So since the first time I saw The Hobbit, I've seen it a thousand more times. Well, no, not really, but I have seen it two more times. The first time Lindsey and I saw was here in Pullman, in good ol' 2D. I liked it a lot (though I had various reservations that I detailed in the linked post above), and I understood that just like any good piece of media/work of art it would probably reveal a lot more nuance and detail with further viewings. Fortunately, just a few days after our first viewing, we were headed up to the Spokane area for Christmas, and so we were able to catch the film again at the Spokane AMC 20, first in 3D HFR and then in 3D IMAX.
First thing's first: the 3D HFR is amazing and anyone who thinks otherwise (except for people who literally get motion-sick watching it, I suppose) is crazy. Sure, everything looks a little sped-up and like watching the BBC for a few minutes, but after that I found that I stopped noticing and just really got immersed in the story and the much-more-beautiful visuals. I imagine if you just sit in the theater and think "Is this 48fps thing shitty or not?" for the entire film, 48fps might rub you the wrong way, but if that's your primary concern, you probably don't belong in a movie theater in the first place. Sure, it was weird until I got used to it (again, this took about five minutes), but watching the 24fps IMAX version a few days later was weird and seemed slow and washed-out-looking for a few minutes until I got used to it. I certainly don't brood over how lame 24fps is now as a result. Or DO I?!
Anyway, the big difference with 48fps is the reduction in motion blur. This is incredibly, incredibly important (according to my own eyes, at least) for today's movies because it improves two things: 1) CGI effects and 2) 3D. For example, I was amazed at how much clearer the huge, sprawling action scenes featuring the goblins were to follow in the 48fps version. Pretty much every effect in the film looked less like an effect than something that was actually happening. In 48fps, the Goblin King moves realistically. So do the trolls. It's creepy, but not in an Uncanny Valley sort of way. It's creepy because the pretend things look real. And it's awesome. Someone, in another review I read, likened seeing The Hobbit in 48fps to seeing color TV for the first time after using black-and-white sets for years. That's definitely how I felt walking out of the movie afterward. Sure, 48fps is technically "unnecessary," but the bias against it is really obviously just habit talking, and that's never good. I could definitely see it not adding that much to, say, a non-CGI character drama, technically speaking. But after having seen something on the order of hundreds of CG-powered films over the last decade or so, I can say with a fair amount of certainty that 48fps would have made all of those films look less cheesy, fake, etc. It really allows CG effects to shine through in higher detail, and it's just awesome. Same thing with regard to 3D: with the eye more able to follow less motion-blurred action, 3D becomes a joy instead of a chore. It doesn't seem like a gimmick in The Hobbit, because the effects in The Hobbit don't look like a gimmick. So yeah. 3D HFR was amazing, and I hope that at some point in the future I'll be able to look back and remember what it was like to see a 48fps movie before everything was shot in 48fps.
The IMAX showing was cool, but it wasn't a full, reclining-seat, screen-above-you IMAX, just a really big screen. The theater had really awesome surround sound, and the big, curved screen seemed to add a little more depth to the 3D (which served to make the film look just a little more like an actual three dimensional stage play or something instead of a movie where something occasionally pops out at you). 3D HFR was much better, though, in my opinion.
In terms of the film itself, I found that by the end of the third viewing, I was seriously considering The Hobbit as a contender for the best of the four so-far-released Peter Jackson Middle Earth films. I still doubt that the trilogy as a whole is going to stand up as well as the original LotR film trilogy (because the source material is weaker and the success of the later installments are going to depend more heavily on Jackson's adaptation of Tolkien's appendices, which has so far been strong but not strong enough to carry a film). But, this is just a damn fun and at times highly affecting movie to watch (at least if you're a Tolkien fan).
In 48fps, a lot of the ridiculous action scenes were a lot easier to follow and thus it was much easier to see that there was a logical (if not entirely plausible, still) flow to their movement. After three viewings, I really came to appreciate how things like Radagast's inclusion and Azog as the primary antagonist actually served to make the story more cohesive. Reading The Hobbit (which I did twice recently), I was surprised to rediscover how random every chapter (each of which are almost separate episodes loosely connected to one another) seemed; unless of course you know the backstory. Working under the assumption that much of the film's audience wouldn't know this backstory (and how many critics that have panned the film really obviously don't even know the book, despite critiquing the film's status as an adaptation?), Jackson and crew integrated a lot of that backstory nicely, making a story that functions satisfyingly on its own and as part of a larger tale, neither of which are things that the original book does that well (and I write that as a huge Tolkien and Hobbit fan).
Upon more viewings, my nitpicks regarding the stone giants, Mario Bros. platforming and such faded into the background as the many positive aspects of the film came to the fore. And really, how reasonable is it to pick on this film for Jackson's occasional action-scene excesses while holding up Return of the King as Best Picture material despite Legolas's Mumakil antics and some of the other more absurd things that happen in that film? Even after seeing the film three times, hearing Ian Holm recite the opening lines of the book, seeing Bilbo decide to spare Gollum before leaping over him to join his friends, and seeing Thorin embrace Bilbo at the end (to applause from around the theater, in one instance) all brought a tear to my eye (again). It's a great movie. It's even better in HFR. Can't wait for the Extended Edition DVD that I'm sure is coming.
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