X-Men: Days of Future Past director Bryan Singer had praise both for the movie and actor Ian McKellen. Singer tweeted, “Just saw #Hobbit. Having some serious frame rate envy. Amazing and involving. Loved it! And @ianmckellen118, my friend, you are brilliant!”

Composer Steven Gallagher tweeted, “Hobbit premiere was excellent! Thanks all !!! Enjoyed the film very much.” Blogger Kylie Klein tweeted, “The #Hobbit is everything I could have hoped for. Perfection. TWO MORE FILMS PLEASE. #3SR.” Klein also tweeted that Peter and Fran got a standing ovation, and added, “I loved it. Transported. Already deeply, massively in love with Thranduil and he was only on screen for about three seconds. “

New Zealand Parliament member Steven Joyce tweeted, “Really enjoyed #Hobbit Unexpected Journey world premiere. Masterful movie. Congrats Sir Peter Jackson et al. Privilege 2 be there #HobbitNZ”

A New Zealand attendee with Twitter handle Carter Nixon, also shared some high praise for the The Hobbit. Nixon tweeted, “I just saw and enjoyed the sh*t out of The Hobbit. It’s great.” Follow-up tweets by Nixon added, “I am not giving away any particulars. Staying vague until it opens but I dug it. A lot.” and “Yeah everyone seemed to have loved it. Great atmosphere in theatre. It’s a lot of fun.”

Michigan

Canton: Emagine Canton 18
Detroit: AMC Livonia 20
Novi: Emagine Novi 18
Sterling Heights: MJR Marketplace Digital Cinema 20
Southgate: Southgate Digital cinema 20
Ypsilanti: Rave Ann Arbor 20

"It was amazing"; "It was fantastic"; "The clarity was amazing"... Those lucky enough to see The Hobbit's premiere last night were effusive.

Those spoken to after the screening praised the beautiful New Zealand sceneries, the captivating story and were dazzled by the special effects featured in the first movie to be shot in 3D at 48 frames per second (fps).

"It was fantastic, it was very realistic. And compared to the Lord of the Rings movies it was great to see, that special effects have come a long way," Stephanie Cook said.

"It was amazing, especially the battle scenes and it left you wanting more at the end," Paul Bingham said. "The 48 fps is totally the future of movies. It takes you a couple of minutes to get used to it, but the clarity is amazing. I read the initial media criticism but I have to say: It's just fantastic."

Shihad frontman Jon Toogood agreed. "I thought Gollum was awesome, that was my favourite", but the whole movie looked amazing and sounded awesome, he said.

The new 3D format "did feel a bit voyeuristic at first but once you get used to how crystal clear it is, I think it is quite amazing. It is arresting when you first see it. It is almost like something you shouldn't really be seeing it. It's cool," he said.

The movie also got some backing from director Peter Jackson's 16-year-old daughter, Katie. "It was amazing," she said after seeing it for the first time along with the 850-strong crowd at the theatre. "It's very close to home with Lords of the Rings and I think Hobbit fans will enjoy it very much".

Another movie-goer described it as the best of fantasy put into 3D. "I don't know if it was so advanced or if it was so old, that's how I would describe it. It was just gorgeous," she said.

It would be fair to assume, that Economic Development Minister Gerry Brownlee, who was heavily involved in the negotiations with Warner Bros, didn't have much of a choice than loving the movie, but his praises sounded sincere.

"I thought it was fantastic. The bits you can probably most appreciate are the sound quality, that was extraordinary, and all of the technical side of it. The 48 frames per second, it's some of the best 3D ever produced, and then the story itself, I think it just captures you," he said.

"The best bit for me though was the 3000 names at the end that worked on this production."

NoahU • 19 days ago
I saw the new Hobbit trailer last night in the 48 FPS since the theater is one of the above that will be showing The Hobbit in HFR 3D. While it was obviously different, it was not as bad as I had expected and I am one that hates the look of the 120hz setting on HDTVs. While the sharper motion did take a bit to get used to, the characters on the screen did look more life-like and real. It didn't have that same cheap soap opera video feel of 120hz. It felt more expensive somehow since you can't see the makeup lines and other distracting details.

I am still planning on seeing the Hobbit first in 24 FPS second, but I am now more optimistic about seeing it again in 48 FPS.

The President of NATO, the National Association of Theater Owners, told the Times "The difference is obvious and dramatic. The question is whether or not it’s a difference that drives patrons to the theater." But the NATO President also saw a version of the 48 fpm footage that was color corrected, not the raw version that played in Vegas in April that fans weren’t nuts about. "It really wasn’t representative of what it looks like today. I think it will have a big impact on the industry."

Operations and film manager at Miramar Roxy Cinema in Wellington, Daminda Dias, said the upgrade was expensive but proving popular.

"Our projectors were always state of the art but an extra memory board had to be fitted into the existing projector to allow us to project at 48 frames per second.

"It was expensive to install but more than the expense was the fact that it was new technology so people weren't sure how the projectors were going to react."

Dias said presales for the 48 fps screening had been "by far the most popular".

"It's because it is new technology I suppose."

While reactions to the high frame rate after it debuted at annual convention CinemaCon earlier this year were mixed, Dias said the test footage he had seen this week was "lovely".

"The picture is a lovely crisp looking picture and the colours are a lot better than six months ago."

He said all the "teething issues" had now been sorted out.

The movie offers technological wizardry, thanks to a 48 frames-per-second format, twice the industry standard. Critics who saw a trailer earlier this year were unimpressed, but after a minute or two of adjusting, the higher resolution is eye-popping, similar to discovering HD television for the first time.

Alas, the higher resolution has one downside: it really makes you wince when you see the obscenely corpulent Goblin King in such crystal clarity.



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