Maybe I should actually go and see 48 fps Hobbit to know what's all the hoopla is about..
I think he does have few good points - I'm sick and tired of recent typical hollywood "blockbusters"
We need something new.....
I haven't seen the film at all, much less in 48, but from what I've heard people aren't accepting the high frame rate well. Typical comments are, "It looks like video" "It looks like a soap opera" etc. Isn't it interesting how 24 fps, even though clearly not up to the illusion of smooth motion, has been so common that we've all been conditioned to see it as the most acceptable way to show narrative films, where as higher frame rate video looks like the news, football, soaps, and cheap documentaries? It's just conditioning, but very fascinating.
p.s: I am too young to had a chance to see 2001 in theater, but on TV screen these 17 minutes seemed like torture
Edit:
p.p.s: In 1968 I was -9 myself
You have to understand, it was a very different time. Movies in general were slower, and there had never ever been a realistic space movie. It was all models on strings, or animation before 2001.
I saw it in 70mm, first run, and it's the first time I became aware of surround. Apes all around us! Very cool. It was also the first 70mm film I'd ever seen/heard. 6 track mag sound was really WAY better than mono optical, which was the alternative then. The entire experience was very immersive by comparison to other films of the day. The ponderously slow Pan Am shuttle scenes were there to ponder space, weightlessness, total vacuum, and Strauss, all blended together. It was a head trip. And then, there's the light show...that was completely radical, and all film/organic/non-digital. Watch that bit and realize it was all slit-scan on an animation camera, shot one frame at a time! And the Ligeti music in the track....we'll, there'd been nothing like that in film either. It really had a huge impact, and was very inspirational, at least to me. I was motivated to shoot wide-screen home movies (8mm anamorphic, and yes I know 2001 was shot on 65mm, flat), and did my own little slit-scan stuff, which looked like crap, but put it all in perspective. Read the book, and the "making-of" book. The entire thing was really seminal. Sure, all the successive Wars and Treks are way more fun, but it all started with 2001.
It never held up on SD TV, and frankly you need a really big screen to get the same immersive experience now. But I'm afraid all our heads are now set to a different speed, and 2001 will never have the impact today that it had originally in 1968, in 70mm, 6 channel mag surround, in a huge theater with a curved screen.
But Trumbull is Da Man. Watch "Brainstorm" (1983), shot in 65mm, cropped down something like 50% for all "normal" scenes, then the cropping opened up to a full huge screen for the "brainstorm" effects shots. What a cool idea. Probably never again. He produced and directed that one.
