'The Hobbit' Preview Leaves Fans Concerned

A 10 minute preview of The Hobbit was unveiled at CinemaCon last night (April 24, 2012). Peter Jackson's latest cinematic venture is another adaptation of JRR Tolkien's fantasy novels; a follow-on from his globally successful versions of The Lord of the Rings. Responses to the preview, though, have been varied. The movie stars Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins; his character meets a young Frodo and they journey together to Middle Earth.

Jackson was hoping to wow the tricky CinemaCon crowd with his innovative technology; the movie was filmed using 48 frames per second rather than the usual 24. Jackson's own take on the progress was that "the movement feels more real. It's much more gentle on the eyes." However, a short clip of the movie hosted by The Telegraph is underwhelming; regardless of the kudos that the advanced technology brings to the film, it ends up looking more like a straight-to-TV movie than a big-budget, big-screen blockbuster.

And the CinemaCon crowd didn't seem convinced either. One film projector told variety magazine "It reminds me of when I first saw Blu-Ray, in that it takes away that warm feeling of film." Attendees of the event reporting via Twitter seem equally concerned. One user, Peter Sciretta, said "Saw ten minutes of Hobbit in 48fps 3D. Very exciting, but I'm now very unsure about higher framerates." The Telegraph report assures excited fans not to worry too much about the technical aspects of it, though, as there are very few cinemas with the correct projectors installed in order to watch the movie at 48FPS.