to make it feel as if the audience is in the world of the characters. From what I have seen, “The Half-Blood Prince” came surprisingly close to this vision, but there is still much room for improvement. 3-D often creates a blurry image that distracts from the actual story.

Judging from the trailer for “Avatar,” it appears likely that Cameron has found a way to incorporate 3-D to an artistic advantage and not merely as a distracting gimmick. Indeed, maybe this is the beginning of a cinematic revolution, but until then, 3-D feels an awful lot like a marketing ploy. This is a technology that could be drastically improved, and yet it is merely an act of studios pandering to a restless, jaded public.