The Hobbit

Will Peter Jackson's Hobbit get panned before it even opens?

Sneak peek at the new shooting style confounds some critics. What does this mean for the future of film?

---

CinemaCon attendees got a first look at 10-minutes of footage of Peter Jackson's upcoming the Hobbit: an Unexpected Journey, due in the threatres this December.


But the main curiosity over the new film - the first of two based on J.R.R. Tolkien's book - wasn't so much the film itself, but how it was shot: Jackson filmed the Hobbit at 48 frames per second, double the normal speed of film. Jackson, via a video introduction, maintained that the higher frame rate creates a smoother image for the viewer.


"The movement feels more real," Jackson said. "It's much more gentle on the eyes."

But viewers at the convention - mostly cinema owners and press - weren't convinced, and film bloggers were fast and furious with their criticism.


"The movement of the actors looked...strange. Almost as if the performances had been partly sped up," said Slashfilm's Peter Sciretta. "It didn't look cinematic."

And Devin Faraci of Badass Digest offered, "Here's what The Hobbit looked to me: a hi-def version of the 1970s I, Claudius. It is drenched in a TV-like - specifically '70s-era BBC - video look. People on Twitter have asked if it has that soap-opera look you get from badly calibrated TVs at Best Buy, and the answer is an emphatic YES."


The film is far from finished, of course, as some of the footage included green screens where scenery will be digitally added.

That also mean Jackson has time to tweak the look of the film.


But the questions remains: No matter how it's refined, will this "future of film" - as Jackson, James Cameron and others have asserted - be embraced by general audiences?

Judging by reactions coming out of Las Vegas, no.