This is topic The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


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Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 12-14-2013, 05:16 PM:
 
I've already commented on the looks of the HFR in this other thread.

So, I watched this year's Hobbit movie. I've read the original trilogy years ago, but not The Hobbit. The Hobbit is just ONE book and not THREE. I'm still amazed at how much you can stretch a story...

The presentation in 3D HFR (and "Dolby" 7.1) itself was quite flawless, the switch between the 3D 24 FPS trailers and the HFR feature presentation was entirely flawless. The theater was packed.

As a bonus feature, the "commentary track" was on: It was provided by a woman next to me, describing everything happening on screen... Unfortunately, the mute function was broken, after politely asking to shut the fuck up, she didn't quiet down, but distributed her bucket of popcorn somewhat evenly over the floor. (Actually, she picked up the biggest heap, put it back into her bucket and continued eating...)

Let's get back to that story stretching: The story on this one is so thin, it's not only translucent, it's practically transparent.

Some dwarfs, a wizard and a hobbit need to get inside a mountain to retrieve some important glow-in-the-dark jewel. There's just a little catch, one giant greedy, evil dragon is also present in those same caves. Besides that, there are some orks that want to rain on the parade as well.

The concept of the whole movie is no different than that of the second half of the first. The main characters are constantly on the run for something evil and run from one adventure into the next. Since having Gandalf present would make stuff too easy, he receives some telepathic message and leaves the pack to their fate.

After a hour and a half of running from one adventure to the next, this whole thing starts to get very boring. Since you already know they will eventually arrive at their destination and encounter some big dragon beast, there is no suspense whatsoever.

In contrast to the first movie, this one is much darker. Besides the often stunning sets and scenery, I really hated the look of it. Even the whole "inside the mountain" part is dark and bleak. Yeah, I know, it's supposed to be dark, but why is there any light for them to see at all, without a single candle being lit? There was a big dragon there, shouldn't he be able to light some candles to make the place look a bit more colorful?

All in all, I hated it. It was ugly looking, the HFR didn't really improve and it was utterly boring. Right now, I don't feel any urge to see the last part...
 

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Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 12-14-2013, 05:34 PM:
 
With respect to 24fps to 48fps 3D transition...I'm curious...which 3D process and which projector? It actually could make a difference.
 

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Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 12-14-2013, 06:04 PM:
 
The projector is a Christie CP4220. The 3D System is XPand 3D Passive with motorized mount.

The circular polarization of the XPand Passive system is the same as RealD. I used my own Polaroid 3D glasses, that are "RealD certified". Not that I do think their polarizers are really better, but the glasses block more light from the sides and look cooler .
 

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Posted by Geoff Jones (Member # 3668) on 12-19-2013, 07:57 PM:
 
I wanted to see it on the big screen at Harkins Northfield and had tentative plans to go Wednesday night. I noticed on Sunday that their website only showed listings thru Tuesday. So I called them up and asked if it would still be on the big screen on Wednesday. "Oh sure," said the Harkins dimwit who answered the phone.

Tuesday I checked the updated listings and Anchorman 2 was on the big screen starting Wednesday. Sigh.

So I went to the much closer AMC Promenade in Westminster, #12. It wasn't a terrible presentation, but the audio was too low. I found myself straining to hear the dialog at times.

The only other thing to note, presentation-wise, is that an AMC dimwit started cleaning the glass window at the projection port during the credits while I was looking for my friend's name in the credits. I managed to spot it as it scrolled up the screen under a blurry shadow.

As for the movie, I thought it was terrible. It was as if someone accidentally erased the word "finesse" from the dictionary while they were making this movie and the very concept ceased to exist. There was no sense of danger, no character development. It felt like a three hour video game. (And I'm a fan of the license and the LotR films.)

Not recommended.
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 12-20-2013, 12:49 PM:
 
Cinema: Harkins Theatres Bricktown 16
Screen: Cine Capris
Format: 2K 'scope, 2D, Dolby Atmos
Presentation Problems: None
Rating: 3 stars out of 4

I'm just now getting around to posting this review, even though it has now been a week since I watched the movie.

quote: Geoff Jones

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Tuesday I checked the updated listings and Anchorman 2 was on the big screen starting Wednesday. Sigh.

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quote: Marcel Birgelen

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I'm still amazed at how much you can stretch a story...

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quote: Justin Hamaker

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The Hobbit, the book, I have to say I have been very disappointed by the first two parts of The Hobbit the movie. While the visual elements are done extremely well, there is so much added that it almost becomes a different story.

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It is pretty clear that they stretched out a smaller story into a too long a series. I am surprised at how much money the first movie made, this one is not going to do as well but will still do well. What is even more shocking is that people are willing to see Hobbit 2 twice. Who is the bigger fool? Peter Jackson for stretching out a single story and ruining his legacy or the poor fool who pays for it twice.
 

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Posted by Stu Jamieson (Member # 4626) on 12-29-2013, 06:54 AM:
 
Had a patron come out of the Hobbit to complain tonight. He said the movie was running too fast. I had to give him a crash course in HFR.
 

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Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 12-29-2013, 07:15 AM:
 
Maybe Warner Bros should've added a short (optional) introduction to the HFR version, explaining the "merits" of HFR.
 

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Posted by Stu Jamieson (Member # 4626) on 12-29-2013, 05:32 PM:
 
"Warner Bros wish to advise that HFR is shit. We hope you enjoy the feature."
 

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Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 01-01-2014, 09:30 PM:
 
^ tee-hee - you're funny.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-01-2014, 10:28 PM:
 
How could a customer saying the movie is running too fast have anything to do with HFR? Unless you were pulling his chain.

I'm not into these kinds of movies so have not watched it, but we're just wrapping up our run here and the grosses have been terrific. Week 2 outgrossed Week 1 -- which wasn't a huge surprise due to the Christmas holiday week, we often get a lot of people home for the holidays....but then week 3 came along and grossed almost exactly the same as week 1, which is pretty much unheard of. So I'm thinking word-of-mouth on this must be pretty great. In the end it has *almost* equalled the first movie, less than $100 difference. And this is with the second week not having 3-D available (our dishwasher decided to take a short vacation). So actually butts-in-seats-wise, this movie outdid the first one by a few people.
 

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Posted by Stu Jamieson (Member # 4626) on 01-01-2014, 10:58 PM:
 
People perceiving HFR as running too fast or "sped up" is quite common, Mike. It's a trick of the mind, of course, but the perception is real to many folks.
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-01-2014, 11:02 PM:
 
This movie was the box office earnings winner this past weekend, beating The Wolf of Wall Street and Anchorman 2. There's little doubt a good chunk of The Hobbit's $29 million take came from the hefty price premiums at IMAX-branded theaters.

Still, I'm kind of surprised theater chains haven't put this one back on some of the other premium big screens. It played for only 5 days at the Harkins Bricktown 16 Cine Capri theater (in Dolby Atmos) before being replaced by Anchorman 2 and then The Wolf of Wall Street the following week. I suppose they'll stick the new Paranormal Activity cash grab in that theater next.

 

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Posted by Terry Lynn-Stevens (Member # 7349) on 01-01-2014, 11:46 PM:
 

quote: Bobby Henderson

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a good chunk of The Hobbit's $29 million take came from the hefty price premiums at IMAX-branded theaters.

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quote: Bobby Henderson

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I'm kind of surprised theater chains haven't put this one back on some of the other premium big screens.

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quote: Mike Blakesley

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How could a customer saying the movie is running too fast have anything to do with HFR? Unless you were pulling his chain.

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quote: Terry Lynn-Stevens

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While the film decreased in its weekly earnings form the week before, a large increase of the overall earnings went to IMAX, IMAX actually increased its market share for the past weekend from the weekend before to about 17% of the total gross. All said and done, about $5.5 million was grossed from just 300 IMAX screens. 3600 theatres (NOT SCREENS) shared around $24 million.

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quote: Bobby Henderson

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The time has been long overdue for movie studios and the entertainment press to start publishing attendance numbers. How many tickets did the movie sell?

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quote: Steve Guttag

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I'm also curious if the single lens systems are more prone to the motion artifacts than the dual projector or Sony 3D where there is no alternation between eyes. It may be like the single chip DLP projectors...you can speed up the wheel but no matter how fast you go...you never have all three colors on screen at the same time...there will always be a field-sequential artifact that a percentage of the population will notice.

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I've seen the Hobbit (1) in both Dual projector 3D HFR and in single-lens/alternating image 3D HFR. The "sped-up motion" was prevalent in both versions. I've also seen parts of the 24 FPS 3D version and the "sped-up motion" effect was totally gone there. I only really noticed the effect in some of the close-up character shots, they weren't present in the scenic or wide-angle action shots. Some of those shots did have this "video game" look though. Many of the shots involving real actors had this "theatrical play/soap opera look", the motion didn't look "sped up" per se, but the whole thing just looked fake. This look was LESS present in the 24 FPS version, but still not entirely gone.

Almost all people I spoke to in real life, that also have seen the first Hobbit movie in HFR noticed this "sped up motion" effect.

In both the 2012 and 2013 HFR thread, I tried to give my own explanation (unfortunately, without the possibility to give you any kind of proof ): I think this is an artifact of too little motion blur for this given frame rate. As you're probably still capable of subconsciously picking up the individual frames, but now with twice the frequency, you're now being presented with a strobing image that is "too sharp" for what you would otherwise register with your own eyes if you were looking at a real moving object. With 24p, there is probably sufficient "lack of information" for your brain to fill it in, additionally, we've been trained to perceive those images as "the real deal" for countless of years. It's an rather interesting proof that concepts like "speed" and "time" are very relative terms if it comes down to human perception .

In the latest Hobbit, this "sped up" motion was still there, but it seemed to be less prevalent and less clear, at least to me and my girlfriend. I don't know if they tried to fix it, by adding some post-production effects, like extra motion blur, or maybe the overall darker image made it less noticeable.

In general, the "HD video look" was also a bit more prevalent in the first release than the second, but isn't exclusive to the HFR version, in my opinion, even the 24p version looks rather "videoish".

As I mentioned at the start of the thread, I didn't like the look of this second movie at all. I've now seen it partly in 24 FPS 3D and to me, it still looks a lot like stage play and video game, only with the edges taken off a bit more.
 

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Posted by Stu Jamieson (Member # 4626) on 01-04-2014, 07:15 PM:
 
Peter Jackson's second part to his Lord of the Rings prequel - for that is what this series of films is more so than a faithful adaptation of Tolkien's children's story - is certainly an improvement on his first part. While Jackson once again takes great liberties with the tone and content of Tolkien's story, when the action ramps up, there's less of the overblown helter skelter silliness of the first film. There's no plate-juggling singing dwarves, vulgar half-wit cockney trolls or superfluously literalised stone giant battles here. Instead there's a very creepy and suspenseful spider encounter in Mirkwood, an adrenalised barrel rider sequence, and a re-imagined portrayal of the wood elves which works quite nicely despite the risks of the substantial changes.

The considerable rejigging of the films signature dragon sequence, however, fares less well, submitting to the kind of Hollywoodised climactic spectacle that ruined the goblin caves sequence in the previous film. Again, Jackson indulges his own desires when the economy and elegance of the source material would have fared better; especially when Jackson's creation is littered with inconsistencies and irrationalities. The mid-chapter finish of the sequence (and the movie!) is also frustrating to say the least.

The Desolation of Smaug curiously has a wider HFR (high frame rate) release this time around despite the clear problems with it last time. And the problems persist with this latest film though, it seems, to a lesser degree. Are the problems being slowly ironed out or are we just getting used to it? It's hard to say. But it's probably telling that critic's screenings were not offered the HFR cut this time and that there have been no other HFR releases outside of the Hobbit films. It is likely that after the Hobbit films are done, the technique will (deservedly) slide into obscurity except, perhaps, for some specific applications.

While The Desolation of Smaug is an improvement over it's predecessor, it is clear that after this trilogy is complete the definitive Hobbit film will yet to have been made; for while Jackson's movies may prove to be effective prequels to his own Lord of the Rings trilogy, it is not a faithful adaptation of what Tolkien prescribed. I look forward to that film.

7.5 out of 10
 

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Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 01-08-2014, 04:42 PM:
 

quote: Stu Jamieson

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While The Desolation of Smaug is an improvement over it's predecessor, it is clear that after this trilogy is complete the definitive Hobbit film will yet to have been made; for while Jackson's movies may prove to be effective prequels to his own Lord of the Rings trilogy, it is not a faithful adaptation of what Tolkien prescribed. I look forward to that film.

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