Saw The Hobbit in high frame rate (48 frames/sec) 3d today

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Saw The Hobbit in 48 frames/sec 3D. Finally, a film where I completely forgot it was in 3D and just enjoyed being immersed in the story.


The higher frame rate stops the nauseating effect of jerky high speed camera movement that I always disliked in 2D films and which made previous 3D films near-unwatchable.


Initially a little disconcerting, felt a bit like a rather awesome video game rather than a film. Quickly got used to it - and at times, it really felt like we were in Middle-Earth with the characters. Spooky.


Bravo Peter Jackson for trying something new. I'd recommend the high frame rate 3D version if its available in your area.

 

[Jemiba]

I'm curious to see this film, too. Probably between Xmas and New Years Eve. There's just one thing,
that makes me wonder: The Lord Of The Rings was based on the book which has three volumes with
about 1300 pages and the film was divided in three parts. Ok !
The Hobbit is a book with about 300 pages, the film has three parts, too. Is there sensational new material
directly from Middle-Earth incorporated ?

 

[Hobbes]

Actually they had to throw away lots of material to fit LotR in 3 incredibly long movies. For the Hobbit, most of the book might actually make it into the film.

 

[gwiz]

I gather they have incorporated a lot of material from the appendices to LotR which provides background to the Hobbit story.

 

[Gridlock]

The Hobbit is a book with about 300 pages, the film has three parts, too. Is there sensational new material
directly from Middle-Earth incorporated ?

Have you seen Jackson's KING KONG?


Imagine that was 3 films and the first one was just the boat ride.


Put another way, the Hobbit films run at about 1.2 minutes per page of the book. So save money and read it, it's quicker...

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Yep, lots of stuff which happened at the same time but wasn't mentioned in The Hobbit is included, plus there are some departures from the book plot.


I expected to feel it was padded out, but it didn't, and 3 hours passed very quickly.

 

[Triton]

I saw it yesterday at the high frame rate and in RealD 3D. Although I haven't seen many films in 3D, I too believe that the higher frame rate made the 3D effect much more real. I feel as though I was witnessing events in Middle Earth and Tolkien's world was brought to life. The New Zealand locations look beautiful, I think Paul will have more visitors to his country.

Tolkien purists may be upset that The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey contains story material from The Silmarilion that has been revised to add a chase element to the journey of Thorin & Company. Azog: The Defiler is the main antagonist of the film. But I found the film to be very entertaining and I don't understand the negative reviews of the film.

 

[Jemiba]

I think, the problem is that "The Hobbit"as "Lord Of The Rings", is based, of course, on a book from R.R. Tolkien, too, but that
book is quite different from the latter one. Don't think, that (the book) "The Hobbit" would have been a success at all, without
the later 3 volumes. It was written as a children's book, not as a fantasy novel, but as a childrns film, it could hardly be a block-
buster today. So there simply had to be changes to the source novel. The now published first part is often critised as too long,
but at least very strictly based on the novel. So, from what is known about the second part, critics may be more harsh next year ..

 

[Triton]

I would agree that the book The Hobbit seems much more like a children's book compared to The Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was intended as a prequel to The Lord of the Rings trilogy of films and needed a similar level of sophistication and tone. In The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Jackson has wisely incorporated story material from "The Quest of Erebor" which was published posthumously in Unfinished Tales by his son Christopher, the Appendices from The Return of the King, and other story material published posthumously as part of The History of Middle Earth.

 

[Triton]

Post script:

The now published first part is often critised as too long,
but at least very strictly based on the novel. So, from what is known about the second part, critics may be more harsh next year ..

Perhaps this criticism has more to do with the endurance of film reviewer's bladders rather than the actual content of the film. Fans of Jackson's film adaption of The Lord of the Rings will be delighted with this film.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Personally I didn't even think about the time when watching it, or notice it being a long film.

 

[Triton]

Personally I didn't even think about the time when watching it, or notice it being a long film.

Me neither. I was sad when it ended and wanted the story to continue.

 

[Jemiba]

As often, there are primarily two types of viewers: The standard ones, who don't know the book and just want to see
a good film. Regarding the reviews, for them the first part should have been a little bit faster and dispensed with a lot
of things, that actually are just a kind of "forewords".
And then there are a lot of hard-core-Tolkien fans, at least here, many of them of my age, who know the book since
it was first published in German language during the '70s. They actually can declaim it word for word and already "Lord
Of The Rings" was critised for its deviations from the source novel and especially for its omission, most severe the
"Liberation of the Shire" (Really a pity for me, too, I must admit, although I've heard, that it is included in the masters
cut. Is that right ?)
So, Peter Jackson had the somewhat thankless task, to try to satisfy both groups. I'm pretty sure, he did a great job,
but it was clear from the start, I think, that total satisfaction was quite unrealistic.
BTW, "The Hobbit", was ""relaunched" for the start of the film in a new translation and it's really funny, to read the
comparisons of those editions, mostly ending in debates, which would surely have ended in a closed thread here ! ;D

 

[UpForce]

I had no problems with the fps nor 3D - expect perhaps older movies to appear "jerky" and "fuzzy" from now on. No idea why the prescreening audiences were so critical about the experience, perhaps it's just a cultural artifact, how a movie should look and feel. Coincidentally there have been reports about an entirely vectorized video format having been developed so even this technology might soon face obsolescence with "pixels" relegated to mere display parameters.

As to the content, it seemed heavily weighted towards action and general running, fighting, falling, burning, crashing, hurling, swatting, swiping, ducking, sliding and flying about. All of this accompanied by persistent noise, to a point where it became overbearing and well, to me at least, wound up above and beyond the pain threshold. The monsters and the indiscriminate killing thereof were highly, tortuously, detailed and very graphical in a not so slight dissonance to how gullible, childlike and even human some - if not most - of them were portrayed. All the more poignant compared to how Gollum, who has genuine (multiple, the other truly evil) intellect, was to be spared in the pivotal twist of the plot (rather than a sword, that is). Gandalf, in turn, at times seemed almost apologetic about his prescience and ability to get the dwarfs' plus Bilbo's posse out of any trouble whatsoever, begging the question whether much of their effort and of the risk was really necessary to begin with.

Now, I don't mind portrayals of violence in movies but this just seems so ... triangulated between Jackson's other work, namely "LotR", "Bad Taste" and "Tintin". The themes that repeat are gore, franticness and epic proportions. Those and the cutting edge technological embellishments that are (given his resources) absolutely state of the art. Perhaps Jackson, in an effort to confront his own demons, obsessively brings them as close to life as possible - only to dispose of them in a way that often approaches slapstick (.. see, nothing to fear there?). Often the results are otherwise interesting to behold but w/o much personal or emotional investment carried over to the (this) viewer.

In many senses it is a grand journey (or at least a third, ninth or whatever fraction of it) but therein I felt relegated or typecast into the extraneous role of a tourist rather than experiencing anything approaching visceral, introspective or revelatory. Nothing especially wrong with that, it's just what it is.