The Megaplex 17 movie theater at Jordan Commons in Sandy is the only Utah exhibitor showing the new Disney computer animated movie in Disney Digital 3-D. It's one of 89 screens in the country showing the movie in 3-D.

The system boasts a new technique in digital video projection that allows images on the screen to pop out and give depth to the movie. More importantly, the creators claim it won't hurt viewers' eyes like the older systems that used the familiar red and blue glasses.

"You first put on the glasses and the lights go down, you immediately have that wow factor," said Joshua Greer, chief executive for Beverly Hills-based Real D, the technology company that developed the system. "But after a couple of minutes, you forget you have the glasses on."

Three-dimensional photography has been around for 150 years. The technology was a hit in the 1950s, when 3-D movies used two images projected in slightly different ways to achieve the 3-D effect. In the '80s, the craze was re-ignited with movies like "Comin' At Ya!" and "Friday the 13th Part 3: 3-D," that used polarized glasses and a more sophisticated system.

But Real D's system uses one digital projector to show the two images exactly as they are supposed to be projected. The result, according to Greer, is "the screen disappears, and you suddenly go from a flat screen to something that opens up like a stage."

To show "Chicken Little" in 3-D, George Lucas' special effects division, Industrial Light and Magic, converted the film that would be shown with the system, and sound engineering company Dolby Laboratories provided projection systems to theaters.

"Monster House," a computer-animated movie due out next summer, will be the next film to use the process.