The Hobbit and 48fps

[Hazza]

I know it's been released for a little while now in some parts of the world but last night I finally went to see The Hobbit in 48fps 3D. I am a massive fan of the original trilogy and went in preparing to be a little underwhelmed at this film due to the lukewarm response it has been receiving, but WOW. It absolutely blew me away.

All of you cinephiles out there would already know what 48 fps is, but for those who don't, movies are filmed at 24 frames per second, meaning the picture refreshes 24 times every second, 48 fps, or high frame rate (HFR) doubles this, giving a picture clarity far superior to what we're used to seeing at the cinemas. I have to say, seeing Jaksons middle earth in crystal clear clarity was an absolute joy. The HFR makes the interaction between CGI and live action look better than it ever has, removes the judder and blurring sometimes associated with 3D and the action set pieces were breathtaking to say the least.

However, the technology does have its drawbacks. Not everything works (especially the bunny sleigh, yep, you read it right, bunny sleigh) It gives the film a daytime soap opera quality which was quite jarring at first. It took me a good half hour or so to settle into it. I think because it wasn't the way I'm used to seeing middle earth. Sometimes the movements of the characters seems to be sped up, like someone has ffwd the film, and the transfer from a large vista into a character close up sometimes doesn't gel very well. These are issues which put some people off completely, which I can understand, yet when it works, it is like nothing I have ever seen before. Maybe it wasnt the best choice introducing this technology to present a world we are already quite familiar with, but im glad Jackson did. If you allow yourself to be become accustomed to something different, it is glorious.

The film itself I thought was a great adventure tale. It doesn't have the same depth of plot as the original trilogy, but I liked this. It sets the two trilogies apart. Martin Freeman is a fantastic Bilbo and his comic timing is spot on. The scene between him and our old friend Gollum is worth the ticket price in itself. Sir Ian Mckellen yet again completely inhabits the role of Gandalf and Richard Armitage as the Dwarf leader Thorin Oakenshield gives this film the heroic Aragorn-esque character. The beginning is quite padded out and the Dwarves seem more suited to pantomime. When it gets going however, the action and adventure move along briskly, even the slower, more exposition heavy scenes in Rivendell are enjoyable. The stakes are not as high as before, yet Jackson tries really hard to make you feel that they are. Dwarves reclaiming their homeland is never going to be as epic as the destruction of an entire world, why even bother trying to make it so. Hopefully the next installments will flesh out the Dwarf characters in the company a bit more. Many are reduced to background characters and tools used for slapstick.

Many people disagree, but my two cents is that 48fps really does enhance this film and make it so beautiful to look at, minor issues aside. I was skeptical of Jackson turning the Hobbit into three movies, but after seeing this, bring it on!

[frenchkiwi]

specifically as to the 48fps - i saw it, and if they want 3d in 48fraps they have to sort the lighting/visuals out. In this day and age, with digital filters and such there is no excuse for lighting that gives off a fake atmosphere, breaking the immersion-into-fiction factor. In a fantasy film the crime is even greater. The "daytime soap opera" effect that makes it quite obvious that foreground actors are just on bluescreen is in-ex-cu-sa-ble. In a lot of scenes, it was showing up all the CGI (of which there was a lot more than LoTR it seemed) etc. The use of 3D itself was very good, i thought.

while i dwell on the negatives, a minor gripe is that although 48fps reduces the motion blur in 3d action scenes, it also makes it a bit harder to follow as the eye is no longer guided to the in-focus central character but can see everything everywhere, and it can be quite distracting...

i thought this review gave an interesting account: an interesting but still very immature technology perhaps best restricted only to appropriate scenes.

anyway, the movie was enjoyable in a "family fun" type of way, the use of appendix material and invention perhaps over the top but probably much better than just filming the script of the hobbit book (well a trilogy is really going to need that extra plot padding!). Apparently they only had 3months to edit it in and you can tell - the pace of the first half chops and changes and just doesn't feel right. That will surely improve in the next films...

[dangolf18]

I personally didn't appreciate the 48fps in 3D....the whole movie played like a video game.

[Hazza]

I can see the video game thing. It's CG, it's probably always going to have that look about it, but when compared to the running scenes in Moria on FOTR, or the battle scenes in TT and ROTK, I felt it was far crisper and more lifelike to look at in this format