The 48 fps 3D Version:
Just saw this, and... I'm depressed. It looks VERY much like those "tru motion" displays you see at Best Buy. You know the ones playing a blu ray of a movie you've seen and loved, but now it looks like you're watching the dailies or behind the scenes video. It just looks... Terrible. It makes acting styles look terrible too. Throughout the whole film I was SHOCKED at how cheesy and over the top all the acting was, and how it just didn't seem like the same style as the LOTR trilogy. I got up and my girlfriend and I agreed. It looked like daytime television, the acting was hokey, and the story was spotty. I mean, these characters ROUTINELY fall thousands of feet, and nary have a bruise. It's bizarre.
So, I causally walked a couple of theaters over and watched about 10 minutes of the 24 fps version. All of the sudden, it seemed warm and natural again. It wasn't an action sequence, so I didn't get a chance to judge the movement, but even the acting seemed better and subtler. I'm holding out hope that this is mostly psychological, and that someday I'll come around. But for now, I think motionblur might be a necessary evil for the "analog warmth" that we have come to love in the cinema. Just my two cents.
BTW, the 3D was stellar. And I'm not usually a 3D fan. It was just the 48 fps that I found jarring. Not just jarring, but really unacceptable.
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