My childhood dream of owning a movie theater was probably the one I should have gone with.  Because if I did, I could have hit CinemaCon, the yearly convention of the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO — nice acronym, that.)  And if I’d been at CinemaCon, I could have seen a full 10 minutes of Peter Jackson’s latest opus, The Hobbit.

Mmm, hobbitses.

While seeing a very extended teaser of the new film — currently slated for release December 14, 2012 — makes me overfill my drool-bib, apparently there were some that weren’t impressed by this follow-up to The Lord of the Rings trilogy (which is actually a prequel to the actual story, but no matter).  The Huffington Post has assembled a slew of pro and con reports from the screening, and it sounds like most of the rumbling is due to the new way of filming that The Hobbit is trying out.  Seems the new 48 frames-per-second (fps) technology was a bit too realistic for many that viewed the screening.

From Peter Jackson’s intro to the clip:

“As a filmmaker, I always want to create a strong sense of reality, to allow the audience to lose themselves in whatever the cinematic story is that I’m presenting. Shooting and projecting at 48 fps gives you the illusion that a hole has been cut in the wall of the cinema, and you’re watching the story unfold with a heightened sense of reality. It’s terrific for 3D; I’ve looked at the 48 fps dailies for ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’ in 3D for over a year now, and with the reduction in strobing and flicker, it is a much more gentle experience on your eyes. 48 fps is not just limited to 3D. A film shot in 48 fps looks fantastic when projected in 2D, and converts well to 24 fps as well.”

I have to say that I’m still getting used to some of the HD on my brand-spankin’ new HDTV, so I can empathize with the viewers that were a bit freaked out.  However, since this was still a rough cut and final tweaks hadn’t been made (info from Entertainment Weekly), I smell the after-effects of jumping the gun.

Hey, folks were up in arms about the whole “talking pictures” thing too. Look how that worked out.  Getting used to a more realistic look is a small price to pay for seeing Bilbo and Smaug duke it out on the big screen.

Either way, I’m on board with The Hobbit.  Though a more realistic look at the loveliness that is New Zealand (the shooting location of both films, don’cha know) may have me emptying my bank account and heading over there….