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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Amph One Thread To Rule Them All: The Rings of Power + The Hobbit & Lord of the Rings Trilogies

Discussion in 'Community' started by -Courtney-, Nov 25, 2006.

  1. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

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    Nov 20, 2012
  2. tom

    tom Chosen One star 8

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    Mar 14, 2004
    it's because he added a k to nic's name, right?
     
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  3. Mortimer Snerd

    Mortimer Snerd Force Ghost star 4

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    Dec 27, 2012
    Yes. Yes it is. Some people's kids...
     
  4. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

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    Ummm obviously I meant Nic's younger and more demented brother.
     
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  5. Ghost

    Ghost Chosen One star 8

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    Oct 13, 2003
    If a mod bans a troll on here, they need to edit in a "Dawn take you all, and be stone to you!" comment. Bonus points if they include the animated gif :p
     
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  6. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

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    Every single mod should change their avatar to some sort of pic of Gandalf. So TheInternets decrees, so shall it be done.
     
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  7. Everton

    Everton Chosen One star 10

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    Jul 18, 2003
    Then they'd have to follow the flow chart, which would mean the Eagles showing up every other post.
     
  8. solojones

    solojones Chosen One star 10

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    Sep 27, 2000
    Okay guys, here it comes. Here's my evaluation of the 48fps Hobbit. I think I'm being extremely fair here. I'm just giving my actual, honest to goodness reactions and how it affected my experience of the film.

    The good
    - it does help eyestrain for 3D

    - it makes things super clear

    - the problem with sets and beards looking fake wasn't nearly as bad as anticipated. They clearly had to do a lot of color grading work to make that happen, but at least the overall effect wasn't super distracting. Just a couple things here and there.

    Now here's the trouble with those positives...
    - I don't like 3D, I don't think it's ever added anything to any film I've seen both in 3D or 2D. So making the whole film look odd just for the sake of better 3D is really dubious to me.

    - Added clarity might be better for some films, but it was not at all the right approach for a fantasy film. Especially not one that exists in a universe where they've already established a totally different, soft, filmic look in the LotR films. Both of these things just add to the film looking incredibly, incredibly digital. There may be some types of films where that makes sense.

    - But what wasn't a color grading problem because of HFR was still a problem because of Red. Those honestly are the worst digital cinema cameras out there and I can't for the life of me understand why some big names get suckered into using them. They just have such an incredibly digital, ultra clear, not nice roll off into the blacks... compare the look of this film to how Skyfall looks on the Alexa (or Game of Thrones, or Sherlock series 2). There's just no comparison.



    The bad
    - I never "got used to it". The comically fast-looking movements of characters persisted throughout the film. My family claimed to get used to it a bit more, but the thing is, that obviously doesn't mean it looks like a normal film because the whole point of shooting it 48fps was to make it look different, obviously.

    - everything looked like a video game. The smooth helicopter shots, the CG creatures... I play a lot of video games, so my brain already has an association for hfr cg stuff, and that association is with video games. Definitely not how I want movies to look.

    - there was some poor effects compositing that was really, really exaggerated by the combination of 3D and HFR. Every single character stood out from the background they were supposed to be a part of. When the company in 3D in the foreground stood looking down at a completely flat Rivendell, it seriously looked like they were standing in front of a matte painting from The Wizard of Oz. It was astounding to me just how fake these things made the movie look. I'm not kidding, every single shot had something CG in it that was made to look totally pasted on by the fact that it was both 3D and moving in an unnatural-looking manner.

    So I tested something. I closed one eye through a number of scenes and you know what? The HFR looked much less distracting. I realized that a lot of the exaggerated, fake-looking, fast-forward type motions of characters were much less pronounced when they weren't also separated from the background. I was totally unable to get into the story emotionally when watching the 3D, but when I watched it 2D I actually could start getting into it... of course, this completely negated the whole point of shooting HFR, since it's designed to help 3D viewing. While HFR was less distracting at 2D, it was instead just pointless and still made it too clear for this film.

    - The look of HFR motion makes the dramatic aspects of the film fade away because people are moving at comically high rates. Hell, I thought it hurt the comedic timing as well. There's no ability to be still. You can't have a funny, totally still pause, nor a dramatic one, because every slight movement is magnified and ruins it.

    - Camera movements that are supposed to be invisible in a normal film, that are supposed to have a creative impact but not be noticed by the viewer, are all transparent and extremely noticeable in HFR. It destroys the illusion, and you might as well have a blinking light on screen and a sign saying "here goes the camera!"

    - There were a number of shots that just felt like I was watching a 3D simulator at an amusement park. Not good.

    - When I switched back and forth between 2D and 3D, I think the word that came to mind with reference to how the 3D HFR looked was "dizzying". Every single little motion was so exaggerated, every character was so disconnected from their world... it certainly didn't feel engaging. It felt incredibly distracting. I was quite surprised to see that the 3D was possibly more distracting than the HFR.


    My takeaway from this
    - HFR might be useful for some nature documentaries or perhaps some 3D animated films, where the 'looking like a video game' thing wouldn't be as much of an issue. Nor would the compositing issue, because if everything were 100% computer generated, you wouldn't get the 'pasted on' look.

    - HFR makes 3D easier to watch and makes the picture clearer. This in no way means that it's automatically a good creative decision to use it.

    - The bottom line is, all the things the filmmakers touted as being the advantages of HFR - added clarity, better 3D - are technical values, not creative ones. Jackson made just as big a mistake with this as Lucas often has, and certainly as Cameron does. At the end of the day, it's not the goal of filmmaking to be as clear and pristine as possible. It's the goal of filmmaking to suspend your disbelief and tell a story as well as you can. The bizarre elevation of the technical over the creative in the whole discussion of HFR should really speak for itself. There is so much more to a visual approach of a film than having high resolution and clarity.

    Jackson still has a good film in terms of the characters and the story. It's fun. It's really enjoyable. And, having seen every format, I can completely honestly say that the 2D version was easily the best, most immersive film-going experience for me. That's God's honest truth. There were things about HFR that weren't as bad as I thought they would be.There were things that could even be good for some kinds of films. But not this film. Not at all. I will watch the other two films in 2D, and be happy that the best version of the film is the way that the vast majority of people are going to see it at home in the future.
     
    Ender_Sai, Bacon164, RC-1991 and 2 others like this.
  9. Only-One Cannoli

    Only-One Cannoli Ex-Mod star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    I think you went a little overboard there.
     
  10. VadersLaMent

    VadersLaMent Chosen One star 10

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    Apr 3, 2002
    I shall not use "tl;dr" but instead "tl;skimmed it".

    I have enjoyed each film in 3d that has been in 3d this decade from Avatar to The Hobbit. It's not going away.
     
  11. Darth Guy

    Darth Guy Chosen One star 10

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    Aug 16, 2002
    As long as enough people will pay ridiculously inflated ticket prices for 3D showings, no, it won't go away.
     
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  12. solojones

    solojones Chosen One star 10

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    Sep 27, 2000
    This is a groundbreaking, highly controversial, potentially game-changing move that alters an approach from 100 years of filmmaking. We've been speculating about it in this thread for a year. I'm not going to apologize for being thorough and fair and specific. If I wanted to oversimplify everything to "I liked it, it was neat!" or "It looked stupid, I hated it", I'd be having this conversation with teenagers on Twitter.
     
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  13. Only-One Cannoli

    Only-One Cannoli Ex-Mod star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Aug 20, 2003
    Well, um, yes it probably is going to go away.


    Anyways, just reread it. In the lower frame version, in the rivendell scene....are the matte paintings still obvious?


    edit: I meant overboard as in overly harsh. Not too long.
     
  14. solojones

    solojones Chosen One star 10

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    Sep 27, 2000
    I thought the compositing of the Rivendell backdrop was a little weird in the 2D 24 version, but not overly so. And when I closed one eye during that scene in 3D HFR to get 2D HFR, it was far less noticeable. This was true of pretty much every scene, actually. Any time I found myself feeling like everything looked really fake and disconnected into a bunch of fake, really distinct planes, I'd close one eye. I've not noticed quite that much of an issue in other 3D films. I think the combo of that with the HFR motion of characters just really made that stuff look fake.

    One of the things I've never understood about 3D in general is the claim by some that it's more "real" because we see things in 3D normally. This negates the fact that, no, it isn't actually real. It's still a 2D format with an added level of fabrication added to it. To me, it usually just makes things look more fake. I think people don't get that in a 2D film, you already are creating an illusion of depth with lighting, direction, production design, and staging. The HFR 3D here just was a perfect example of how adding more layers to a film can really just make it a lot less naturalistic-seeming.
     
  15. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

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    Everything was so photo-realistic because of the 48 FPS that some guy's phone went off halfway through and Gandalf stopped talking to Bilbo and glared at the guy saying "Hey you! Stop that you silly goose!"
     
  16. Rosslcopter

    Rosslcopter Jedi Master star 4

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    Sep 2, 2012
    I am no highly trained film student such as Solojones, but I too had my illusion shattered by camera movements that wouldn't be visible without the 48 FPS. If a lowly uncultured slob as myself could detect these things surely it would be noticeable to all.
     
  17. Kiki-Gonn

    Kiki-Gonn Jedi Grand Master star 6

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    Feb 26, 2001
    Those are the two things I don't like about it, the Miami Vice (show, not movie) backgrounds and just the overall fact that it highlights the fake nature of what you're looking at.
    You lose a lot of clarity and certain 'spectacular' moments with the traditional frame rate but I prefer that to being reminded that what I'm looking at is artificial.
    I know this is a super nitpick but some of the Dwarf weapons looked like like plastic right out of a temporary Halloween store. Once I noticed it I couldn't help but do it every time they were prominent in the shot.

    The 'nature' shots really benefit from the HFR though. They looked incredible.
     
  18. darthcaedus1138

    darthcaedus1138 Force Ghost star 5

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    Oct 13, 2007
    solojones, absolutely 100% agree with you. I'm not sure what it is that makes other people see the movie a completely different way than some of us do, but it was practically unbearable, and you pretty perfectly summed it up right there.

    Thanks for that.
     
  19. Merlin_Ambrosius69

    Merlin_Ambrosius69 Jedi Master star 5

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    Aug 4, 2008
    I think HFR looks neat-o.

    That constitutes the entirety of my rebuttal.
     
  20. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

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    May 4, 2003
    I agree with cadeus. That was one of the best posts in this whole thread.
     
  21. AAAAAH

    AAAAAH Jedi Knight star 4

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    Nov 8, 2012
    i'm glad i didn't bother with it.
     
  22. Mar17swgirl

    Mar17swgirl Chosen One star 7

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    Dec 26, 2000
    For me, HFR was a huge improvement, especially in the wide panning shots, which are otherwise very irritating to me with the blur and flickering. And I didn't get the feeling of "fakeness" anywhere.
     
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  23. Arawn_Fenn

    Arawn_Fenn Chosen One star 7

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    Jul 2, 2004
    That reminds me of something I noticed the last time I watched FOTR. Gimli's axe gets destroyed when he tries to destroy the Ring... then the next time we can see him, he's got a new axe already! What's up with that?
     
  24. Mar17swgirl

    Mar17swgirl Chosen One star 7

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    Dec 26, 2000
    Why are you assuming that Gimli only has one axe? :p
     
  25. AAAAAH

    AAAAAH Jedi Knight star 4

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    Nov 8, 2012
    yeah gimlee can create axes out of thin air. one time he even made one out of solid gold but it was stolen. :(
     
    tom likes this.