I'm sure that seems a redundant statement, however when observing portrayals of Space specifically, and in attempting to assess wether or not the filmmakers describe the effects of weightlessness etc. successfully in Hubble 3D, maybe it becomes beneficial to compare Hubble 3D (or any Space movie) to the quintessential Space film - Stanley Kubrick's "2001- A Space Odyssey". What Kubrick gave his audience was an appreciation of the passage of time within Space and it's distended, languid execution as restricted by the "terrain". IMAX and other GSC has the innate luxury of more screen real estate within which one can stage the unveiling of these deeply complex and vast worlds (like Space and the deep ocean) allowing for a more proportional understanding by the average film go-er of the sheer size of the subject. I think it plays greatly to the IMAX genre's credit, as I truly gained a sense of grandeur and breathtaking spectacle of deep Space being able to move freely, albeit slowly and dramatically through the universe, from the point of view of our species most grandiose perspective (set of eyes) The Hubble Telescope.
Hubble 3D takes us into NASA's project operations, as Hubble is launched, unveiled and ultimately repaired over the subsequent decades following. We witness the undertaking in brief, broad strokes touching momentarily on the obstacles presented as Hubble is brought online and finally put into service exploring the deeper reaches of Space. We are given a brief glimpse of the dreams of exploring the depths of Space via some carefully chosen launch sequences and sparse poetic prose (as intoned by the slightly dispassionate Leonardo Decaprio). Hubble's shortcomings are exposed in a less than dramatic method of low resolution (and poorly converted) television reports of the launch and fail of the satellite's functionality due to a "warped mirror". I felt the overall story arch was passably laid out to the viewer, however, due to the lack of personal response by those shepherding the mission, I had less of a personal interaction with those developing and mounting the mission at large and feel it compromised my emotional investment in their success. Accepting it would have turned out as a different film altogether, I think exploring the necessities of business and political push demanded to keep this historic undertaking moving forward might have given the human interest element of the movie a stronger presence, and therefor inspired much needed sympathies towards the languishing space program, JPL and NASA. I will, however, take what I can get. At least there are astronauts, complete with nicknames and excitable tendencies highlighted along side the giant orbiting camera's trials and tribulations over the last 20 yrs.
As far as the look of the film, the visual style was compelling in it's acute juxtaposition between the sweeping majesty embodied in the vista shots of both our terrestrial habitat (Earth) and our human constructed orbiting sanctuaries (shuttles and Space stations), and the more "intimate" shots intercut with them. "Intimate" footage describes two types, the first being the face-to-face moments within the shuttle crews' daily experiences. the second type of intimacy is beautifully orchestrated via micro/macro explorations of the Hubble images; beginning with a "close up" of a celestial body or deep Space object, and ending somewhere along the fantastic journey to or from our human perspective from Hubble in orbit around Earth. The images featured (taken by the Hubble imager itself) were beyond incredible, and the occasion upon which the filmmakers take a good 7 minutes to explore a hot bed of stellar development, burried within the Virgo Nebulae is, alone, completely worth the cost of admission! I can only say I wish there had been at least another 30 to 40 minutes of that at least. Let's hope with the advent of the 3D home theater exhibition system, there will be massive amounts of special features to explore on the extended BluRay release of this movie (if not a whole website devoted to allowing one to thoroughly explore any of the Hubble 3D images at will via hyper zoom).
Visually the stereoscopic 3D presentation, although impressive in conveying the expanse of creation, was a bit uncomfortably converged. As I usually do, I attended the show with another Stereo Expert. This time with my often-times Executive Producer and all-times dear friend, Bernie Laramie. Bernie has the advantage of having learned from the best (Camp Comisky/Cameron) and will forever be dissatisfied with less than superb stereo. (A prejudice I can identify with as I am a natural-born 3D snob, what my sense of vertigo being as acute as it is). He is, however, more forgiving than I of the personal stylings of IMAX's legendary stereoscopic style. I am less willing to compromise the overall quality of the 3D in a movie due to 1. a great diversity in the depth cues within the composition of a shot coupled with 2. the expense of properly converging multiple layer groups via masking out and separately setting various ranges of pixel separation gradients. Then again, I am an idealist and we aren't all granted the massive resources afforded to the likes of James Cameron with which to achieve the pristine stereo I dream of mandating.
Overall, I can understand the difficulty under which the astronauts are forced to compose their shots, but I don't forgive over ambitious use of "separation" to make things "pop" which should clearly be just in-front of the screen plane as opposed to violently floating into the Z-axis for effect or proof of a project's 3D-ness as insisted upon by most Studios' promo departments. As a filmmaker, navigating the sticky political terrain between the studio's desire and the artist's vision (often both loosely interpreting the preference of the audience - although in the case of 3D, that could be said to be subject to the "taste" of the stomachs and eyes of those individuals) is the crux one must delightedly bear as the fortuitous benefactor of a Directing gig. I get they want more "in-your-face" 3D, as proof positive of the concept that. 3D = $ but guess what, the bottom line is always the same; a bad movie in 2D is still a bad movie in 3D. I'm sorry but stereo depth isn't the secret sauce that will render any piece of crap concept that a cut-rate marketing dept. comes up with magically a summer blockbuster. I'm afraid the human race can still smell a rat, or in our case see the light of day, reflected off a shuttle arm shoved in their faces at an unnatural distance.
- Posted via pan-dimensional force of will, sans benefit of technology
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