As you are surely aware of by now, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey might make you barf. Or so says people who couldn’t handle the 48 frames-per-second wonder of HFR 3D. Y’all need to handle your high.
Now Peter Jackson and Warner Brothers have responded to Barfgate™, and we also have the video of a thirteen minute TV special, Return To Middle Earth, which includes new Hobbit footage. Feel free to spin in your office chair for several minutes before watching the video to simulate the HFR 3D experience.
First, here is Warner’s statement. SHOTS FIRED!
We have been screening the full-length HFR 3D presentation of THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY extensively and feedback has been extremely positive, with none of thousands who have seen the film projected in this format expressing any of the issues described by two anonymous sources in media reports. We share the filmmakers’ belief that by offering filmgoers the additional choice of HFR 3D, alongside traditional viewing formats, they have an opportunity to be part of a groundbreaking advancement in the moviegoing experience and we look forward to having audiences everywhere share in this new way of storytelling.
Then Peter Jackson touched on Barfgate™ (among other things) at a press junket in New York yesterday:
I’m fascinated by the reactions. I’m tending to see that anyone under the age of 20 or so doesn’t really care and thinks it looks cool and doesn’t really understand it. They think the 3D looks really cool.
You hear that, naysayers? You’re just TOO OLD. The under-20 crowd is hip to it. Flip your hat backwards and DO THE DEW, grandma.
I’ve been watching [the footage] for a year watching hours and hours and hours of it. With 3D, your left and right eye are seeing two different pictures. And with 24 frames you’re getting strobing and motion blur, your brain is trying to put this stuff together. And the more artifacts in the capture, your brain is struggling to resolve those two images. And 48 frames reduces those artifacts and makes for a smoother picture. As human beings we always have resistance to things that are different. I was a Beatles fan and I remember in the eighties when CDs came out and there was a sound of vinyl that people loved and suddenly CDs were threatening the sound of vinyl. I remember reading something that the Beatles said that they would never have their albums on CD because it was too clear and all the bad notes would be exposed. So you’re never going to hear a Beatles tune on CD. There was all this hysteria.
I think Peter Jackson just told us to deal with it.
[Sources: The Film Stage, Deadline, The Playlist, Adrian]