The experience with JURASSIC PARK 3D can be perfect for you… if you’re not seeing it at a Fake Imax and are seated close to the screen.
This year, I’ve taken the plunge into 3D in a manner that has me in love with the format. Getting an HD Projector and being able to see 3D as bright and as big as I can in my living room has me watching 3D more than I ever could’ve guessed before. But watching films that I had terrible theatrical 3D experiences with – has taught me… presentation is everything.
My first gripe with Faux Max – aka Digital Imax 3D and this includes any of their theaters that make you wear those completely awful oversized CLOWN glasses – that require you to keep your head looking straight ahead, with no neck tilt. It really doesn’t matter how great the 3D conversion is, if you’re sitting in the first 7 or so rows – you’ll get GHOSTING. What is GHOSTING? It’s that phantom double image you’ll hopefully never see in a proper 3D screening.
SO – how do you get better 3D? Simple, go see it in REAL D. Or wait for Home 3D with the active glasses.
JURASSIC PARK 3D is spectacular to watch. Monte Cristo saw this screening too – and from his tweets he had no Ghosting, but then, he was at the back of the theater. Due to handicap seating, I was close enough to the screen, that to follow action, sometime you have to track your head with the motion to catch everything – and you get ghosting.
Add to this the guys that thought it was cool to rock in their chairs by pushing off the backs of our seats… and the little girl with the comb that she was making clicking sounds with her fingernails… and the ideal viewing experience was not mine to have…
But intellectually, I knew… the GHOSTING is due to the proximity to the screen and the fact that the IMAX glasses will cause ghosting if your head is ever off a straight up and down axis. Any diagonal shift will cause massive ghosting. Again – this is a problem inherent with IMAX 3D, not the conversion.
That said, watching JURASSIC PARK 3D with Dad this morning… problems being what they were… was still just absolutely terrific.
Spielberg shot the hell out of JURASSIC PARK – and his shots and angles are constantly making use of foreground, midground and background elements – which when converted… well, it looks amazing.
The first & still one of the most amazing scenes in cinematic history – the Brachiosaurus feeding upon those trees that the Jeeps pull up to at the beginning of the film. Spielberg designed this shot to just flummox us and the characters. In 3D, this shot is borne anew, still powerful, but the depth and space in the shot suddenly made me see it again for the first time. By the time a truly mind blown Sam Neill looks over wistfully to see the Brachiosaurs feeding with the Parasaurolophus at the pond… I was sold.
Actually, I was sold before that. You know the Raptor attack that opens the film. This is perhaps the most aggressively montaged sequence of the entire film. Close ups, ferocious sound… but when you see the shot of Muldoon’s mouth screaming “KIIIILLLLLLL HERRRRRRR!!!” You’ve never seen a mouth that big or wide and in 3D before. It’s pretty frightening – and the 3D gives that sequence a realy disorientating power – which the editing was always meant to give you, it is an impressionistic action sequence constructed not of long shots, but of tight quick shots – something that 3D is typically not associated with, but I found it to grab my attention quickly.
The T-REX scenes steal the rest of the movie in 3D terms. Once he’s torn through that electrical fence and that goofy girl in the first car starts waving flashlights as if to ring the dinner bell… You’ll just be left stunned. That T-REX is still the best effect in the history of film for me. It’s alive. In 3D, it is overwhelming in the best possible way. As it moves between the two vehicles… as that light beam catches the rain… it is stunning.
But when Dr Grant has climbed the tree to save Tim… there’s a shot up above the vehicle stuck in the tree – and Grant is at the door, but it’s a fun angle looking down – the rain falling from out of your eye straight down to the portion of the lower left corner of the screen… WAS AMAZING! It really did feel like the drop originated from my eye. So cool.
The 3D for the birth of the Velociraptor in the Tour sequence – so cool. Again, I know it becomes repetitive to say, but there’s spatial difference that I just really dig. I mean, I’ve always loved Grant on the Triceratops as it breathes, but in 3D, you have a new sense for the scene.
And once you get to the WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH banner falls – you’ll be giddy – as you always were in that scene, but maybe a bit moreso.
The audience loved the screening – although, when Hammond is eating ice cream and talking about his Flea Circus, you’d think someone had hit the intermission button, cuz I swear like 20 people ran out of the theater – I suppose this sequence is the fan bathroom break moment of the film. I’d just never seen a collective escape quite like that before.
Now – if Warner Brothers will just do a 3D print of THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD – I’ll die a happy boy. I love the film with all my heart as is – a perfect movie, but to see that kind of Technicolor given dimension. My brain craves the screen candy to bounce off my eyeballs.
I almost forgot to mention this… You know the Trailer scene at the Dig? The one where Grant comes barging in as Hammond pops the champagne and the recruiting begins? Well the 3D for the interior of that trailer is claustrophobic – and because the shot is taking place in the middle of the trailer and we’re at the far end… I found this shot to be one of my fave of the converted scenes. Because it added a lot.
The Helicopter flying sequences are beautiful – and all the beautiful Hawaii / Isla Nublar shots are beautifully done.
I do recommend seeing this at a REAL D theater – if you don’t mind minor ghosting, check it out at the IMAX for the sheer scale of it. I hear that at real IMAX theaters they have 70mm 3D prints - that's gotta be amazing. But I’m betting the finest 3D experience with JURASSIC PARK that I’ll have will end up being the 3D BLU RAY – and after today’s screening… I’m dying to get my geeky paws upon it.
