This is topic Chicken Little (2005) in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


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Posted by Brian Michael Weidemann (Member # 2243) on 11-03-2005, 04:35 AM:
 
I wasn't too impressed. Quite frankly, the only part of the movie I could say I enjoyed was the Barenaked Ladies song playing at the very beginning. That's a good song. I love the Barenaked Ladies.

The pacing of the movie seemed a little odd. It's like, okay, when is it going to get into the story? There's an eighties-style montage, followed by the "big game" and "victory" ... 20 minutes into the film!

It was cute, and had those cutesy little Disney moments that kids will eat up. I liked the voice casting. Fred Willard and Adam West steal the show, as far as I'm concerned.

I saw the "Disney Digital 3D" presentation with our newly installed digital system. Granted, I'm coming from an IMAX 3D bias, but I was a little unimpressed with the 3D job. Nothing came OUT of the screen. It was all flush to the screen and receding from it, so it had a little depth, but nothing engrossing or pulling you into the film. The novely wore off soon, and the 3D really didn't improve the movie, or my experience of it.

The circular polarization is pretty nifty, though. No matter how you turn your head, each eye still only sees what it's supposed to ... although, tilt too much and the 3D will still look screwy. NO EYE STRAIN for me! The clunky glasses, worn over my own prescription pair, got heavy by the end, but no big deal.

With the polarizer and the glasses, even the silver screen doesn't make the image as bright as digital can be. The polarizer can be swiveled out of the way (for instance, for the 2D trailers) and you REALLY see the difference at how bright, colorful, and crisp a digital 2K image is.

But the movie as a whole was just okay. I was impressed with the animation and story no more than I was at Shark Tale, which was ick. Run-of-the-mill CG cartoon feature, I thought. I don't think I fell asleep.
 

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 11-03-2005, 04:50 AM:
 
2K? That's it? My HDTV has that resolution.
 

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Posted by Brian Michael Weidemann (Member # 2243) on 11-03-2005, 05:11 AM:
 
Well, apparently the Sony 4K system had some server problems with all that streaming data, from what I heard. And Joe, you really don't need to justify your home system anymore. I think we all understand at this point just how it is!
 

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Posted by Alex Grueneberg (Member # 2652) on 11-04-2005, 04:14 AM:
 
I watched #4242 35mm print version earlier this evening.

Brian, I completely agree with your statement regarding the pacing of the film. Personally, something just did not feel right. And what's up with all the montages? The whole time I kept thinking to my self "Gee, remember how The Incredibles started?... Lets watch that."

The voice acting is top notch. I thought Zach Braff did a smashing job on the voice over for C. Little. Not too Disney if you know what I mean. The animation was very interesting to say the least. For example I noticed some great improvements, especially regarding shadowing with different levels of light. Something that struck me later in the film is some parts almost seemed to have almost to much going on, kind of like saying "look what we can do now!", or it was just all happening to quick but I could be wrong.

On the audio side of things the DTS soundtrack sounds fantastic as always. For those of you who have multi-channel rear/surround speakers there are a couple of seens that completely utilized the 360 degree capabilities. It's a lot of fun.

To my dismay, Chicken Little is 1.85 and personally I believe (well at least speaking for my flat) it suffers for that.
Overall I had a few laughs and at least wasn't bored while I watched it. I'm still planning on hoping over to one of my competitors to check out the digital projected version.

2 out of 5.

[ 11-06-2005, 02:32 AM: Message edited by: Alex Grueneberg ]
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 11-04-2005, 04:29 AM:
 
I was wholly unimpressed with this. The entire movie just felt like a sequel or remake, as there was nothing original or non-predictable.

I'm sure it will do tons of business and the 3D gimmick will have people buying up tickets like crazy, but the movie is dumb and boring.

1 out of 5 stars
 

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Posted by Richard Greco (Member # 2032) on 11-04-2005, 10:21 AM:
 

quote: Brian Michael Weidemann

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I love the Barenaked Ladies

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I love barenaked ladies too....especially brunettes
 

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Posted by Don Anderson (Member # 397) on 11-04-2005, 12:40 PM:
 
I found it to be a little violent for the age bracket it is geared towards. Little kids might be kinda freaked out by the aliens/spider creatures. Overall, I chuckled a bit, and was impressed with the detail/textures. The music tracks didn't seem to match anything on screen. In other words.....leave the songs out! Boring for adults, somewhat enjoyable for older kids 6-8. Much better than Valiant!!!!
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-04-2005, 01:13 PM:
 
I'm hoping this is a middling hit, but not a super blockbuster -- that way, Disney will likely get back in bed with Pixar and the stars will be aligned again.
 

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Posted by Brian Michael Weidemann (Member # 2243) on 11-04-2005, 08:52 PM:
 

quote: Brad Miller

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the 3D gimmick will have people buying up tickets like crazy

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Well, not particularly. I watched some customers come through, not knowing which version they had tickets for, since we also have a 35mm print in another auditorium. We're charging an extra buck for "Disney Digital 3D". I didn't get a huge "Oh wow we have to see the 3D one!" vibe from patrons. But the weekend is still early ...
 

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 11-04-2005, 09:27 PM:
 
Did the 3D thing really bring them in droves for Spy Kids? Has 3D ever helped a movie ever by significant proportions? To me it would be annoying to watch anything longer than 20 minutes or so in 3D.

Retarded.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 11-04-2005, 09:47 PM:
 
But Joe, this is "Disney Digital 3D". Did you miss the "digital" part of that???

 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-05-2005, 12:28 PM:
 
It was better than I expected. It's not going to age as well as the classic Disney films or the Pixar films though. The story is kind of lame and forced.

This movie will help to encourage the Disney stockholders to demand that they re-up with Pixar. Disney pulled the basic boner here -- they sunk all the $$$ into the picture, and not enough into the story. When the biggest laugh in the movie is the line "Tinkle? Piddle? Wizz? Wee-wee?" you know the movie is in trouble.

I think word of mouth on this will be good generally, since the kids are really enthralled with it.

2 out of 5 for me.

[ 11-06-2005, 09:25 PM: Message edited by: Mike Blakesley ]
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 11-07-2005, 05:21 PM:
 
I viewed this at the Buffalo Theatre screen 1 in Buffalo, WY on opening day... Presentation was excellent there. I was very disapointed overall with the movie. The characters had a definate lack of likeability that the Pixar film characteres always have.... and right away. They ripped off the alien Tribble idea froom Star Trek TV show, and there were many other ideas literally ripped from other films as well, overall there's no originality going on here. As I sat there watching I kept wishing for this to have been done with the Looney Tunes Characters... I just thought it was way overblown with a thin story line and characters that never seemed to really get off the ground much.

On the other hand I wonder how the 35mm prints hold up to their digital counterpart... The 35mm I watched looked excellent, was sharp as sa tack and I kept wondering to myself if the digitals looked near this good....

2 Stars
 

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Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 11-07-2005, 09:52 PM:
 

quote: Joe Redifer

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Has 3D ever helped a movie ever by significant proportions?

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It helped Polar Express. Or maybe it was IMAX that helped it... hard to say I guess.

Anyway, I finally got to see this, and it was the 3D version. Brand new install at the Regal King Of Prussia in PA. The movie was ok, but it's all been done before. Disney really needs to come up with a good story first before they try to make another movie, but that's just my suggestion.

As for the digital projection, it was better than I expected it would be. The colors were very rich to the point of looking almost unrealistic in the live action trailers. The picture was nice and bright on what I imagine is a brand new silver screen. Although I'm not sure why I could see what I can only describe as a "texture" on the screen. I've seen this several times on silver screens, so I'm not sure if it's normal or not. But no big distraction really. I didn't notice any pixelization at all from about 2/3 back from the screen.

And the 3D... also, better than I expected, although they could have taken better advantage of it I think. (Make sure you stay for the scene after the credits!) My only gripe with the 3D is that there's a strobing effect that results from the "field sequential" nature of alternating the frames on the screen. Yes, even at 148 frames a second or whatever it is, you can still see a bit of jumpiness in the image when things whip around the screen. And since the latest fad in cartoons these days is for the action to whip around as fast as possible.... well, it was kinda hard to focus on the characters that were whipping around. I wonder if this would be the case with a live action movie that was actually shot in 3D (not converted from 2D) and then presented this way. Since cartoons generally don't have very good motion blur, maybe live action would look better. We'll have to wait and see on that I guess.

As for the 3D "ghosting" between the eyes, the only time I saw this (and I was looking through most of the movie) was during the credits when acorns and other objects were floating up against a black background, and even then, it was VERY hard to spot.

Some interesting things we noticed... turning the classes around backwards didn't flip the images, or even keep them the same. In fact, when you do that, both eyes get through both lenses. Weird. To flip the images, you actually have to turn the glasses upside down. When I got home, I put the glasses on and looked in a mirror. With linear polarized glasses, if you close one eye while doing that, you can see your open eye, and not the closed eye. With these, you can see your closed eye, and not your open eye. Also weird. As an aside, can someone please explain how circular polarization works? I'd love to know.

Another question... it looked to us like the bulb stays on in the projector between shows. Is that true? Or were we seeing things?
 

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Posted by Brian Michael Weidemann (Member # 2243) on 11-07-2005, 10:10 PM:
 
Yes, even in live action 3D, quickly moving things, especially in foreground, tend to have a strobing or flickering effect. I did notice that Chicken Little had this a few times.

I noticed that with the glasses, too. I asked the Dolby tech guy how circular polarization worked, but his answer wasn't much help. I was interested more in the behavior of the light and electrodynamics than the mechanics of the the LCD polarizer rotation thingamabobber.
 

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Posted by Amanda Jones (Member # 3326) on 11-08-2005, 07:46 PM:
 
Yes the bulb stays on between shows. Our tech guy told us that the bulb has to be changed every 2 months and that shutting off the bulb between shows and then reigniting at the start of the next show it looses 3 hours of use, so he said to ignite it at the start of the first show and then shut it off at the end of the last show.

I finally saw it today at the new Rave Theater in Plainfeild Indiana. The movie itself was cute but a bit rushed and stuff that needed better explaination but since it was a kids movie I expected it to be just like that. Kids are not going to question the hurried plot. I thought the 3D was cool I have nothing to compare it too except for Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl which of course Chicken Little is far superior. My experience with the theater was medicore at best. First I never carry a lot of cash with me and today I had NO CASH and the theater's credit card server was down luckily my brother had enough cash to cover me. Their lobby was small and I think their sign said lobby capacity was 59. With 18 screens you would think they would have a bigger lobby. At any given time on the weekend we can have anywhere from 1-200 people in our lobby and during our midnight showing of StarWars we had 1000 plus in the lobby at once. There was only 3 families in front of my brother and I and it took us 15 minutes to get through the concession line. There was 1 concession worker and a manager. The manager just stood there in a daze and the concessionist was really slow and I had to tell the manager to dump the kettle of popcorn before it started to burn, she rolled her eyes at me. The manager that tore our tickets just stood at the ticket post and didn't hop behind the concession stand to help out despite no one walking through the door in the 15 minutes we stood in line. I understand this is a new theater and that even the managers may be new to the theater business but the first thing we train our employees on is how to pop a simple batch of corn and crowd control and how not to let your lines get long.

We got in the theater just as the show was starting even though I already knew what previews were on the movie and have seen them before I still like to be in the theater before the previews start.
 

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Posted by Wolff King Morrow (Member # 2226) on 11-08-2005, 08:14 PM:
 

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen

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On the other hand I wonder how the 35mm prints hold up to their digital counterpart... The 35mm I watched looked excellent, was sharp as sa tack and I kept wondering to myself if the digitals looked near this good....

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quote:

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For one, no matter how steady your intermittent is, the digital version has no moving parts,

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quote: Wolff King Morrow

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The 2nd advantage is there never will be so much as one tiny scratch or spec of dust anywhere in the entire movie on the digital version.

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quote: Wolff King Morrow

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The 3rd advantage is no chance of damaging the movie with brain wraps, bad threading, or any other mistakes that happen with 35mm. All you do is press the "play" button and that's it.

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quote: Steve Guttag

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Perhaps you have not studied the DLP technology...there are a bunch of mirrors moving about there....many mirrors in fact. The moving mirrors are one reason why DLPs don't often look as good as LCDs when showing static images...the DLP can't hold a static image...has to jiggle the mirrors to simulate varying intensities.

That said, I think we acknowledge that "jump and weave" are significantly improved on the digital side.

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quote: Steve Guttag

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Sorry to burst your bubble there too...watch digital projection long enough and you WILL be seeing pixelization and other digital artifacts start showing and randomly. You will also potentially experience a complete show failure by the most simplist of things going wrong. About the only thing that is backed up and is reasonably roubust is the dual drives.

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quote: Steve Guttag

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Ah but now you have computer lockups and other software related crashes to contend with.

As someone that has been working with DLP and other video technology for several years now...I can tell you that all is not perfect in that world either.

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quote: Wolff King Morrow

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Well sorry you didn't burst my bubble because you're now talking about apples to oranges. I've yet to see any degradation in the picture and seriously doubt I will unless something actually fails in the equipment, which is a different subject.

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quote: Steve Guttag

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With digital you have a grided array of pixels projecting onto a grided array of perforations...net result will be a morie pattern to some degree (much worse with transmissive technology, but still there on DLP and other reflective technologies).

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quote: Amanda Jones

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Yes the bulb stays on between shows. Our tech guy told us that the bulb has to be changed every 2 months and that shutting off the bulb between shows and then reigniting at the start of the next show it looses 3 hours of use, so he said to ignite it at the start of the first show and then shut it off at the end of the last show.

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What makes this bulb different than a bulb in a 35mm projector?
 

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Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 11-17-2005, 01:33 PM:
 
I saw Chicken Little at the Rave Polaris 18 on 11/16 at 7:00pm. Dolby Disney Texas Instruments Digital 3-D system installed in Theatre 1. The digital unit is centered on the screen, with the 35mm offset slightly to the right (from the booth perspective.)

The film was surprisingly entertaining. Certainly not a great or memorable picture, but it held my attention. The voice actors did a very good job, especially Joan Cusack. Animation was adequate, not nothing ground breaking. It was certainly better than the Dreamworks pictures I have seen, but not up to Pixar standards.

Quite frankly, I don't think 3-D added much to the entertainment value.

The digital projection was crisp and very clear. My initial seat was approximately 40' back from the ~35' screen. (The room seated 260.) A very slight hot spot was apparent during the trailers, but not especially noted during the 3-D feature.

The 3-D effect was very very good. The only 3-D I've seen better than this was full-screen IMAX 3-D. That image is much more convincing because it fills the entire field of view.

The room side lights were somewhat distracting. They were at a very low level, but they pulled my attention away from the screen.

Since there were only a few others in the theatre, I experimented with some other seats. Moving to the far right about 1/2 way back seemed to flatten the 3-D effect. I also moved to about 5 rows from the front again at the extreme right (this time past the edge of the screen) and the effect was flattened even more. Anyone sitting far off center will not see a very good 3-D image.

I then moved to the front row, which in this theatre is about 6'-7' below the screen. The image seems a bit dim from here, and the 3-D effects were also not very effective.

But, sitting in the center of the theatre gave a very impressive 3-D image.

Glasses were comfortable, but they broke midway as I was experimenting with them. They are not as comfortable as the newer Imax glasses. The Chicken Little glasses have a bit of a squeeze built in to keep them in place.

It certainly looked to me like the green glasses worn by Chicken Little were an afterthought and attached on later in the production. His wearing glasses didn't make much sense.

I'm looking forward to seeing other films in this process. As others have noted, the system trailers were very good.
 

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 11-20-2005, 08:02 PM:
 
I thought that the film was pretty lame, but the 3D looked quite good. This is the first time that I've seen (I assume) 2K DLP at full resolution (as opposed to upconverted NTSC) and it looks really good. They finally got scrolling credits to look decent.

The DLP people should have picked a better demo film for the 3D system. As others have mentioned, this show didn't benefit much from it.

I do think that the system shows some promise for the future and hope that someone will make a 3D film that is actually good. I'd be curious to know how live-action 3D films look when projected via DLP.
 

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Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 11-20-2005, 08:15 PM:
 

 

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Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 11-20-2005, 08:22 PM:
 

quote: Mark J. Marshall

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What makes this bulb different than a bulb in a 35mm projector?

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quote: Steve Guttag

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Perhaps you have not studied the DLP technology...there are a bunch of mirrors moving about there....many mirrors in fact. The moving mirrors are one reason why DLPs don't often look as good as LCDs when showing static images...the DLP can't hold a static image...has to jiggle the mirrors to simulate varying intensities.

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True. millions of tiny mirrors swinging back and forth in a no-reflective state for "off", and a reflective state for "on". Steve, with this definition above of DLP's operation, what would be the more recommended machine for home use..DLP or LCD machines since of the gridwork display of the LCD version?

thx-Monte
 

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Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 11-20-2005, 11:04 PM:
 
I can't see the bulbs being over 3K since the projectors generally seem to go into medium sized < 350 seat audtioriums. So I would really like to understand the thought process behind leaving the bulbs on if anyone has any input.
 

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Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 11-30-2005, 10:14 PM:
 
CINEMA: Megaplex 17 at Jordan Commons, Sandy, UT
AUDITORIUM: 15
PRESENTATION: DLP Disney Digital 3-D Dolby Digital Cinema Say That Three Times Fast
PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: None
RATING: Two and one half stars (out of four)

Like the Cricket IMAX, they're doing "reserved seating" in this auditorium. We don't get an usher this time. The ticket taker says "Auditorium 15 is to your right. The bathrooms are back there. This is reserved seating, so please check your ticket for your seat. And here are your 3-D glasses. Would you like this free "Making of the Work and the Glory (American Zion)" DVD?"

There were no people running around exchanging seats this time, partly because there was very little audience. I overheard an employee the other day saying the kids had all moved on to "Polar Express" at the IMAX.

Warning issued with 3-D glasses: "Keep out of reach of children under 3." Well WHO DO THEY THINK THIS MOVIE IS TARGETED AT?!? It isn't smart enough for most kids older than, oh, six...

So the trailers start (after a warning to not put on the glasses yet) and the first thing I see in DLP is the trailer for "Cheaper by the Dozen 2", which starts out with simulated film scratches for effect. There's irony for ya.

The non-3-D trailers were kind of fuzzy, but the feature was sharp and clear. I was most impressed with the 3-D when things weren't moving quickly...otherwise the strobe effect noted previously was apparent. I don't plan to see "Polar Express" in IMAX 3-D for comparison because "Polar Express" sucks.

The sound was awesome.

I didn't think the movie was too bad, and I thought the ending was cute. "Ugly Duckling" looks a lot like MaggieMoo. I expect any sequel to be a Disney "straight to video" release.
 

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Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 12-01-2005, 08:42 AM:
 
I saw this at the Muvico in Davie Florida. The color space on the coming attraction trailers prior to the 3D almost looked like Kodachrome in color and contrast. The use of 3D was excellent and the complaints that most of the 3D was at the image frame and behind where a "matter of opinion"....3D was another element to move the story along...not the scene stealer. The cicular polarizers worked great on ghosting image issues; the only time of saw ghosting was when a high contrast circular image was shown, like a ring of white circles. This film is no Pixar but the 3D made it more fun.
I noticed on another post they complained about "texture" on the screen. The manufacture of silver screens is difficult with most surfaces sprayed with 4 to 7 coats of silver. Problems with spray heads, temperature + humidity in the factory and mounting of spray ( horizontal or vertical ) heads can be a factor.....there are one - two screen companies which use a "printed" surface but they also can have problems since screens are made from several rolls of material which may not match up. Screens are made of panels and welded or stitched to create the full surface. Silver screens have more problems where the seams will show in the image....this was the case at this cinema location as 3 to 4 non 3D looking lines appeared in bright scenes.
 

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