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Author Topic: The Hobbit Buck Wilson Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 894 From: St. Joseph MO, USA Registered: Sep 2010 posted 12-20-2012 12:37 AM                     Movie itself: Meh. High frame rate? AWESOME. I LOVED it. From the WB logo to the credits, I was just AMAZED. I could watch the wide angle shots over and over.... Stunning. Topped off with Dolby Atmos and it was a VERY enjoyable 3.5 hours, DESPITE my literally zero knowledge and/or interest in the Hobbit/LoTR stuff. The presentation actually just pulled me in and didn't let go until the end even though I went in not wanting to see the movie, just the technology. Only thing that stood out as more obviously fake due to amazing clarity was some fake greenery near the beginning of the movie. Past that I noticed nothing bad. I feel like this is how movies SHOULD be. Jeez, the instant the WB logo came up, My jaw dropped and I'm pretty sure I exclaimed 'WOW', but I hardly remember because I was drooling everywhere. AMC Barrywoods 24 In KCMO is where I went. Aud. #12 is their 'ETX' theater, with Dolby Atmos. There is no less than 60 speakers in that auditorium. My only complaint with the retrofit was that something in the ceiling rattled/resonated with some of the booming type noises. The canyon scene in the movie was epic in Atmos, I felt that whole scene, literally.  |  IP: Logged Frank Cox Film God Posts: 2234 From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada Registered: Apr 2011 posted 12-21-2012 01:04 PM                        I watched The Hobbit in my theatre late last night. (The DCP took "an unexpected journey" and by the time I had it in my hands and got it ingested and ready to play, it was shortly after 1am, so I was watching this thing until nearly 4am.) I love the Lord of the Rings, the books somewhat more than the movies but they are all good and worth the time it takes to read/watch them. The story is engrossing and just plain exciting in many parts. Even The Hobbit (book) is very good, though of course somewhat more juvenile. I've read all of the books about four times over the years since I was around twelve years old and enjoyed them greatly every time. Therefore, I'm the guy who should be the first to say, "More of this, please" when watching The Hobbit movie. But this is one of those movies that would be twice as good if it was half as long. The story rarely gets into gear, and there is a lot of extra (and irrelevant) stuff that's dragged in to stretch the runtime. For example, the rabbit sled and the chap who rides it is cute and all, but it's obviously there just to fill in more time; it doesn't actually add anything to the story and a good film editor should have realized that (and probably did) but if he left that part out it wouldn't stretch to a trilogy. The stuff that's good is really good, but it's a long wait between those parts.  |  IP: Logged Christian Appelt Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 505 From: Frankfurt, Germany Registered: Dec 2001 posted 01-01-2013 10:31 AM                     quote: Frank Cox But this is one of those movies that would be twice as good if it was half as long. The story rarely gets into gear, and there is a lot of extra (and irrelevant) stuff that's dragged in to stretch the runtime. That is exactly how I feel about it. I certainly was no fan of the LOTR films, but have to admit that they work and tell the story well although I don't like the particular visual style and casting. The Hobbit is a simple book, much closer to fairy tales than LOTR, and it has its own ironic charm. Now Jackson tried to make it into a ten-hour epic and killed the story's appeal. Now I don't expect a movie to be "true to the book" because the goal is to tell the story as a motion picture, it has to stand on its own feet. But why do you make a Hobbit film when you do not understand what the book was about and why for 75 years people have reading it again and again? At 300 pages, there was no need to compress and shorten things like with LOTR. I'm not sure whether the screenplay for the Hobbit should be filed under rape or homicide of a preexisting story, but every change and addition made by Jackson and his collaborators is for the worse. They messed up motivations, dialog lines and added nothing but video game action and their stupid "super orc". It's not enough to get the heroes up on trees with deadly wolves and orcs attacking them, no, let's put the trees close to a five mile cliff so we can do another domino effect - ex-ci-ting! Ghost-writen by Wiley E. Coyote, I suppose. All CGI monsters share the same cheap game look, only Gollum stands out as a great performance. The dwarves look like a bunch of village idiots shrunk to 2/3 size, Jackson did not grasp the concept that Tolkien created, there is just no moment of dignity like the character of Gimli brought it to LOTR. Peter Jackson is not a very inspired director, and while the LOTR films were powered and driven by the story and good actors, The Hobbit proves that he cannot even direct a simple dinner table scene. Every second rate studio director of the 1940s would have been ashamed to mess it up like this. To me, the Gollum/Bilbo riddle scene was the best part of the movie, my respect to CGI artists and to Andy Serkis who played Gollum by Motion Capture. IMHO the whole movie feels bloated and like it was made from LOTR leftovers, good actors like Freeman, Blanchett, Lee and Weaving are totally wasted and cannot save it. Without a doubt, The Hobbit will make tons of money. I have no desire to watch more of this, especially not in cheesy HFR/3D directed by someone who believes he could "improve" on JRRT.  |  IP: Logged Stu Jamieson Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 524 From: Buccan, Qld, Australia Registered: Jan 2008 posted 01-05-2013 07:53 PM                     It's probably a blessing that the 48fps HFR incarnation of The Hobbit has received a limited release as this technology could have seriously dented the box office takings of J.R.R. Tolkien's seminal story. It turns out that HFR is a very unforgiving medium. Anything that is actually real (like the NZ landscapes) looks incredibly real but anything that is fake (like CGI or any time artificial light is used) looks really really fake. You'll see some panoramic vista shot of our dwarvish company wandering through the NZ wilderness looking splendid and then it will cut to a character detail which is clearly using artificial lights with coloured gels and it looks like they've just jumped from a lush nature documentary to the set of The Wizard of Oz - it's very jarring. It looks like one of those "making of" featurettes you see on TV, with all the pre post-production on-set footage. The effect is a film which looks superfluously choreographed and "acted". If special effects blockbusters intend continuing with this technology then a serious lift in the quality of production design and CGI will be required to fool the unfeigned eye of the HFR camera. The future of HFR may well be in its selective use, much like IMAX and, indeed, 3D. There certainly seems to be a place to use it and a place not to use it. There's a potentially wonderful nature documentary waiting to be made with this technology. An unfortunate by-product of HFR is that it lays bare the significant problems in the script and pacing of the film, problems which are much easier to overlook in the more enjoyable (and conventional) 24fps release. The film has so many back-story distractions that the central narrative, at times, fades into the background and you wish they'd just get on with it. It seems Jackson has elected to dispense with the theatrical cut and head straight to his "Director's Cut". The film is littered with Hollywood-style falling down holes and helter skelter sliding and tumbling about which quickly becomes tiresome and serves to slow the pace down even further. Jackson has succeeded in transforming a classic story into an utterly conventional Hollywood blockbuster which even includes turning poor Bilbo a into "Kickass"-style public defender by the end. Ingenuity no longer matters it seems, what matters is holding your own against an orc. These things seemed to be there for no other reason than to inject action into the proceedings, but they cheapen the film overall and they look more than a little ridiculous. Jackson would have done well to stick to the brevity of Tolkien's version of events. Jackson was justified in revising The Lord of the Rings story as that book required substantial changes just to make the film project feasible; and he was highly successful in distilling that story whilst preserving its Tolkienistic essence. But the small tome of The Hobbit had no such restrictions. With The Hobbit Jackson displays an irrational compulsion to play out every detail visually, no matter how small, and is even so presumptuous as to invent an extra villain. In doing so he changes the tone of the story, seemingly in an effort to improve upon Tolkien's work and bring it into line with his own. This is a serious and arrogant misstep. And it's unnecessary as The Hobbit fits just fine with LOTR even as a children's book; indeed Tolkien's infantilisation of Bilbo contributes significantly to the transition of his overall character arc across the Ring anthology. The inescapable result is that Jackson has turned a thrift book into a laborious movie. The "Riddles in the Dark" sequence with Gollum, however, is masterful and is one of the few sequences where Jackson truly nails Tolkien's vision. I suppose Jackson (and Andy Serkis) had a lot of practice to get this right. And the Council of Elrond sequence nicely draws a direct line of continuity to Jackson's Ring films. There are certainly some gem-like qualities to the film but it would take a savage edit to crystalise them. Perhaps the directors cut of this film will be an economic, pruned down cut of the story? (Of course, this is fanciful thinking.) 6 out of 10  |  IP: Logged Jonathan Goeldner Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1360 From: Washington, District of Columbia Registered: Jun 2008 posted 01-08-2013 11:48 AM                     I agree Stu - the Riddles in the Dark was the standout scene in the movie, not only for the reasons you pointed out, but also for the Atmos mix to really shine - the disembodied voice of Gollum as it echo's around the scene/auditorium was incredible. The Atmos mix though on AMC Tyson's ETX screen though was so fricki' LOUD that it really didn't impress me when all it did was create a giant mush of assaultive sound. the presentation of the HFR version at Regal Kingstowne 16 was outstanding - the clarity and sharp as a tack imagery the sped up look though  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 01-08-2013 04:03 PM                        ETX screens are always too loud. That's AMC's policy, believe it or not.  |  IP: Logged Jonathan Goeldner Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1360 From: Washington, District of Columbia Registered: Jun 2008 posted 01-08-2013 04:48 PM                     Atmos made it even louder  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 01-08-2013 09:40 PM                        Well I'm no LOTR fan and had (and still have) no interest in seeing this one, but moviegoers' reviews -- the ones who count -- have been very positive. I will agree that the movie was damn loud, but I feel that way about every movie with a lot of "battles" in it. Those battle soundtracks get overdone every time. (The worst one ever, so far, was the most recent Transformers movie -- at least this one had some breaks in the mayhem.) Anyway, we decided not to play this on the break because of the 3-week minimum. We waited until Week 2 when WB said they would let us have it for two weeks. As it turned out, it could have easily gone three weeks. I would guess our audiences would give it four out of five stars on the average. Some people were absolutely giddy with delight when they exited and we had quite a number of repeat customers. And some people who were truly bummed out that the next chapter is almost a whole year away.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 01-09-2013 02:24 AM                     Funny so many people here are complaining the movie was too loud. Was it really as loud compared to other action movies? Mike compared it to one of those Transformers movie turds...yet those had lousy mixes too. A GOOD mix can be played ridiculously loud if the acoustics are good, quality speakers are used and the room is carefully tuned by someone who understands the art of it and isn't just dialing up the EQ like a robot to the RTA. (Same thing for people who let the processor auto-EQ itself.) The bottom line is that a bad mix just can't be played as loud on even the best setups. The Hobbit was not an example of good sound mixing. Atmos can help directionality and such, but it can't save a poor mix.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 01-09-2013 02:41 AM                        I wasn't griping about the loudness as much as about the unpleasantness of what I was hearing. I didn't watch the movie so I don't know about the sound mix, but I remember keeping the office door shut most of the time just to keep the racket out. Kind of like you can be hearing the best stereo system in the world, but it' just making noise if it's not playing the kind of music you like.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 01-09-2013 03:08 AM                     Oh I don't know about that. I can appreciate even rap music if it was mixed well and is being played on a good sound system. But seriously, assuming for just a moment that rap music is actually mixed well. When was the last time anyone played RAP on a good sound system? Then again, has it EVER happened?  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 01-09-2013 05:18 AM                        o hellz yeah it haz, b! u thro on sum 2pac or mebbe sum biggie in my ride and ur eyeballz wont be able 2 focus cuz da bizzase is so deep and melting ur mind. as i roll down da street peeps turn on der lights an thro thingz at me cuz dey no my sound is tite. dey jelly 4 sho na mean? it like u strapped 2 da word biggest vibrtor hook up 2 some 61,400 volt 32,768 watt ampz wit da barracuda powa amp u b shakin all nite even afta all da music is dun u no wat im sayin? wat u think ur sound system iz betta? ya aight u keep belevin dat cuz u aint no gud sound till you been in my ride mofo.  |  IP: Logged Jonathan Goeldner Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1360 From: Washington, District of Columbia Registered: Jun 2008 posted 01-11-2013 08:59 PM                     ^ that's racist ... quote: Mike Blakesley I wasn't griping about the loudness as much as about the unpleasantness of what I was hearing. I didn't watch the movie so I don't know about the sound mix, but I remember keeping the office door shut most of the time just to keep the racket out. Kind of like you can be hearing the best stereo system in the world, but it' just making noise if it's not playing the kind of music you like.  |  IP: Logged Scott Jentsch Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1061 From: New Berlin, WI, USA Registered: Apr 2003 posted 01-22-2013 12:04 PM                        I finally had the chance to see The Hobbit in 3D, HFR, and Atmos at the Kerasotes ShowPlace ICON Theatre in Chicago on Sunday. It was the second time that I saw it; the first time being in 2D at a local nothing-special-but-mostly-decent theater in December. I came away from the first showing somewhat disappointed by the movie. I'm a fan of the Lord of the Rings movies and of the original written material, but I'm not walking around in funny ears and speaking dwarvish, so I expected to enjoy The Hobbit. However, the movie suffers from the lack of an editor. There is so much material in it that should have been cut and included in an "extended edition" release instead. One can only think that these were intentional decisions because of the upcoming installments, and perhaps the additional characters and scenes will show their worth later on. I was much happier coming out of the second showing, so maybe it's just a matter of letting go of the source material and enjoying the story as it's presented in movie form. My first viewing was intentionally 2D. I didn't want to deal with 3D (not the biggest fan), and the comments about the HFR technology made me want to see the movie and not have to be affected by all that. However, I definitely was curious about the HFR and the Atmos sound system, so it took this long to schedule a 4-hour round trip to Chicago and back. The theater now has two Atmos installations, and the manager I spoke with on the phone said that this theater (#6) was the smaller of the two, but only by a small amount. It had a 48' wide screen, 10 ceiling speakers (2 rows of 5), with 6 rear speakers, and 7 on each side wall. The 3D was RealD, and I was surprised that the screen was not as shiny as I've seen other RealD installations up here in Milwaukee (mostly Marcus). I have to say that I was very impressed by the quality of the 3D work on The Hobbit! I put it at the same level as Avatar and Hugo, with some obvious effort having been put in to use focus and depth to enhance the experience. The image was also suitably bright, and didn't make wish that it was brighter or that dark scenes were being crushed or highlights were being muted. Since I'm not used to watching 3D, I did have to close my eyes periodically to give them a rest, which is what I remember doing during Avatar as well. The Atmos sound system was great! The Riddles in the Dark scene was excellent use of the ceiling speakers, as well as what sounded like a combination of the front ceiling and front side speaker to cause sounds to come from the upper corner of the auditorium. Other scenes had some ambient sounds that opened up the sound field as well. Bass in the theater was well-done, without being boomy but still providing some heft. I wouldn't have minded some extra gut-thumping bass for the stone giant scene as well as a few others, though. Lastly, this show was in HFR and I was bracing myself for the artifacts that have been mentioned here and in other places. I expected to see goofy sets, bad makeup effects, and odd movement (speedups), but I saw none of that. I did notice that pans looked less jumpy, so I'm pretty sure that HFR was in play here (I did verify with a manager to make sure that this was an HFR show), and only once did I notice something that resembled a speed-up when they were showing a long shot of a grassy meadow and hillside that stuttered a little bit. Otherwise, I didn't notice anything bad about the image. Maybe I'm not sensitive to its effects because I haven't been watching film running through projectors at 24 fps as long as others, but if this is what HFR brings to the table, I say bring it on.  |  IP: Logged Jonathan Goeldner Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1360 From: Washington, District of Columbia Registered: Jun 2008 posted 01-25-2013 11:39 PM                     Scott: you didn't find out how many added speakers are behind the screen - one thing I noticed on the Atmos mix, that the Trolls that threaten to eat Bilbo and the Dwarves, their voices are placed above the Dwarves dialogue level giving the illusion of the height of the Trolls in relationship to their 'meal'.  |  IP: Logged

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