The Hobbit: A Defense of High Frame Rate 3D

Happy New Year!  I promise this will be my last Hobbit related post, but I did warn you!

I was in Chicago over the weekend, and being in the bigger city, I took the opportunity to go see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in the new High Frame Rate 3D (HFR), the way that Peter Jackson intended us to view it, and in Dolby ATMOS, which is Dolby's brand spanking new sound technology.  While Indianapolis did end up having one theater showing HFR, I opted to wait until I was in Chicago to experience this new technology.  A giant shout out to the Kerasotes ICON Theater at the Roosevelt Collection, which is where I saw the movie.  It is the nicest, cleanest movie theater I have been in very long time.  In fact, it is the best since AMC bought out Kerasotes here in Indianapolis.  I miss them!

A lot of you may not have heard of HFR before, but for us movie and Tolkien geeks, we've been aware of it from the production diaries that Peter Jackson has been kind enough to video for us.  The basic information is that since the advent of sound films in the 20s films have been shot at 24 frames per second (fps), so that the sound can sync with the image.  If it was faster or slower, the ear would pick up the change.  As the technology improved over the course of the next 80 years, there have been attempts at raising the frame rate, but Peter Jackson's use of HFR 3D, which is shot at 48 fps, is by far the largest risk taken by Hollywood to change the format.  Of course, the risk was mitigated because not every theater was capable of showing it, and even though the other two movies in the trilogy will be released in HFR and James Cameron has stated the sequels to Avatar will be to, there is no guarantee this technology will ever fully take off.  The good news is that with a lot of movie theaters already going through the shift to digital projection over film it is really a matter of doing a software upgrade to the projector, but obviously, the theater companies would rather not have to pay for something that isn't going to be used, which puts us in a bit of a holding pattern.

When Jackson first showed some of the footage from the movie, there was a decidedly mixed reaction, and after seeing it, I can understand why.  We are used to what movies "look" like, which means a certain amount of flicker from the film projector, which has been reproduced in digital forms, and a motion blur that just isn't present in real life.  Filming in 48 fps changes this.  Everything is brighter and more realistic, and brightness is very important to 3D, where you already have dark glasses on, which mute the colors.  From the moment the movie began, I felt like I was in the scene.  Never have seen such amazing use of 3D, and I am not talking about things popping out at you.  Even though I had already seen the movie, I watched the first 12 minutes with my mouth open.  It changed the experience for me so much, that the first hour, which I've already said drags a little like it does in the book, did not bother me in the least.

This is not to say the technology is perfected.  It is not.  There were times where the "realness" of the action took me out of movie a little, but this is only to be expected.  Look how long it took to make CGI actually work well in films.  Yeah, Slimer from Ghostbusters was cool but look at it now.  I remember the scene in Titanic, when the ship first reaches the open ocean and the camera pans from stem to stern.  Yes, the ship looked beautiful, but the CGI people on the deck sputtered around like they were drunk or their computer was dying trying to process everything.  Even in The Fellowship of the Ring, when they are fleeing Moria across the Bridge, you see the moment it stops being human and becomes not quite human CGI movement, and this is amongst some of the best CGI work ever.  So, I don't think anyone can expect perfection.  I cannot wait to see how it advances over the course of the next two movies, and I will not see The Desolation of Smaug or There And Back Again any other way.

Before I close out, I do want to point out some things that worked and some that didn't:

• 3D in General - It is quite possible that the IMAX theater that I saw The Hobbit in originally doesn't do 3D well, because in the Kerasotes theater, even the trailers for Man of Steel, Oz: The Great and Powerful, and Jack the Giant Slayer, popped a lot more than they did at IMAX.  I wasn't sold on Man of Steel needing to be 3D after the first time I saw the trailer, but seeing it here, I am all in.
• ATMOS - I am not an audiophile.  I have a little bit of deafness in my left year.  So, for me, quality audio just means I can hear everything.  Dolby ATMOS, however, is amazing.  In the Bag End scene, you could hear the separation so well, you could tell when a dwarf was speaking off screen either to the right or left of you.  Star Trek Into Darkness and Pacific Rim are both being mastered in ATMOS.  I would go to Chicago to see them for that alone.
• Eye Strain & Head Movement - One problem I have always had with 3D is that I move my head - a lot, and in traditional 3D, I felt like I needed to keep my head from moving, otherwise you started to see the separation of frames.  I did quite a few test, even turning my head so that my eyes were perpendicular to the screen, and I am happy to say that I saw the 3D perfectly.  When you throw in just how bright the image was, this was 3D perfected to me.
• Warg and Radagast Battle - Some of the places where the higher frame rate made the image suffer were in places where CGI interacted with real world elements.  Nowhere was this more prevalent than during the chase of Radagast by Orcs on Wargs over the plain near Rivendell.  I don't know why Jackson's folks have such a problem with the Wargs, large wolves are certainly not something that is way out there in the fantastical parts of the trilogy, but the Wargs kinda sucked in LOTR and they do here, too.  In this chase, it was SO obvious that these elements were not part of the scene.  
• Eye Adjustment to a No Blur World - We are so used to how movies look.  We are accustomed to a high amount of blur when the action moves fast.  This is really a part of what makes a movie a "movie" to people.  So, I can totally understand why some people didn't like it.  It became very, well, clear during the fights.  Where you would normally see blurs of movement, you were able to see nearly every detail.  Of course, this is a good and bad thing.  It was much easier to keep track of the fight in HFR 3D, especially the Goblin fight at the end, but being able to see so much detail, meant you saw flaws that would normally be blurred over.  Is it a big deal?  No, I loved this, but I it may be a dealbreaker for some.
• Gollum and Eagles - I cannot get over how amazing both of these were in 3D.

Well, I have dragged this out long enough.   To say the least, I was impressed.  I hope this experiment was successful enough to keep going with it.   It really was that eye opening.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - A Review from A Reasonible TolkienFan -- Pt. 2 - SPOILERS

If you are interested in a non-spoiler review, please check out my previous post here.  I will be discussing plot points and changes from the book, including stuff that might not show up until the third movie of the trilogy.  So, go back now if you don't want to read them.


Still here?

You shall not pass!


Okay...Here we go...


The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - Spoiler Review

I am going to cheat here, and instead of constructing a flowing narrative, I am going to do a simple the Good, the Middling, and the Bad, with bullet points.  The non-spoiler review is much more of a narrative, and between the two, I think you get a pretty good grasp of my thoughts.  I also want to point out that I did not spell check this, because with all the Tolkien terminology, it would have taken two hours!  I also cheated a little by utilizing The Complete Guide to Middle Earth by Robert Foster to help me with some of my more "foggy" knowledge.

The Good

• The Framing Device:  Peter Jackson brought back Ian Holm to play Bilbo on the eve of his 111st birthday, which is where we start The Fellowship of the Ring (post-prologue).  While I think it could be argued that Martin Freeman in no way looks like Holm 60 years later, especially with the slower aging caused by the Ring, it is still a great way to point people in the right direction.  You also get some Frodo and talk of the Sackville-Baggins. Bilbo brings out the Red Book of Westmarch (The Hobbit or There and  Back Again to you non-nerd types), and he takes you through a prologue and then begins with the iconic, "In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit..."
• The Prologue: This was nerd service to the Nth degree.  It put into sight everything that had only been referenced in The Hobbit about the rise of the dwarves in Erebor, Dale, the Arkenstone, and eventually the fall caused by the coming of Smaug.  It is not quite as epic as the prologue in The Fellowship of the Ring, but I had a stupid grin during the whole thing.  It was a great way to set up the lineage of Thror, Thrain, and Thorin, and it also gave you a taste of the power of Smaug, who will be seen in the next movie.
• Actors:  It was great to see Ian McKellen back as Gandalf.  It would have truly been a crime to have anyone else portray this iconic role.  Gandalf the Grey is certainly a lot more fun that Gandalf the White, and McKellen plays him powerfully with a glint of mischief in his eye.  Even though Galadriel was not in The Hobbit, Cate Blanchett was at her regal best.  I dare say she was even better here than in LOTR.  As for the rest of the actors, Andy Serkis' Gollum is just as amazing as always, and while we do not get to "meet" a lot of the dwarves, Richard Armitage as Thorin is a standout.  Even though I had to look up his name, Ken Stott as Balin is great, too, but Balin has always been my favorite dwarf going back to the Rankin/Bass cartoon.  A beloved character who's death in Moria hit hard the first time I read it.
• The White Council & Necromancer: Outside of the Prologue, the additions surrounding the Necromancer moving into Dol Guldur and the meeting of The White Council are the meatiest and most meaningful to connecting The Hobbit to the The Lord of the Rings.  Having Radagast the Brown (more on him in a minute), who by the way is the only other Istari (re: Wizard) even mentioned in the works of Tolkien outside of Gandalf and Saruman, visit Dol Guldor and to return with the sword of the Witch King of Angmar, the very same sword that eventually stabs Frodo in The Fellowship of the Ring, was a very good touch.  At some point, the Necromancer will be revealed to be none other than Sauron, and Saruman will eventually be convinced to send The White Council to fight.  I am unsure whether this will be integrated into the forthcoming story, or if it will be some sort of Epilogue that will bridge the end of The Hobbit to The Lord of the Rings, but regardless to how they do it, it does mean we'll get to see Elrond, Saruman, and Galadriel again at some point in the next two movies.
• Howard Shore: I have been listening to the score nonstop since it became available last week.  Shore's work is just as important to bridging the trilogies as everything else.  If you love film music, then you need to go out and get the 32 track/2 hours worth of soundtrack goodness!

The Middling

• Azog the Accursed: Much as Jackson & Co. opted to create a focal point "leader" of the Uruk Hai in The Fellowship of the Ring and a General for the Moria Orcs in The Return of the King, they brought forward Azog the Accursed into The Hobbit.  It is a bit of a fudge.  The flashback to the epic Battle of Azanulbizar was pretty intense, and it gave us a bit of Moria and an explanation of how Thorin became "Oakenshield," but for the real nerds, Azog actually did die in that battle at the hands of Dain II, who we get to meet in the epic Battle of Five Armies in the third movie.  The addition of Azog certainly gave a bit more impetus and fear to the journey to Rivendell, and again, it was nice to see Azog and the Wargs at Weathertop, another allusion to LOTR.  Okay, you're probably wondering why this isn't in the "Good" section, and it really comes down to presentation. Manu Bennet is a hot hot man, and it really should have been him in make-up rather than a total motion captured entity like Gollum.  It didn't work for me.  It didn't seem real, and I have to imagine it will look even worse in HFR 3D.  Sure, the good outweighs the bad, but I wish Jackson had chosen to make him more like the Uruks.
• Wargs & Eagles: There is certainly a dearth of talking animals in Jackson's Middle Earth. While Gandalf and Radagast are both shown talking to beasts, the Wargs, which are hierarchical and have a language of their own in the book, are relegated to steads.  Also, as in LOTR, the Wargs do not look remotely real, which is either our eyes or  brains telling us so or just bad CGI work.  Also, while it is still possible to pick up some time with the Eagles in the second movie, they talked and had a king in the book.  I just find it odd that in a world where things are so fantastical, Jackson has veered away from this aspect.
• Radagast the Brown: I am seriously going back and forth on this one.  Unfortunately, it is between Middling and Bad.  It is fine to make Gandalf the Grey out as a more fun loving version of Gandalf the White, but Radagast is pretty much a buffoon.   The jokes about Gandalf and his love of the "Halfling Leaf" are pretty funny, but then we make Radagast out to me a mushroom freak.  Are the Istari, save for Saruman, hippies?  Of all of the additions to The Hobbit, this was the one that is most incongruous.   Plus, the Bunny Sled was just damn weird.

The Bad

• The First Hour: Yes, the Framing Device and Prologue are great, but until the Company reaches Rivendell, the first hour is a bit of a slog.  As I mentioned in the non-spoiler review this is a problem that is inherent in the book, too.  Jackson did his best to liven it up, but it was borderline boring for me.  Granted, this might be the midnight showing talking, but I do not think my feelings will change on subsequent viewings.
• The Great Goblin: I am very sad to say this didn't work for me.  As much as I wanted to like Barry Humphries' (Dame Edna) portrayal of the Great Goblin , I just couldn't.  I totally get why people think his chin looks like a scrotum, but beyond that, it was just the lightness, the comic relief of it all that left me cold.  His voice didn't seem like it would be coming from a 300 pound goblin, and for someone that could kill Thorin & Company, I just wasn't convinced.  Dare I say it, the Rankin/Bass cartoon did a better version (above).

Okay, there you have it.  I did like The Hobbit, and while some of my ill feelings may have been due to the general discomfort of having sat in a theater for 5 hours, I do consider it a worthy addition to Jackson's Middle Earth.  It is a bit of an understatement to say that  I am worried as to how they will stretch the story to fit two more movies.  With Beorn, Mirkwood, Laketown, and the Desolation of Smaug, the second movie is shaping up to probably have the most action, but I just really do not know what they will do for the final movie in the trilogy.  Three hours of the Battle of Five Armies will not be a good thing.  All in all, I am looking forward to seeing what the fuss is all about with the HFR 3D, and I am sure I will own the Extended Editions.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey -- A Review from A Reasonable Tolkien Fan, Pt. 1

First off, pardon me if this doesn't entirely make sense.  I'm a 37.5 year old man, and I went to the midnight showing of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which meant getting there around 9:30 pm, waiting in line, rushing to my desired seat (back row middle...in an IMAX theater), and then sitting for two hours.  When you add in all the trailers, including the 9 minutes of Star Trek Into Darkness, I wasn't home in bed until 4 am, didn't really fall asleep until 5 (too much caffeine), and I was to work by 8:37 am.   Add in the fact that I am still trying to get over a bad cold, the bottom line is that you should cut me some slack.

Before I do dig into the movie, I want to talk about the trailers a minute.

• Oz: The Great and Powerful:  I wasn't sold on this from the online trailers.  I still have ill will towards Sam Raimi from Spiderman, and I am not a big fan of James Franco.  Anyway, seeing the trailer in 3D made a huge difference in my interest level.  I am not sure if it is a "must see" yet, but if I do, it will be in 3D.
• Jack the Giant Slayer:  This is a movie that has a troubled history.  It was supposed to be released earlier in 2012, but it kept getting pushed back until it eventually got bumped to March.  That is never a good sign.  A twist on the Jack and the Bean Stalk fairytail, my take away was during a battle, Ewan McGregor's character actually said "Let's cut them down to size."  *groan*
• Man of Steel: I was blown away by the trailer online, and while I cannot say 3D added much to it, I am still cautiously optimistic about this.  Of course, Zack Snyder has cut an awesome trailer before (re: Watchmen, Sucker Punch, even 300), only to have the movie not live up to that presentation.  I am hoping that Christopher Nolan has a good influence on him here, even though I count among the group that doesn't really need another origin story.  Henry Cavill in a body hugging costume is enough for me to see it! ;-)
• Star Trek Into Darkness:  I loved loved loved JJ Abrams' take on Star Trek.  So, I was all in before seeing a frame of footage.  We still do not know who the villain is, but my notion from the 9 minutes is that there is definitely a connection to the Genesis project from the original Star Trek: Wrath of Khan.  I still do not think we are dealing with Khan, but JJ also likes to play with us.  This comes out on my birthday.  So, it might be another midnight trip!

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - Non-Spoiler Review

I wanted to start out with a non-spoiler review before I dig into major spoilers from both the books and the movie.  I tremendously enjoyed The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.  Did it touch and move me like Cloud Atlas? No, but that was never Tolkien's intent.  The Hobbit was merely a fun story he wrote for his children that eventually spawned The Lord of the Rings.  It is a slighter, less serious, and whole lot funnier book, and anyone who is expecting LOTR level of drama is going to be sadly disappointed, which I think is why there are a lot of negative reviews.

While I am not going to make arguments for or against making The Hobbit into three movies, the main issue with An Unexpected Journey is also a problem with the novel -- not a lot happens until Thorin & Company reach Rivendell.  So, you are faced with a first part of the movie that seems a little forced.  Sure, it gives you ample time to meet the dwarves (Balin is still my favorite from both book and screen) and establish Bilbo as a character, but since we all know Bilbo is going to go on the journey, it is a bit anticlimactic.

The framing device that sets up the story is pretty awesome, and the prologue explaining how The Lonely Mountain (Erebor) fell is better than this Tolkien geek could have ever wanted.  It is on par with the prologue in The Fellowship of the Ring.  The iconic introduction to Gollum is also everything I could have hoped, though I still have a bit of a problem with the audience finding him a more comic than tragic character.  Some of the additions the creative team made, specifically Dol Guldor and The White Council, add a lot to the overall story, but others fall pretty flat.  A couple I would consider creative missteps, but your mileage may vary.  I will be going into more detail with those in the spoiler filled review.

Overall, I would recommend The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey for everyone who loved the books or is just familiar with the LOTR movies.  In a lot of ways, it is more faithful to the written word than LOTR, but in this case, it might also be considered a slight debit.  If your only experience is with the previous movies, then you just need to prepare yourself for the fact that this is a rather lighthearted movie.  There are many laugh out loud moments.  The rest of the technical aspects are beyond reproach, though there are a few choices made to be total CGI that would have benefited from being an actual actor in makeup.  Howard Shore's score is tremendous, too.   If you are wondering whether to see it in 3D or digital, I will have a final verdict after I see it in the 48 frame HFR 3D over New Years, but in IMAX 3D, I do not believe there was a lot added to the proceedings.  Though I did get a nifty series of exclusive posters for my two extra dollars spent.

All in all, I loved it, but I don't think anyone really expected me to hate it.

Crappy Week, but..... 15 Day Countdown to The Hobbit

This was one of those weeks where everything seemed to go a little sideways. After 15 years of IT work, I know an awful lot about computers and networks, but there is also a lot I do not know. Anyway, on to more fun things...

(This is my first time writing this blog on my iPad. So, if there are weird autocorrections, sue me ☺)

I am a gigantic nerd for the works of JRR Tolkien, and I don't mean I am just an avid watcher of the movies, though they are my go to most of the time. My first experience was with that somewhat awful, yet charming, Rankin Bass cartoon of The Hobbit from the 80s. While it has not withstood the test of time, I still get chills from the scenes with Bilbo and Smaug. The cartoon was my gateway drug to the works of Tolkien, and while I do love The Lord of the Rings, though the Frodo and Sam portion of The Two Towers kills me (not in a good way), I far and away love The Hobbit the most. The book is just a lot less serious, no worlds ending here, though you see the mounting evil around the fringes that ultimately lead Tolkien to his magnum opus. Granted, when he devised The Hobbit in the trenches of World War I, he had no plan other than to entertain his children. So, in a lot ways, The Hobbit is only a prelude due to some character overlap and a bit about a ring. Anyway, I lived and breathed these stories and all of the ancillary materials that Christopher Tolkien shepherded to publication, though I never was able to penetrate the creation stories and epic poems of The Silmarillion. My senior year in high school, when I was president of speech team, I developed the confrontation of Bilbo and Smaug into a prose presentation piece. It was the best I ever did in that event. Then my freshman year in college I took a Tolkien & Medieval Lit course. Needless to say, it was amazing!

Soooo.... I have the Tolkien bona fides. Obviously, I am excited for the movie. While I wish it wasn't being stretched out over three movies and years, I trust in Peter Jackson and his team that they were able to cull enough material to make it so. I will warn you now that his blog with be counting the days. Brace yourself!