The Hobbit - Page 26

I am also very curios about this reported "speed up". Shouldn't be a possible effect suddenly in the film as people report it happens only in certain scenes.
I doubt Peter Jackson has experimented with some slower framerates here and there. Could it be that there was some technical glib with the framerate, like the two cameras out of sync and they discovered it too late to re-shoot the scenes and tried to recover in post? Or is there some fault in the release transfer that was too late to fix to reach the opening nights around the world?

Hope someone in the media starts to ask about this.

Again, I saw the film not knowing it was the HFR offering. So I had no preconceived notions of what I was watching. Neither I, or my friend who went with me, noticed any of the things people in this thread are complaining about. We both thought the presentation and 3D effect were outstanding. People on this forum often talk about the placebo effect. Frankly, I believe that's a large part of what's going here as far as opinions about this movie when shown in 48fps.

Just returned from an IMAX 3D, HFR showing. I avoided reading some of these early impressions so that I would not be overly distracted with looking for the various issues people would surely point out. As someone who has always noticed and been bothered by the motion blur in 24fps film, I was looking forward to HFR. All I can say is bring on 60fps. I was taken aback a bit initially by the look, since it is so different than 24fps, but soon got over it. A couple observations:

1. There have been some questions about whether the version being shown in 3D HFR in digital IMAX theaters is 4K. Based on the lack of detail in a number of long shots, my feeling is that if they are 4K, it's up-converted.
2. Still saw some blur on pans, but not sure if that was shutter speed or artistic intent, or we just need 60fps
3. Oh...almost forgot to mention...there was some stuff that was jaw-dropping...
4. And another thing...all the previews were non-HFR 3D (including a spectacular Star Trek preview which excerpted several minutes from the movie) so it was easy to see that the HFR enhanced the clarity of 3D in scenes with motion.

P.S. Didn't notice any "speed up." When I see "speed up" in a film it's usually CGI which I usually chalk up to poor motion capture or simulation, i.e. just not rendering the proper tempo of movement when you do it in a computer.
Edited by Jim S - 12/16/12 at 8:50pm

That's really weird. I have the RS55 and when I employ CMD3 nothing looks sped up, and not once in the countless times I've watched content on store displays with frame interpolation has anything look sped up. So..for me the mystery continues.

That is interesting. Apparently you just perceive the effect differently vs the way a lot of us see it. I know exactly what they mean when they say sped up as it looks like that to me with CMD setting 3 on my RS40 and RS45 and the store displays I have seen. I cant stand what this does for live action film based content, but I do like it for some things like animation and I am looking forward to using it for 3d with my new BenQ 7000 for animated titles.

Sounds like you will be just fine seeing The Hobbit this way though which is good news for you!

48fps and 3D was silky-smooth. The movie looked a lot more "real" and considering most of the characters were fantasy, this made for quite a visual treat. Not sure how anyone could complain about the 48fps, but since it is a bit different it does not surprise me to hear complaints. If you have a chance to watch it in the high frame rate and 3D, I would certainly recommend it over the other versions.

Saw it in 24fps regular 2d digital. Movie was good. It felt too much like FOTR. Can someone answer this for me
Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

LOL....I certainly had the same question but ultimately just chose to come up with my own reasoning associated with them being "territorial". There were a few moments in the movie that I had a "why don't they just...?" moment. Perhaps it was in the book and as I told my friends walking out of the theater, I probably should have read the book again as a refresher. It's been a lonnnnng time. And my thing with the "riddle" scene was that it was very difficult for me to understand his dialogue.

As far as my two cents are concerned with the movie itself. I thought it was great. Not the best ever kind of thing but still great. I really liked the HFR and tip my cap to Peter Jackson for taking the risk. It wasn't perfect and it's not for every movie (at least not yet), but I personally feel this was the right movie to do it with and the right time. Some have noted that it has a PBS documentary look to it, which I would agree with but on a much higher scale. Having said that, it was much more of an enhancement rather than a distraction. While realizing the smoother look, I never focused on it except for the few scenes when I got pulled out because you could tell it was a set or model design. I found this to be the case most drastically on the sweeping outdoor camera pans, which also for those reportedly getting sick is likely why. If roller coasters make you squimish then these few scenes are probably gonna have a similar effect.

When Radagast was being pulled through the forest, anybody else start thinking about Star Wars: Return of the Jedi speeder bikes in HFR?

At any rate, I recommend viewing this film in HFR. It was a fun, new experience. Like I said, it worked far more than it didn't. Frankly, I wasn't super enthused to see the Hobbit but the HFR I was highly curious about and made it worth the price of admission. But as many have stated, three movies.....wow....just not seeing it.

Updated....There was no Star Trek trailer for me. Man of Steel was awesome though!

The Gollum scene was pretty accurate to the book, not simply a "time filler".

Well said...I agree. I had the same issue with understanding the dialogue in the riddle scene. I believe there was a banner before the extended Star Trek trailer that said it was an IMAX exclusive.

So I saw it today at the AMC Theaters on 34th st, NYC... LIEmax and HFR.

First of all, pixels were blatantly obvious in all scenes and particularly with long shots. I was dead center of the theater and found it to be terribly distracting. Not a chance in hell is that screen 4k. What a disgrace that such images can be called IMAX.

Second... I will never again go to an HFR presentation. It was like watching a video game. I felt like I was living a fantasy version of DOOM or DUKE NUKEM. The only time HFR worked was when there was a sweeping helicopter like pan that would have turned to much in normal 24fps. And yes, I noticed that weird sped up movement in the oddest of places while the story was set in the Shire. After a while I sort of tuned it out.

As for the film... I went in thinking it might be fun (based upon word of mouth from people I know) but sadly, I found it to be a bloated bore. There was no sense of danger and certainly no suspense. Yeah, it OK. But for the love of Christmas, OK is not damned near good enough! By the way, how many times were the characters thrown around on rocks and cliffs without even the slightest bit of injury?

The book is favorite, but it could be told in one 2.5 hour film. Not three of them!

Jackson had best pick up the pace in the next two films and that means CUT THE FAT! This one could have lost 30 minutes and no one would have missed it.

That would be Radagast the Fat

Seen this twice now; once in Imax3d, and again in 3D HFR... loved the film, being a Tolkien fan from way back. I loved all of the material, most of it from the book(s), and was glad there was time to bring more of Tolkien's work to the screen. It was something missing, IMHO, from the LOTR films (necessarily; to put everything on screen, it would have to have been more like a miniseries like Game of Thrones - something I can easily imagine HBO doing someday). The scenes with Gollum were fantastic, with nearly all of the riddles used verbatim. Both Martin Freeman and Andy Serkis were amazing. Freeman's Bilbo was a better realization of the character than Elijah Wood's Frodo, for me... the former being a more seasoned performer, speaking with his native dialect.

As far as the PQ was concerned, the HFR 3D (regular, not IMAX) was like nothing I've seen on film before, and I'm not sure I like it as well as the standard framerate to which we are accustomed. While the sense of "being there" was pretty incredible, there was a definite SOE going on, with many of the outdoor shots - especially the ones at night, or with low lighting -looking like they were filmed on a set, with the backgrounds not looking quite right. I did not notice anything as being "sped up"; that would make no sense. A higher framerate does not equal fast motion, but rather a clearer view of what is happening in-frame.

I have read a lot of complaints about the CGI not looking as realistic in HFR, but I did not find it phony-looking at all (with the exception of some of the backgrounds, as referred to earlier). In fact, Gollum was as near to real as any CGI character I have ever seen.

I have never liked the story of The Hobbit as much as LOTR, so these films are not going to rate as high on my list, or garner as much repeat viewing as Lord of the Rings, but I am very pleased that we will get three films with Gandalf the Grey, instead of the two-thirds of a film we got in the LOTR trilogy... I never knew either of my grandfathers, both of whom died before I was born, and Gandalf (the Grey) has become sort of a surrogate/wishful grand-dad figure to me.

I loved Howard Shore's soundtrack, and all of the callbacks to the LOTR themes; there might have been a little too much re-hashing of the music from the first films, but it did make the film and story that much more comfortable to me... I'm hoping for some new themes when we meet the wood elves, the lake men, and especially for Smaug; and I can't wait for Cumberbatch and Freeman to go at it as Smaug and Bilbo confront each other, given their fantastic chemistry in Sherlock.

May December 2013 come quickly...

(BTW, I saw the first nine minutes of the Abrams' new Star Trek movie, and I and the rest of the crowd could have easily watched the whole thing... really excited about this in May 2013).

I saw it today...heh ...C-...C-... the action scenes (when they got around to that) brought the grade up. Dialogue heavy the first 90+ minutes, but this wasnt my biggest issue with this movie...
Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)
Edited by AndreHD - 12/17/12 at 7:35pm

You must have hated The Empire Strikes Back as well, then?

I'm actually a big fan of movies that don't end with traditional 'closure' moments.

I'm going back through all my recent movies that had sequels intended, and how they STILL sent you home fullfilled...Prometheus has a trilogy in mind...the alien's deathship is shot down, its killed, cliff hanger, where's the chick going ? Underworld Awakening, the villains all killed, cliff hanger, where's the hybrid? Directors dont do this because this is what they were taught in school or anything-they're doing this to simutaneously sell you on the next movie and leave you satisfied with the one you JUST saw !
Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)
Edited by AndreHD - 12/18/12 at 12:21am

Just got back from seeing the the movie in HFR. Rejoined the forums to make a comment on this (lost UN/password). Gotta say I'm NOT impressed with the 48FPS. The soap opera effect was hugely distracting for me. Cringingly bad in spots. The movie would be rolling along okay (just okay, because the SO effect was always there in dialog shots) then the SO effect would suddenly be worse on a scene change. Looked like video shot with my Sony Handy-cam. My wife even commented on this, and she's no AV enthusiast by any stretch.

It wasn't all bad. The wide shots were very very nice. The motion, superb.

I don't think this a matter of having to "get used" to 48FPS. Some of the sets looked very fake and it looked as if they hired second rate make up artists for the film. For me it took away from the acting itself. Fake looks, well... fake, period. It's not a matter of "getting used" to it.

Put it this way, if 48FPS had been instituted many years ago, I don't believe I'd be the movie fan that I am today. All the films I grew up with, Star Wars, Blade Runner, The Right Stuff would have not have looked the same. Wouldn't have drawn me in. Can you imagine The Good the Bad and the Ugly in 48FPS? Horrible.

I do like the idea someone posed earlier about a hybrid technique where the sweeping landscape shots and wide angle battle scenes would be in 48FPS and the dialog scenes shot in 24FPS. That would be the best of both worlds.
Edited by MartyM38Super - 12/18/12 at 3:36pm

My thought exactly; due to contrasty "hot-spotting", early exterior scenes looked (24fps) as though they were shot on cheap video.

I don't believe you understand the difference between a 'Trilogy', and a '3-Part Continuous Story'.

I saw it on Sunday in a Sundance theater in regular 24 fps and it seems my eyes are not as critical as others here. Except for one or two panning scenes I had no problem with the motion in this film and don't see where 3D was important to the story.

I was prepared to dislike this movie but ending up enjoying it quite a bit. Yes, it's a little slow in the beginning with character introductions but after that the story moves along nicely. As a follow-up I watched The Fellowship of the Ring yesterday and found many references to things that happened in The Hobbit and thought the two meshed together with little inconsistency. Some of the CGI could have looked better given today's standards and that brought down my final score. Looking forward to the next part of the story. 8 out of 10.

A cheap, lazy way to do three movies...I didnt see the LOTR movies, is this how Jackson did that too? When I hear continuous story from now on, I wont bother with the first two movies and see the third, the one thats worth it !
Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

^^^ You do know that there is source material for the major plot points, don't you? If the filmakers made that decision, they may as well call it something else because it certainly couldn't be the 70+ year-old story called The Hobbit.

Well, if he wanted to do an episodic thing, why didnt he just make this a network TV show ? This isnt primetime tv on thursday night, this is the boxoffice ! He could have CREATED a lame duck villian straight out of the pages of the book, so THIS film was a movie IN OF ITSELF! So if I'm watching this movie on cable or bought the blu ray, I'm feeling fulfilled after watching THIS movie, while I know there was 2 other episodes!

There's Orcs and Trolls in this book/universe. Well...CREATE one badass for this ONE movie for the SOLE purpose of having a payoff at the end! In Avengers, Thanos and Loki are the villains! The alien army is FROM the Marvel mythology that they could throw in as cannon fodder JUST for THIS movie so it has an ending! Are you telling that there isn't ANY sub-factions that could have been thrown in this movie to be despatched?! NOT ONE?! I find that highly unlikely.
Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)
Edited by AndreHD - 12/18/12 at 8:58am

You know I just realized that when I initially commented about my viewing of the movie that I didn't say anything about it being in 3D. I'm not sure if that's good or bad. It definitely wasn't a flat visual and I can only recall one pop out moment. Otherwise, with the HFR the depth was not obvious but yet immersive and smooth, which I would regard as a good thing.

Exactly.

Never underestimate the allure of $$$.

Is it possible that you have lived through life and didn't know where the source material from the movies came from?
So out of ignorance you suggest a director rewrite the plot lines from J.R.R. Tolkien's books which are some of the most famous books in classical literature.
Maybe time you educate yourself. Good starting-point is to see the LOTR movies;Extended versions.
And how would you propose to make the kind of money LOTR made if it was a TV series?

Or maybe you are just one of them Internet Trolls?

Yeah, despite the long delay I'm happy that it finally happened. I don't think this first entry of the new trilogy is as strong as any of the previous three flicks, mainly because the new characters aren't as interesting and absorbing as the principals of the LotR trilogy (not Jackson's fault I suppose), but it is a worthy entry into the series all the same.

Hey DaveFi, perhaps you might consider editing the title of this thread to include the movie's full name: "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey". That way we can differentiate this one from the future threads for "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug", and "The Hobbit: There and Back Again".