Slashdot Mirror
Matrix Revolutions To Be Released On Imax
captain igor writes "IMAX.com is reporting that Matrix Revolutions is going to be released at select IMAX theatres on November 5th, with a wider range of theatres picking the movie up shortly thereafter. (Link includes list of IMAX theatres that will premier the movie.)" We mentioned earlier this year that the Matrix sequels would be Imax-sized.
Neo: I seem to recall this being posted on slashdot before!
Trinity: Deja Vu, its a glitch in the Matrix. Is it a different article? Or the same article twice?
Oh, I really hope someone can get a digital rip of that... better than DVD quality screener!
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
I saw Apollo 13 on IMAX when it was the brave new world of 35mm blowups, and I was underwhelmed. It was exciting, sure, but it didn't add a lot to the movie.
... you get the idea.
For one, the movie's length exceeded the capacity of the reels for the projector, so they had to cut something like a half hour from it. Knowing the movie really well (it really outfoxes other space movies), it was irritating, but to my friend who had never seen it before, it was downright confusing. "Day 4" led to "Day 6"; not only did they cut some needed exposition, but a lot of the smaller moments that make the movie rich. Disclaimer: I think they've solved this issue and Revolutions will not be similarly cut. Which is why I'm presenting these criticism in increasing order of importance.
More severe is the clipping of the sides. An IMAX screen is proportioned to 1.66:1, which is closer to the 1.33:1 of TV than the 2:35:1 of movies like Apollo 13. The solution is to cut off the sides, like in the rightfully derided pan-and-scan telecine methods for TV. So for all the progress we've made in getting the mainstream public to embrace letterboxing with DVDs, this is a leap backward.
The print just didn't look good. I mean, whether you show it on a 80-foot screen or 800-foot screen, you only shot it with so much grain in the negative, and you can only get so much detail on the way out. It looked incredibly fuzzy and indistinct next to movies that were shot natively in the jumbo IMAX format. When you watch Everest and other IMAX-shot movies, they look like they have as much detail as a regular movie, but the screen extends far in every direction. Whereas blowing up 35mm 8 stories high produces roughly the same effect as sitting 3 feet away from a normal screen. They had to pipe the movie through all sorts of algorithms to reduce what would have been enormus "grain flicker," but instead, it looked awfully posterized and compressed.
Which leads me to the biggest point -- it was just overwhelming. For "epic" sequences like the liftoff, sensory overload is a good thing. But a lot of the latter part of Apollo 13 is played in close-ups -- scene after scene of Tom Hanks's face, 8 stories high. The face is so huge, it takes extra work for the eye to scan and recognize it. You have to turn your head, not just your eye, to get a bearing of where a scene is taking place. It's like watching a regular movie through a paper towel roll.
The director shot the movie with the assumption that you would be able to scan the whole frame relatively quickly. You can shoot close-up and your brain will understand that the scene goes beyond the edges of the frame. Directors who shoot for IMAX or other large-frame formats know to keep everything really, really wide, so you don't get disoriented. The purpose is to immerse you in a certain place, to eliminate the constant reminder in your peripheral vision that you are looking at a "finite" image. When you shoot it wide and project it big, the focal length ends up back in the league of normal movies, and that's what happens. But when you shoot it close and project it big
In short, IMHO, IMAX is a great format for certain types of movies, but keep 35mm prints on the normal screen where they belong.
I am worried that the matrix series is going to end with "not a bang but a wimper."
Releasing the movie on IMAX and the regular theater at the same time doesn't make sense (cents?) otherwise.
The last matrix flick did it correctly. Fans will go to the regular theater to see it on release day... and then spend the extra dollars to see it larger than life later.
For the third flick, die hards will see it on IMAX and then just purchase the DVD later... leaving the theaters out of the action. Are they afraid that after people see it in the theater that there will not be enough excitement to pay off the IMAX investment?
Is it going to be that big of a dud? Gawd, I hope now.
I guess alternatively this could just be IMAX's way of trying to position itself as a theater alternative...
Davak
1. A really blatant and horrible edit mistake during the big dance scene in Zion. For some reason, Trinity and Neo had sex, then met at the dance. Everything else was the same, and there were no other (noticable) edit problems.
2. Due to the high level of detail, I could fairly easily notice when CG was being used. This was most problematical during the big 100 Smiths battle.
What was good about it?
Totally immersive! The superbike sequence was awesome, much better than the small screen. It's true that some of the fight sequences were more difficult to digest visually, but that was more than made up for by the awesome display of enormous images.
As for your critiques:
1. or one, the movie's length exceeded the capacity of the reels for the projector
As you mentioned, this is no longer a problem.
2. More severe is the clipping of the sides.
As far as I could tell, there was no clipping. The film was shown in it's normal proportions, which meant that it did not take up the full height of the screen. Still, it was twice as large as the normal screen (4x the area).
3. The print just didn't look good.
I know what you mean by posterized. Yes, it was pretty obvious that some post production had taken place. But I wouldn't characterize it as not looking good. It was more than satisfactory.
4. Which leads me to the biggest point -- it was just overwhelming.
Yea, that's the idea. I like walking out of the theatre with my eyes moving in different directions!
I am definitely going to see the next installments of the Matrix and LOTRs on IMAX. I'm not even going to think about going to the regular theatre. Big, flashy, epic films look great on big, flashy, epic screens.