The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

[eugene]

i liked the first hobbit and will definitely torrent the upcoming one as well.

[Terpentintollwut]

http://youtu.be/yfjaObWrgHg

 

Yeah that's bullshit and I don't know whether the uploaded was aware or not, but there's also tiny differences between the two trailers. The timing of a few shots is slightly different (0:18) - Why? And the 24fps version says "THIS DECEMBER" and the other one says "NEXT DECEMBER" for some reason. So many mysteries.

 

 

I wonder once they finalize the 4K TV spec, if they are going to make it 29fps like NTSC, or are they going to push 60fps or go 48fps - the Hobbit is the only 48fps movie out there, right?

 

I'm not sure, they might push the high frame rate thing depending on how many and what people invested in it, I guess.

3D got pushed by the industry even though most people dislike it. The guy who sold me the ticket for Gravity (after the 2D version got scratched and I had to pay the extra price for the 3D one) even said to me "You have to pay more because we have to get the projectors for it, we don't like 3D, you don't like 3D, nobody likes 3D - that's just how these things go."

[Terpentintollwut]

Check it out, I made a video @120 fps:

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21727884/120FPS.mp4

 

Shot the footage at 50fps, had the rest of the frames created by a slow-mo-plug-in, so there are actually 120 different frames for each second.

Can't really tell the difference between that and the 48fps look at this point, players/screen might not be able to keep up with the framerate though.

[Terpentintollwut]

So this has been out for a few days, who's seen it? Any different to Hobbit 1?

I'll probably go see it some time between Christmas and New Year...

[poblequadrat]

Check it out, I made a video @120 fps:

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21727884/120FPS.mp4

 

Shot the footage at 50fps, had the rest of the frames created by a slow-mo-plug-in, so there are actually 120 different frames for each second.

Can't really tell the difference between that and the 48fps look at this point, players/screen might not be able to keep up with the framerate though.

 

Yeah, it's actually very skippy on my player, like it gets stuck on a frame for a while. It feels very "dry" if that makes any sense, like the sitcom look but higher-res. And it's kind of dizzying too, I really think I'd get something like motion sickness if I watched a long movie shot like that. Doesn't look good IMO.

[Guest zaphod]

really enjoyed this. much, much better than the first one. and no, it isn't "attack of the clones" compared to "the phantom menace". this is actually more in line with how i imagine a hobbit adaptation would be, just very indulgent. smaug was fantastic, and a lot of the stuff that bothered me about lotr worked here. there's some issues, a couple scenes that fall flat, but overall it works. i get that splitting this into three movies is a cash grab, but it's also clear that jackson loves this universe and can't get away from it. i don't have a problem with that, it's endearing to me.

[Terpentintollwut]

Sounds promising. I was told the same thing by somebody a few days ago, hence I asked. Now I'm a bit excited! Just excited enough to get disappointed again.

 

And yeah, the 120 fps thing looks horrible. It was supposed to. It plays smoothly for me, but I think it's only 60 fps on most of our screens cause they're 60 Hz (or does that mean something else?) - Can only fantasize about how epileptic it would look in actual 120 fps.

[awepittance]

def not attack of the clones. The movie is not perfect but i think that it pretty much proves PJ is still very much in a class of his own. I thought the 48fps worked much better this time around, maybe because i was expecting it. Bolg looked fucking amazing, one of the best CGI characters i've ever seen. For some reason Smaug wasn't as impressive to me, maybe because they showed too much of him, it became slightly tiring towards the end. Otherwise huge improvement over part 1. Really excited for the finale.

spider scene and barrel chase was pretty top tier, lots of cgi double work but at large scales and closeups that seemed pretty seamless to me. Huge leap in technology since we first saw the Matrix reloaded cloned agent smith fight scene

[Guest zaphod]

glad you liked it. i was really impressed with most of the action sequences. very well shot and i got a good sense of geography. in a weird way, this actually felt less peter jackson-ey to me, at least in terms of his weaknesses as a director. i didn't even really mind the additional characters or forced tie in to lotr. it all felt pretty seamless. maybe i'm just in a better place to watch this kind of film than i was a year ago, but i have a feeling the first part just genuinely sucked.

 

also liked the weird psychedelic effects on a lot of the scenes. the part where sauron reveals himself and the shot through his figure/eye repeats a number of times was pretty cool in 3d. the spider scene was awesome as well.

[Rubin Farr]

it was a little better than Hobbit 1, but it's no LOTR. and someone need to keep Evangeline Lilly from acting, ever, again.

[Guest skibby]

do youtube videos have more than 30 fps?

[gaarg]

I loved 3d/48fps version of it (something I was so much against even a year ago and when I heard they were developing it). It really makes it a fun 3d ride.

[awepittance]

the 48fps made so much sense in DOS vs the awkwardness of AUJ. I felt it was genuinely psychedelic, even on some mundane scenes (like scrolling up above mirkwood to see it's entire size). I thought King Kong was impressive on a technical level, but I'm very certain that this is the most amazing film on a technical level that Peter Jackson has made since Fellowship of the Ring.
The scene where Legolas was hopping around during the barrel scene when he jumped up the hill with the sunset I couldn't believe what i was seeing, it looked like a mixture of the beautiful hyperreal scenery shots in the original LOTR triology seamlessly mixed together with mostly cgi characters very closeup where they can't hide any of the detail with speed or motion blur. I think An Unexpected Journey was a 50/50 failure/success in terms of the experiment of a 48fps movie,a misfire but a valiant attempt. This I honestly believed he knocked it out of the park in terms of showing how an increased frame rate can really enhance the experience.

everything else with the movie worked better this time around, Bilbo was more confident and sneaky, Gandalf had better lines, Not as many jarring moments of older actors playing younger versions of themselves (legolas looked pretty much the same), no unnecessary bookends of Frodo and Bilbo hanging out in the shire, better and more appropriate call backs to the original trilogy. I was also surprised by how violent this one was, i counted at least 10 decapitations.

[Silent Member]

Yeah, so I watched this with my kid today, in 48fps and 3d. It's pretty terrible, some of the effect shots look amazing, and some look weak/unfinished. Some of the shots are insanely effective in 3D and 48 fps though, beyond anything I've ever seen before. It's an entertaining ride, it gets right in there and tickles the fun centers in my brain. I can't resist... I'd give it an 8/10, it's much much better than the first part.

 

If I put on my film snob it's probably more of a 5/10 but fuck that noise.

[awepittance]

as is always the case with a Peter Jackson film. Mixed-bag CGI, too much CGI but where it's good it's easily the best looking and most interesting CGI i've ever seen in a film. It's hard to see the film fairly at the moment because I almost feel like I was intoxicated while watching it, sensory overload psychoactive after glow (while being totally sober). Kind of reminded me of how i felt after seeing Avatar, but I would argue that just on a technical level Desolation Of Smaug is superior. It feels that out of his last 3 movie attempts, it had the least 'mistakes' in terms of the way it was visually executed. Not surprised in the least that James Cameron has re-located to NZ to make his next 3 avatar movies, WETA is still in a unique class all of their own.

I think Zaphod mentioned something that I only 'got' during DOS but not during AUJ, that with 48fps being used on the sweeping vista shots, the depth of the scenery you really get a much clearer sense of the geography/map of the landscapes and environments they go into. It's hard to explain why exactly this is, but an example of this is when they are in the Mirkwood kingdom, the interior shots show a vast series of hallways, staircases and little rooms. In a normal movie it's not even possible to take in this amount of detail since it all happens in the background, somehow with the 48fps your brain can immediately start to scan the room or space and understand it in a spatial sense, much better than a 24fps movie trying to show the same type of scenery. I'm not sure if this was Peter Jackson's intention, but it really impacted my enjoyment of the film in a positive way. Where i actually believed that these were fully fleshed out functioning locations or architectures. It kind of reminds me of those cut-away illustration books from when i was a kid that would show stuff like how a medieval castle or submarine looks inside. He pulled this off to a certain extent in the original trilogy with certain bigatures, but obviously those were all exterior shots. He's now taken that same effect and put it into interior or smaller scale shots where you can just see how vast and complex the world is around it.

[Joyrex]

as is always the case with a Peter Jackson film. Mixed-bag CGI, too much CGI but where it's good it's easily the best looking and most interesting CGI i've ever seen in a film. It's hard to see the film fairly at the moment because I almost feel like I was intoxicated while watching it, sensory overload psychoactive after glow (while being totally sober). Kind of reminded me of how i felt after seeing Avatar, but I would argue that just on a technical level Desolation Of Smaug is superior. It feels that out of his last 3 movie attempts, it had the least 'mistakes' in terms of the way it was visually executed. Not surprised in the least that James Cameron has re-located to NZ to make his next 3 avatar movies, WETA is still in a unique class all of their own.

 

That's what I can't figure out - surely the poorly executed sequences would have caught the editors' (nay, the Director's) eye and been sent back, especially in light of the highly regarded sequences already mentioned?

 

I haven't seen it yet (haven't seen the Hobbit yet, LOL), so I can't comment either way, but that baffles me how it could be stunning in some parts, and laughably bad in others...

[awepittance]

it's hard to say, the way PJ seems to work is that he adds a lot of ideas and things way too late into production. Sometimes it works fine (Azog from the first one was only made in 6 weeks total, finished the day before it was delivered to the studio) and other times it doesn't. Part of the problem too is once you settle on a design after all the pre visualizations and mockups are over with, it might not give you enough time to start from scratch if the final result ends up being lackluster.
I think it's part of the inherent problem with PJ trying to push the envelope, that because it's so important to him to be first and be at the forefront of displaying some of this technology other more normal things suffer as a result. George Lucas tried to do the same thing with the prequel trilogy but with less of an understanding and less hands on approach in the actual fx process, which is why it just seems like a sensory overload of thousands of different artists throwing everything they can on the screen. Whereas the way it's approached in these movies, each FX scene in and of itself seems to have a special gimmick or 'trick' being employed, and sometimes those tricks are bound to fall flat or be failed experiments, but other times they fully succeed.

an example of PJ's drive to be on the tip of the spear at the expense of everything else, Ian Mckellen almost walked away from the film after his first day of shooting. They made him sit in a scaled down green screen coated interior clone of Bilbo's house while he 'acted' over an earpiece along side of the dwarves who were in the actual full size Bilbo's house set. It was so important for PJ to try out an experimental synced camera linkup by shooting both at the same time that he never considered that this 74 year old actor flying all the way to new zealand might actually be really pissed off and unhappy that his first several days of shooting he didn't even get to look at anybody, while the entire rest of the cast got to act together.

[Guest zaphod]

saw this again in 2d regular frame rate. i never thought i'd say this, but it needs to be seen in 48 fps. it still works in 2d 24 fps, but at 48 the scenic vistas open up and the psychedelic nature of a lot of the effects really work their magic on you. i think high frame rate might be the future for these kinds of films, they just need to work out some kinks with camera movement and that "british drama" effect in certain interior scenes.

 

that barrel chase scene is so goddamn impressive.

[awepittance]

i really want to see it again in 48fps soon, this time very very high. And i agree, it needs to be seen this way. The first one had way more of that british live TV look to me and not enough visual detail to justify it's continuos use, Only 2 scenes benefitted from it, the goblin chase and gollum imo. This entire movie benefitted from 48fps, makes me wonder if PJ forced critics to screen it in 48fps like he did last time or not. The reviews are slightly more positive, but I haven't seen a single one mention the 48fps.

In some ways it's a huge shame, not just for Peter Jackson but for the movie industry as a whole for them not to do at least a digital download of the 48fps versions of these films. The amount people, indie or professional filmmakers alike could learn from the mistakes and successes of 48fps on a large scale like this could be extremely valuable. You only can really realistically get a fleeting sense of it's strengths and weaknesses while watching it in the theatre. As a learning tool having the 48fps available to the public, to stop/rewind/replay/comparisons would be incredibly useful for future films.

for film techies out there, am i mistaken about the possibility of a 48fps digital movie at least being playable on most computer screens? I know blueray and most consumer TVs aren't capable of this, but it seems like it would be pretty easy to pull off for laptop and other computer screens, maybe even ipads. As far as I know, not even industry insider people have access to this type of home format, you can only see it at a screening.

[Silent Member]

I really hated 48fps in the first film, but this time round I didn't mind it at all, I agree with the above, it definitely enhances the immersion in the set pieces, whereas in the first film it really pulled me out of it shattering the illusions, I don't know what happened inbetween. Maybe my brain took a full year to get to grips with the higher frame rate.

[awepittance]

i think it definitely helps that you and I already saw it before, whatever jarring effect it had the first time around for whatever reason was hugely diminished in DOS. It literally took me a whole hour when i saw Unexpected Journey to stop being distracted by how weird it looked. In this one it took me about 2 minutes to stop noticing it as a negative, and then after that it started to become awe inspiringly beautiful, i actually was very taken with the 48fps. I left the movie almost feeling sort of sad because I wouldn't be able to watch it at my leisure at home in the same way, unless they decide to release it this way on a home format before the blueray spec gets replaced with someone better.

[Joyrex]

48fps will probably be something that is possible with 4K format - and yes, computers can certainly do this kind of playback (granted they have the horsepower and graphics card capable of pushing that much out to the screen). With panel refresh rates easily getting into the 240hz and higher range and 120hz becoming the standard, television displays should be able to handle this as well.

 

Isn't the 48fps effect like those "motionflow" effects the 120hz LCD sets come with that makes everything look like it was recorded on videotape (aka the "soap opera" effect)?

[awepittance]

 

Isn't the 48fps effect like those "motionflow" effects the 120hz LCD sets come with that makes everything look like it was recorded on videotape (aka the "soap opera" effect)?

to a certain extent it's similar, but that comparison ends once you really start to see how they're using it with some of the FX pieces. Like i was saying earlier in the thread, the 'soap opera' effect didn't stop for me until literally an hour into part 1. Maybe because i'd already seen that one in 48fps, this 2nd one almost immediately sucked me in and became beautiful to look at. I was absolutely unconvinced by why he decided to use it originally but now i'm a convert.

[Joyrex]

 

 

Isn't the 48fps effect like those "motionflow" effects the 120hz LCD sets come with that makes everything look like it was recorded on videotape (aka the "soap opera" effect)?

to a certain extent it's similar, but that comparison ends once you really start to see how they're using it with some of the FX pieces. Like i was saying earlier in the thread, the 'soap opera' effect didn't stop for me until literally an hour into part 1. Maybe because i'd already seen that one in 48fps, this 2nd one almost immediately sucked me in and became beautiful to look at. I was absolutely unconvinced by why he decided to use it originally but now i'm a convert.

 

I can't help but LOL when I look at your avatar when reading your post. Definately the effect of 48fps on the human eye.

[gaarg]

The 48 fps hobbit is nothing like any natural motion crap on tv I ever saw. It's pretty much how 3d should be viewed probably and I'm NOT a technology person, if anything I love good old fashioned films from decades ago. But if your gonna make a spectacle out of a theater experience, than this is it.