The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Trailer

  • WELCOME TO THE NEW SERVER!

    If you are seeing this you are on our new server WELCOME HOME!

    While the new server is online Scott is still working on the backend including the cachine. But the site is usable while the work is being completes!

    Thank you for your patience and again WELCOME HOME!

    CLICK THE X IN THE TOP RIGHT CORNER OF THE BOX TO DISMISS THIS MESSAGE
The main problem I see is that the short book (compared to LOTR books) was made into 3 long movies... Reading the book in 9 hours?
 
Saw it in High Frame Rate 3D today. Entertaining, but not near the level of the LoTR series.

So now let's talk about the HFR presentation. The first 20 minutes or so I was getting used to the "hyper-real" appearance -- it is definitely different but not bad at all. I don't watch much in 3D, but there was a very serious disconnect between FG and BF in shots, with BG seeming to be out of focus in comparison. I don't know if 3D was added in post, or if it was shot in 3D, I just know what I saw.

The other issue, was that you could see "too much" detail -- and it could be distracting. One of the worst of the offenders were Gandalf's (Ian McKellan) and Sauroman's (Christopher Lee) beards. They didn't look natural.

Unfortunately the SFX has some catching up to do for HFR presentations.

I'd like to see an HFR 2D presentation sometime to see how it compares.
 
It was shot in HFR 3D. I saw the HFR last night. I think it makes 3D a lot better experience. But, since I have not seen HFR 2D or it even offered in HFR 2D, I do not have a basis to compare.

Interesting article on how they made dwarves: http://www.popularmechanics.com/tec...crets-behind-the-hobbits-3d-wizardry-14851524

As far as the movie itself is concerned, I was entertained. My only regret is that the LOTR movies were not as detailed, that instead a short book like the Hobbit gets a 3 movie (perhaps 9 hour) treatment instead of the longer more adult themed books.

Special effects article http://www.fxguide.com/featured/the-hobbit-weta/



.
 
Last edited:
My friend and I went to the midnight show (first tine I've done that in ages) and I was impressed with how faithful the movie was to the book. But then there's all the added stuff that I just had to say, "this is here to stretch the movie out to nine hours so we have to pay $35 instead of tonight's $11."

The option for the High Frame Rate was not available in our area. I am an old fuddy-duddy when it comes to films. My Samsung has a 120Hz refresh rate so it can "smooth" out the DVD and make it look like video. No thank you, I say. If it was meant to be a video, the producer would have shot it at 30/60 fps.
 
Last edited:
My friend and I went to the midnight show (first tine I've done that in ages) and I was impressed with how faithful the movie was to the book. But then there's all the added stuff that I just had to say, "this is here to stretch the movie out to nine hours so we have to pay $35 instead of tonight's $11."

All that "added stuff" cam from the LOTR series appendixes, supposedly.
 
All that "added stuff" cam from the LOTR series appendixes, supposedly.
I didn't mind the backstory on the re-awakening of Sauron. I was referring to the pursuit of the Company by, for want of a better name,
"The Great White Orc".
 
My friend and I went to the midnight show (first tine I've done that in ages) and I was impressed with how faithful the movie was to the book. But then there's all the added stuff that I just had to say, "this is here to stretch the movie out to nine hours so we have to pay $35 instead of tonight's $11."

The option for the High Frame Rate was not available in our area. I am an old fuddy-duddy when it comes to films. My Samsung has a 120Hz refresh rate so it can "smooth" out the DVD and make it look like video. No thank you, I say. If it was meant to be a video, the producer would have shot it at 30/60 fps.

Well it was shot in HFR... So it was meant to be something between a film and video.

Some of the scenes were not from the Hobbit book, but from appendixes and references from the LOTR.
 
Well I saw it again in 3D, this time not HFR. It is very noticeable. Of course, I was looking for it, all movies suffer from the low frame rate, the Hobbit was not unique in this regard. But, after seeing it in 48 fps, the 24 fps sticks out like a sore thumb. If more movies come out in this format, I wonder how TVs will adapt...
 
Just saw The Hobbit. Or should I say 1/3 of the Hobbit. Kind of feel like I got taken to the cleaners by Peter Jackson. Fellowship of the Ring is a longer book, but just one movie (even in the extended edition), same with Two Towers, and ROTK. No way was it necessary to drag this out the way they are doing. And too much 3D-crap motion (I saw it in 2D, but you could still tell how they filmed for 3D gimmickry == I know, those are fighting words for some of you, but I just DON"T LIKE 3D) which took away some of the elegance that was in the LOTR films. That said, the second half was really enjoyable, and I'll ended up taken to the cleaners for parts 2... and gasp... 3.
 
The cool thing that this movie offers is a version for everyone. IMAX 2D and 3D and HFR which at this point in time is still considered an experiment. You either like it or not. I like the 5K definition but I would agree that the set designers and makeup people need to up their game for this. The video smooth motion does remove the frame blur, pan judder, and motion jump artifact of 24 fps that the public has become accustomed to. Visual perception is said to max at 40 fps, not 24. The original 24 fps was done as a compromise for cost and quality. remember, Thomas Edison wanted film to be done at 40 fps but could not fight the accountants. Video at 29.94 fps interlaced was used to accommodate the channel spectrum bandwidth of 6Mhz per channel fixed by the FCC and had nothing to do with film. The conversion became a really bad mess until digital TV came along. 48 fps will be a tough do in the video world as it will require a special TV frequency and media player. Currently we have a good match at 24fps for film in Blu Ray as a standard so it is unlikely we will see this cinema 48 fps anytime soon for home TV viewing. I think BluRay will offer 60fps first. ( it does now but not at 1080 resolution ) Some of us are already shooting 1080 60p video although this cannot be played in a Bluray player. It must be played from a hard drive server and many state of the art monitors can display 1080 60p.

But back to the Hobbit- I saw it in 3D HFR and really enjoyed the movie. I went to see the 48 fps specifically but was also pleasantly surprised how good the image looked in 3D too. I normally get fatigued on 2 hour plus 3D movies and my wife due to corrective glasses can last only about 90 minutes. Both of us lasted the entire movie and were not fatigued. Now I did set my wife up with some Real 3D clip-on glasses so she didn't have to wear two pairs of glasses but both of us really enjoyed the movie getting into the story and just allowing the technology to be there.

As for the trilogy part, I agree it would have been nice to have closure but here I agree with my wife. What we don't care for is the long wait between the parts. If they gave us a part per week, we would go each Sunday and have closure on the story. As it is, I decided to use the opportunity to read all the books and even ordered one academic's assessment of Tolkien. This will keep me busy for the time between PJ's screen version chapters.

I decided a long time ago that when watching a movie, don't try to compare with the book. That just frustrates you. Instead, enjoy both for what they are a movie and a book. My next read will not be the Hobbit even though I bought two versions. I have started reading the prequel to all these, The Children of Hurin
 
I'm very fortunate to have enjoyed this story in the best venue ever, The eyes and mind of a 11 year old, back in 1965. The movies are good but I'm glad to have read the story when very young.
 
I personally loved this movie!Much better than most other redo,over the top action crap,that fill the theaters most of the time.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Total: 0, Members: 0, Guests: 0)

Who Read This Thread (Total Members: 1)

Latest posts