Vincent Laforet:

In the open­ing hour of The Hobbit shown in 3D HFR – I don’t recall hear­ing a sin­gle sigh, or laugh. Not one. When I went to see the exact same seen with an audi­ence of the same size on a 2D pro­jec­tion – I heard reg­u­lar chuck­les and laugh­ter… why?

I watched The Hobbit in “IMAX 3D” at AMC Saratoga 14. There was noth­ing max about the expe­ri­ence. The screen was tiny and all 3D did was pre­vent me from being absorbed into Middle-earth. IMAX used to mean huge screens; now IMAX means nothing.

I wear glasses so hav­ing an addi­tional set of Real3D glasses was at best uncom­fort­able. In nor­mal movies all the 3D magic hap­pens in my head. With 3D movies it is force fed into my eyes and that’s what hap­pened with The Hobbit. And I didn’t like it.

I plan to watch The Hobbit two more times in 3D HFR (48fps) and 2D, at a dif­fer­ent the­ater with big screens. I want to love the movie, but so far I’m disappointed.

Update 2013.01.03: Yesterday I watched the 3D HFR ver­sion of The Hobbit at Cupertino Square 16, on a much larger screen. The expe­ri­ence was as if Peter Jackson had made a docu­d­rama. Two thumbs down.

Update 2013.01.08: Raphaëlle Rérolle, Le Monde / Worldcrunch:

Invited to meet Peter Jackson, the Tolkien fam­ily pre­ferred not to. Why? “They evis­cer­ated the book by mak­ing it an action movie for young peo­ple aged 15 to 25,” Christopher says regret­fully. “And it seems that The Hobbit will be the same kind of film.”