Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D MTBS Review

[pixel67]

EDIT: This post had its title edited so it can properly start the thread for the official MTBS movie review.

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Alright guys, it was released today! Who is going, how does it look, and how was the experience!

[staticbuddha]

Im going 2mo,

The reviews say the film is a bit crap but the effects are brill,,, I will defo do a post Sunday morning to give my views of the effects etc.

[pixel67]

I took my family to see it last night. The 3d effects were well done and really helped the whole experience feel "surreal", but the storyline did need some help. It was funny in parts and the humor helped, but wasn't nearly as dramatic as it could have been. Still worth seeing, but not as good as Beowulf in my opinion. 3D quality was good, with only minor ghosting in the more extreme effects. They also had you put on your glasses about 10 minutes before the feature began to show 3D clips of up an coming attractions (Nightmare before Christmas, etc) which was really cool, but a missed opportunity to advertise 3D gaming in the home.

[staticbuddha]

I havnt seen beowolf and unfortentaly can not compare it to it.

I thought I put up some question I asked my missus who isint into 3D, but I thought might be intertersing form a none loving 3D freak like me

1) what did you think about the glasess ?
answer : they where fine, but would be beter if I didnt have to wear them

2)Did you find watching in 3D comfortable?
answer: yes, but occasionally the picture felt out of focus

3)Would you say that it was better because it was in 3D?
answer: yes

4)Would you have still seen the film is it was in 2D?
answer: no

5)If you could of watched that film in 3D at home would you still wear the glasses?
answer: yes

6) Would you go and see another 3D film?
answer: yes, I think it adds to the experiance

7) Do you wish more films where in 3D?
answer: yes, but I dont know why every cinema cant do 3D

8) Do you have any negative fews for the film being in 3D?
answer: becauase it was a real simple movie you could really get into the 3D effects and if it was a complex movie you would of been able to rnjoy the 3D effects to much

9) Did you feel there was too much 3D?
answer: no, I feel there where a few missed opertunitys

10) Will you buy me a Dolby 3D projector?
answer: no, cause they probally cost to much


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scores (out of 10)

just the Film - 6

3D effects - 8

glasses - 8

[Znith]

I saw it yesterday. The effects were done quite nicely but I thought some areas were a little dark to see the 'full' S3D effect. Could have just been my theater.


They cheesed up the storyline just a little too much for me. I would never have went to see it if it wasn't in S3D. I'd give the 3D an 8 and the story a 4

[martinlandau]

I went to see it, there were only about 40 other people or so in the theater. That is not enough. 12 dollars for the film and 2.50 for the real-d glasses.

They had a 3d preview of some superdog cartoon that is coming from disney, it looked really good. Made me wish Kung Fu Panda and Wall-E had been done in 3d.

The 3d in the film seemed very good to me. They did a good job. It made the film entertaining even though the storyline was so over the top!! I went to see POLAR EXPRESS in 3d and had a slight headache after that movie with the IMAX and 3d glasses - but no headache after this movie with reald glasses.

I can't wait for Lucas to redo star wars in 3d.

[sharky]

why arent those movies released on 3D dvds? grrrrrrr i cant go to the 3D cinema..

[Neil]

A formal review was put up by Pam Swartz for MTBS. Write your remarks about the movie and review here.

Regards,
Neil

[Welder]

David(VP of Marketing from iZ3D) and Myself attended the movie in REALD,

It was the first time I have ever seen a REALD movie, and it was amazing... The effects in the movie were brilliant! The CG was really well done, and they clipped it in with the actors so you could not tell the CG was separate.

I also like how they purposely exploited the 3D, that's always a good thing, and they did it well without it being too out of place.
(Did you guys see the Stereoscope 'Easter egg' btw? He pulled it out of his brothers box, and was like "Hmm, no idea what that is" haha)

As far as the movie itself, I liked it too. I laughed, I cried(No, not really.. But close!!), and generally had a great time. And it was truly a full movie, not some movie just showing silly 3D things without considering the core of the movie.

ONE thing I did NOT like about this movie: THE FREAKING BIRD! What was with that??? That bird concept did not fit well at all.. and it was waaay to corny! Maybe they added that bird in to appeal to really young children or something, not sure.. but I didnt like it.

And the best thing? NO eye discomfort with RealD, was pretty cool. I took the shades off, and I felt normal.

[cybereality]

I just got to see this movie, I thought it was cool. Well, the movie was super cheesy but I already knew that. The stereo3d effect however was very well done and tasteful. It was a very natural 3D, like it real life. Its just looked more real in general (like you barely notice its in 3d). There were a few parts with things coming all the way out of the screen, but it was cool. The technique used seemed a lot better than what they did with Beowulf. In that film they went for over-the-top 3D with high seperation and it was a bit uncomfortable. I even had to take the glasses off at one point (and I'm used to this stuff). The stereo quality was much better on the Journey movie even though both use RealD. So the film-makers are getting better, I felt no discomfort at all. Not the craziest 3D effects I've ever seen, but surely the most comfortable. I can't wait for some real blockbusters to come out in 3D. Beowulf was a start, but I only went to see it because of the 3D. Same with this movie. They need to do like Batman in 3D (Superman doesn't count because it was only for part of the movie).

Also, I liked the bird. I kinda wanted to take it home. I think the bird was supposed to be the reincarnation of the father/brother character. That was my interpretation. But I also used to have a pet bird when I was a kid. It was trained, so I could whistle and he would fly over and sit on my shoulder. So birds are cool. 8)

[Killigath]

Does anyone have a link to locations where Journey is being played in 3D? I can't find one for the life of me. Pretty sure my local theater in town is showing it in 2D, but id be willing to drive a couple hours to check this movie out.

[Welder]

Try searching moviephone.com

[cybereality]

Does anyone have a link to locations where Journey is being played in 3D?

Just find a list of theaters in your area and start calling them and ask if its being shown in 3D. Its really unfortunately that the movie listings don't properly indicate 3D showings.

[Neil]

I'm wondering if the movie is only shown in Real D, because when I went with Pam, the theater was listed as Dolby 3D, but were forced to watch it in Real D. We really wanted to try the Dolby 3D option for a change.

For those who saw the movie, I found that the background objects had better depth than up close objects. For example, you can tell the mountains or terrain was far in the distance, but the characters' noses looked relatively flat on their face. Did you find this too?

Regards,
Neil

[NITRO1250]

I'm going to go see it this weekend with a few friends who have never seen a 3d movie before. My theater is playing it in RealD, so I'll see how that works out. Too bad Dark Knight is still being played in the IMAX... ack! Such a waste of a 3d movie not being played on an IMAX screen!

[Welder]

I'm going to go see it this weekend with a few friends who have never seen a 3d movie before. My theater is playing it in RealD, so I'll see how that works out. Too bad Dark Knight is still being played in the IMAX... ack! Such a waste of a 3d movie not being played on an IMAX screen!

Not so true Nitro, Imax uses a different kind of Stereo 3D than RealD, so the effect may be different for you. The size of the screen does not always make the difference

[Tril]

I saw it this weekend (me, my parents and my brothers) at a RealD theater. My parents liked it a lot. Me and my brothers have a slightly different opinion. It was good but it could have been better with a better story.

The stereo 3D was mostly well done. Anomalies were rare and most of the time, the people on the screen did not look too flat (they could have had more depth however, I think). Sometimes, a bit more separation could have helped make the scene come to life more. There's only one time where I though the depth was wrong. It's when they encountered giant dandelions. For one of them, the stem looked like it was closer than the white hairy things attached to it.

I have a theory about rendered and filmed stereo. When you render stereo, you can make everything on focus, no matter the distance. When you film with a camera, only the depth on which the camera focuses is in perfect focus. That means that the rendered stereo is perfectly clear and only the depth of what's filmed that the filmmaker wants you to focus on is perfectly clear. They want you too look at the guy to the right talking? Then they'll focus on him. You wan to look at the girl during that time? Too bad but she will be slightly blurry.

It's also possible that they played with the separation/convergence of the rendered scenes and cameras and made some small mistakes making the background appear more 3D. I did not notice.

There's a few times where they made stuff jump straight at your face. I closed my eyes instinctively a few times. That means the effect was well done and since they only did it a few times, it was alright.

I think sitting position matters. At this theater, the screen was small (compared to an IMAX 3D screen), I was sitting close to the front and I was looking a bit up to see the screen and I was seeing the seats in front of me. I think this caused some small anomalies. When there was popout at the bottom of the screen, like the ground coming out of the screen, it felt disturbing to watch. I did not try to change place during the movie but I think popout at the bottom of the screen would have been better looking when sitting higher in the theater. My theory is that I would have been watching the screen straight in front of me or slightly below the horizontal and the seats would have been lower in my sight. This would have brought less conflicting depth cues and I would have seen the depth better.

I'm thinking that because of a movie I saw at IMAX 3D in the past. It was the movie in the sea. In that movie, I could clearly see the sea ground coming out of the screen and floating in the air. I think this happened because I was sitting high enough (I was about at the middle of the screen height) and because the chairs were in a very steep slope so I almost did not see the chairs in front of me. The bottom of the screen was very far below me.


The story was okay but a bit weak. Some of the events of the movie were unrealistic but necessary for the story. I'll name a few. Don't read the list below if you don't want to know some parts of the story.

• They told the kid to come in the middle of the unstable floor when they knew that it was close to breaking. Logically, you would have asked him to move along the wall. The floor was bound to break if they bunched up in the middle.
• The kid and his uncle could almost outrun the dinosaur. I don't know how fast a dinosaur can run but I'd say that it should probably be much faster than a human.
• The kid was strong enough to not let go of the sail as we saw him took off.
• The kid magically regained consciousness on the beach. He should have either : died from the fall when he let go of the sail (we never saw what happened), died from drowning, died from being eaten by the fish.
• The three did not get fried to death by the steam.
• The thing they were standing on when they went back to the surface did not touch the walls a single time. It should have touched it for sure and they should have been thrown out and killed.
• They survived the fall to the ground after coming out of the ground. Seriously, there's no way they could have survived such a high fall.
• Even if the mine is closed, the land is probably the property of someone. If you find precious stones on the land of that person, taking them is theft. They would not have the right to keep them.
• I thought they travelled a bit too far around the world for the time it took them. It's cool but unrealistic maybe.
• They were very far in the ground. I don't have any number but you could calculate it with the time it took them to fall. At that depth, I think that their weight would increase because they are very close to the centre of the earth.
• If the temperature gets so hot that all water evaporates every time there's volcanic activity, how come there are still birds, dinosaurs and plants alive down there?

Since it's a movie for kids, we can forgive the movie for the less realistic elements. Less realistic elements like that are often used :

• In Hancock, the main character throws a kid in the air and he catches him. There's no way that's possible. Hancock raised him by his clothes. The clothes would have been torn apart by the force, the kid could never go that high without feeling enough G during lift off to kill him, the instant stop at the end would have killed him. Hancock also writes on the moon in red. Even if he could fly there, there's no way he could have written that. It's not like he can make laser come out of his eyes like superman to make the rock melt or like he could have taken some red rock from earth to the moon.
• In Ironman, the main character succeeds at making a very high power reactor that's extremely small with extremely rudimentary tools. There's no way he could have done that. It's like trying to make your of cpu for tour pc with a soldering iron and some wire.

[yuriythebest]

just saw journey to the center of the earth 3d on the iz3d- one of the finest 3d movies I have seen thus far. the 3d really does bring back that excitement that I last remember watching action movies when I was 7-ish. For instance in the part where the character was jumping on floating rocks above a giant cave hole thingy I actually felt excitement and a feeling of vertigo and wanted him to make it. In 2d I would have been like yeah yeah whatever. Also was very nice to see professional actors like brendon fraiser do 3d movies not just some off the street talent. I enjoyed this. Especially laughed at the joke where fraiser picked up a turn of the century stereoscope and didn't know what it was- stereoscopy humor rulez!! some screens:

[Welder]

Yes, the stereoscope Easter egg was hilarious... but David and I were the only ones that laughed at that in the theater I think...

[Tril]

The DVD is out. I saw it in store. It attracted my attention because the whole front of the box is an hologram. It looks like the DVD contains both the 2D version and the 3D version. However, the 3D version is probably anaglyph because it's written on the box that the box contains 4 pair of glasses. I read somewhere that it uses green/magenta glasses. It's the first time I see this choice of color.