1/4 second audio lag???? what the heck?? I complain on stuff like that. especially on some new super duper state of the art or all Cinema showing. I plan to see it tomorrow - not sure if it will happen. Not a fan of the series at all - it actually bores me, but am going for the new eye candy.

Ridiculous isn't it. 3D... 48fps... yet they can't sync words with mouth movements. I don't suppose a farang compaining about it to a Thai in Bangkok at 2am would achieve much.

nick, might make for more interesting viewing than a lot that's showing at the cinema currently ;-)

Hobbit first . . and then the Rings.

G

A few more reviews focused more on the 4K 48fps effects.

http://www.eoshd.com/content/9357/48p-the-hobbit-british-and-american-critics-verdict

http://www.vulture.com/2012/12/critics-on-the-hobbits-high-frame-rate.html?test=true

This is what I have been thinking from the beginning:

We WILL have to alter our production techniques to better fit the insane amount of detail and accuracy going on. No longer can we just "slip by" with no so perfect makeup, sets, and lighting.

Things can look like a soap opera if they are LIT UP like a soap opera. Less direct lighting... heck maybe even less lighting.

Nothing new is ever perfect the first time out.

Digital audio was too harsh and cold sounding at first. Because we had to mix hotter high end to compensate for analog's pathetic losses, and the converters were now dialed in. But, look at it now. Digital audio is everything, and sounds fantastic.

Well, I was heading to see it with a bit of trepidation. Couldn't work out how on earth such a small book could be spread over 3 mega length films. 1 X 3 hour movie, yes. 3? No. Having seen the reviews and various clips, my own fears look to be confirmed. This first film covers the first 6 chapters only. Every single review I've read/seen has said that the first hour could have been cut drastically...and still left an over long film! Sounds like the director has let his heart rule his head. I'll wait now till it's released on BD. Maybe the reaction to this one will affect the editing of the next two.

my report.

first, I never read the books, only saw the first two RINGS flicks, they bore me, just not my type of thing. I LOVE 3D movies, and am Tired of CGI. But I refused to let any of that taint my perspective of this viewing. I will not review the "story" here.

I WOULD NOT HAVE PAID $14.25 TO WATCH THIS HAD I KNOWN IT DIDN'T HAVE AN ENDING!!! I prefer complete movies, not sequal setups and feel I'd been had.

The effect and immersion of 48fps. I'M IN!
It took maybe 5 minutes for me to adjust and then all I saw was glorious non-blurry pan shots filled with tons of detail to drink it. And drink it I did looking all over the screen finding all kinds of detail that looked great EVEN DURING PANNING shots.

Half the action, how it plays out would look like crap in old blurro-vision. But here you can SEE all the action taking place rather than just the beginning followed by the end result.

The lighting was lit like a movie, the clarity really shows this - and personally, like I said before, I feel they will have to rethink lighting. What had to be done to make the old FPS look great, doesn't seem to carry over as all the over the topness of lighting is displayed.

That said, my perfect vision DID catch the occasional blur, hiccup or or double framing going on and I would like to not even see that.
I hope Cameron brings 60fps home in a great way.

Never felt the visuals detracted from the story itself (even though I didn't care for it) and only made it all seem all the more REAL... even though half of it was CGI

Along with Avatar (which also had a boring story to me) I'd say this is one of the best LOOKING visuals I've seen in cinema ever.

I can't wait for the future, and was happy to support it.

I said before, I'll say it again: Hobbit first . . and then the Rings.

Grazie.....

It wasn't just that film was 24fps - the softness came from camera
(some) and projector (mostly) gate float. That characteristic is not present in 24fps video. Even then, film and video closeups were very often done with softening filters in use.

Hollywood's main products are fantasy and escapism. Not sure how that plays with super realistic image capture. Cinema and video games are two very different products. Hope film makers keep them separate.

Didn't see it, but my 22-year-old daughter saw it last night. She sees a LOT of movies.

Said she thought it was dumb and for little kids, and looked like it was a made-for-TV movie. I don't know what to make of the latter comment. Could she have seen the 48Hz version? Or were the production values less than impeccable?

Perhaps people are so used to the 24Hz frame rate that anything else is just not a "movie."

Saw it Friday night, non 3d version, refuse to pay extra for 3D, thought it looked very good, amazing detail ...I found it quite entertaining.
Movie seemed shorter than the 2:45 minute running time which is a good thing..It ended leaving you wanting more..not sure about stretching it into 3 movies, two would probably be a better setup...3 is just milking the cash cow....

I saw this last night in HFR 3D. I am a huge Tolkien fan and have been looking forward to this film for months. I have to say I was very disappointed after the long wait. I felt this film was squarely aimed at children both from a character portrayal and visual presentation viewpoint. Perhaps it was the HFR, but the battle sequences looked like computer game animations. It seemed to me there wasn't much life quality in the orcs or the trolls, they seemed very static and cartoon-like. In many of the live action scenes the motion seemed accelerated.
From an editing standpoint, I felt the pace was far too slow. So slow, in fact, that we left the theater after an hour and a half, unwilling to waste any more time. What a shame, this could have been an entertaining, fast paced adventure, but instead Mr. Jackson chose to stretch this out as far as he could.

Maybe they'll release "The Hobbit - The Short Version" :)

Just because Peter Jackson can render 10 million orcs/goblins must he render 10 million orcs/goblins!!!!! Fight scenes were a big disappointment and absurd ... but overall I did like the movie..saw it flat at 24p. He definitely took liberties with the story.

I don't think the movies or novels were intended for people who can only cope with "fast-pace".

That being said, I haven't seen it yet, and may indeed be too slow.

geoff

I saw both the 48fps 3D and the 24fps 2D versions over the weekend. I noticed absolutely no difference with respect to the frame rates. Watching carefully in some of the faced paced action, and especially in the moth wings flapping, the visual effect was indistinguishable between the two.

Yes, i did see Ian McKellen's contacts in one scene, but only when he was standing perfectly still, and i saw them in both versions, which means that 48/24 had nothing to do with it.

What i did notice was that the 3D actually worked very very well! It's the first time i've seen a 3D movie that actually looked like there was real depth. Every one i've seen before looked sort of other-worldy distorted with ghostly planes intersecting. In this movie it just seemed real. In fact when someone ahead of me stood up to go to the bathroom, she looked like she was *inside* the cavern, with parts of the cave walls closer to me than she was. Eerie!

That being said, the 3D didn't look better or more interesting than 2D. After a few minutes it was ignorable unless i was specifically looking for it. It worked so well that i was able to forget it was there. In that respect i'd say it was very successfully done, at least in the slower scenes. It was still slightly troublesome in fast action, and i'm thinking that's because being in 3D it doubled the amount of visual information my brain had to process over the 2D vesion, and with the fast action it ended up being more than i could process.

Yeah, i think i would have preferred less digression and gotten the entire story in that 166 minutes.

are you absolutely certain the 48p theater was projecting 48 frames per second? To me and many others there was a very noticeable improvement in detail and way less blur. So, much better clarity in pans and fast moviement. I loved it.

I double checked with the guy that sold me the ticket, "are you SURE this is really projected in 48 FPS?" and he said yes. I did that, so if it wasn't (I would notice easily) I would come back out and get my money back.