Hi All,

Hope you all had a great Christmas.

I'm hoping to finally catch the new Hobbit movie this week. I wouldn't normally choose to watch a film in 3d, but given all the hype surrounding this film I'd appreciate your thoughts on whether the new formats are worth it.

2d or 3d? 48fps or 24 fps? Imax or not?

Unless the new formats significantly improve the story I'll probably stick to 2d, but I'm happy to be convinced otherwise!

Looking forward to your feedback,

E

I have only seen it once so far in 3D HFR. I do hope to see it in the theater still in 2D as well for a comparison (good excuse to see it again). Not getting into anything about the movie itself, here are my impressions.

First, the theater I saw it at was renovated less than five years back I believe and is in great condition and has two "screens" upgraded to the Real3D/HFR. I sat in the same room for the LotR Extended Edition special releases back in June 2011 and those were great as well. I mention this because the overall comfort and condition of the theater does make an impression on the 'experience'. With that out of the way...

I have only seen one other recent 3D movie (Hotel Transylvania) with which to compare, but I'll start by saying there was almost no comparison. The glasses we were given for Hobbit were REALLY comfortable, and covered much more of your field of vision than the ones we got just a couple months earlier for a 'standard' 3D film. It was easy to forget you were wearing them and therefore slip into the suspension of disbelief that is so important for a film...

...until the occasional gratuitous "Three-D!" shot comes up. Thank goodness they didn't do much of this, but they are still in there. Perhaps a single scene element, or a specific shot angle, that you just feel wouldn't have been done except someone thought it would look cool in 3D. I am curious if these will even stand out when viewed in 2D as "oh...that's there for the 3D version". Very minor things overall but a little disappointing none the less. As I said, they make you skip a beat of the story as the brain kicks in and registers it. Thankfully there were few of these and they weren't as bad as the gimmicks in the old 3D films from the 80s.

Overall though I thought the 3D aspect added well to the enjoyment of the film when you weren't really noticing it. The sweeping camera movements, chasing shots during action scenes and even the depth of the scene during typical dialog shots were probably enhanced with the 3D. I say 'probably' because (1) I haven't seen it in 2D yet to compare and (2) a technology like 3D/HFR should be subtle and add to the experience without you even knowing that it is.

One thing that was very obvious to me was how much 'lighter' the scenes looked compared to other films. Even the darker scenes in caves or at night all had an increased clarity to them, but the daytime scenes, especially landscape shots and other exteriors, looked beautiful. I am attributing this to the HFR format until I have a chance to compare the same impressions in a regular format. I can understand why some people said it "looked like the best HD format documentary the BBC ever produced". It really did look more "real" most of the time. This was harder to get used to for me than the 3D aspect but I believe I prefer it overall. It will just take some getting used to. It does put a larger burden on the film maker because special effects are harder to blend in my opinion with this level of clarity, but I think I'll like it.

My personal preference would be if they had a 2D HFR format. I think that will be the best. Maybe when it's released on BR.

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Having seen it in both...

My preference, and those others whom I have spoken to concerning the difference who have seen it in both agree that the difference between the two 2d or 3d, 24fps, that the difference is negligible.

There are a couple of shots where the 3d was very noticeable, otherwise it made the backrounds richer and gave you an overall better picture, but nothing that was particularly necessary. Therefore, 2d is fine, imo.

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"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”

I saw it in 3d HFR, it wasn't imax, but it was cineplex's new 'ultraAVX' thing, which has a bigger screen and surround sound, I believe. So it was almost IMAX, but not quite. I really liked it, I noticed the 48 fps right away, I though the opening scenes were really bright and looked very much like a generic fantasy marketplace, not too middle earthy. However, I didn't notice the 48 fps after that; which I think is good, because it's like HD, you notice it right away, and then you just get used to it. The 3D was also good. I've only seen one other movie in 3D, which was tintin, and that was horrible. It was really dirstracting and seemed to be cutting in and out in tintin, but the hobbit didn't have any of those problems.

There were a couple of 'arrows shot right at you' type (gimmicky) 3D moments, and other than that it just added another layer of depth to it.

Tl;dr, I would say it's worth the extra $3.