CINEMACON: Description Of THE HOBBIT Footage; Mixed Response To 48fps Presentation

The Badass Digest have posted a description, and reaction to, the 10 minutes of footage from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey they saw at CinemaCon today. This marked the first time anyone has seen footage filmed at 48fps. This is the new projection standard (previously 24fps) that the likes of Peter Jackson and James Cameron have been touting as "the next big thing". But first reactions to this have been mixed. In fact, I haven't read reports from anyone who thought it came across entirely successful, and the majority seemed to feel it was very disappointing - giving off a very "tv" vibe. Devin Farcai from Badass Digest definitely wasn't a fan (a few positives aside), and you can read why by clicking the link below. But more interesting was his description of the footage that screened..

There was a lot of the helicopter shots you expect in a Lord of the Rings movie. Lots of shots of the dwarves trudging over mountains (again, this stuff looked spectacular). There was some of the business we saw in the trailer, with the introduction of the company of dwarves. There were also some quick shots - the company floating down a river in barrels, Gandalf running through a dungeon, being jumped on by a wild man of some sort, Legolas sliding in front of spider-webbed dwarves and knocking an arrow, warning he would kill them. There were also a handful of longer scenes that we saw.

We saw Bilbo's meeting with the three trolls. One positive aspect of the 48fps is that since everything looks so video, the digital creatures look more like they're on the set. The tone of the scene is very playfully threatening, with the trolls having dim reactions. The scene ends with the dwarves coming to Bilbo's rescue in a big battle against the trolls.

We also saw Gandalf investigating the rising darkness. In one scene he is at a table with Elrond, Galadriel and Saruman, talking about ancient tombs that have been opened - ancient tombs with such strong binding spells no one should have been able to get in. Then there's a scene of Gandalf investigating the open tomb, where he runs into a very silly Radagast the Brown, who has some birds under his hat (we also saw a shot of his sled being pulled by bunnies). It turns out the opened tombs belong the nine Ring Wraiths.

The biggest scene was Bilbo meeting Gollum. Despite being told what we were seeing were unfinished effects, Gollum looked great (and again, the 48fps gave him more of a sense of being actually there). The scene was cut a little slackly; I imagine the final version will be tighter. But it was good.