The Hobbit: 48 FPS

[JohnR424]

I watched "The Tree Of Life" at 48fps, the story moved a lot quicker and the movie did not feel so long.

[peter5992]

I went to see The Hobbit at the AMC in downtown SF, which has a 48fps show (Real 3D) and Dolby Atmos to boot.

First off, I am a big fan of the LOTR series - have them all on DVD and seen them countless times. The music by Howard Shore is a masterpiece, the story is magnificent, the cinematography is stunning, just love it. That sort of creates an expectation for me, the bar is really high.

That said, the picture quality is excellent. Everything is razor sharp, even in 3D. Most of the 3D movies I have seen in recent years were disappointing, blurred images. This is totally different, really good quality.

However, for this particular film, I am not convinced that the razor sharp picture really works. It's just too "sharp", oftentimes I have the feeling that I am watching a stage performance shot on HD video. It's not cinematic in feeling.

Also, the pace of the storytelling is too slow for me, and too many times I had the feeling "oh that is cute but I already saw this in the LOTR".

The special visual effects are stunning, but I have seen so many special effects already, that alone doesn't carry the movie for me.

Another thing that kind of disappointed me was the Dolby Atmos mix. I went to AMC since apparently it is the only theater in the Bay Area with Dolby Atmos, but I wasn't really overwhelmed by the mix. Sorry if any of you guys did it but there you go, that is my opinion. I had expected to be completely blown off my feet but no.

The final thing that kind of ticked me off were the crampy, uncomfortable seats. I could hardly stretch my legs without bumping into the seat in front of me, and I could feel the guy behind me inadvertently poking me. The woman sitting next to me agreed with me on this. Hello AMC!? I am not a chicken in commercial egg factory. Give me some space, will ya? And by the way stop selling food packed in cellophane (there was this one guy who was trying to open something for the first 30 minutes of the movie). In fact don't sell any food at all.

Sorry for the rant and waste of bandwidth. It is still a very enjoyable movie, but maybe you should wait until after the holidays. Sorry for the rant again, but I am just very passionate about movies and the movie experience, I want to be really swept from my feet for a couple of hours and have no notion of my physical surroundings, and there was too much that distracted me today.

This is the wrong forum I know, I will send a civic mail to AMC.

[paranerd]

I liked it. Mix was good, 48fps and 3D was cool, the CGI was phenomenal, Gollum was amazing. I'd watch more 48fps films.