Hawk’s Babble-Log

I went with my roomie to go see Superman Returns (for the second time) at the big IMAX at Universal CityWalk in IMAX 3D.

It was DISAPPOINTING. Here’s why:

- The movie wasn’t originally filmed in 3D, so the “3D” is fake. It’s false advertising. We even asked the ticket girl if it was really in 3D and she said, “Yes.” It wasn’t. They took layers from the film, seperated them out and put them on “3D” depth layers, but these layers were flat. The farm scene comes to mind. When Clark is back home, he’s standing outside looking over the farm with the dog. The wooden fence is made of round logs, but they look completely flat. The fence does look closer than Clark, but it’s flat. So is Clark. He’s a flattened layer seperated out and put into “3D”. I’m using quotes around “3D” on purpose. It’s fake. It’s false. It sucked.
- There were only four scenes in “3D”. One had to put on the 3D glasses, then take them off, then put them on, then take them off, so on and so forth. There were three little symbols at the bottom of the picture showing when to put them on and when to take them off.
- There was a spec, or spot, or blotch of dirt or something on the right lense, placed near the left-middle. It was distracting for two reasons: 1) it was only visible in the right eye, which was only visible when in “3D” mode, and 2) it’s a big black blotch on the picture!
- There was a pair of vertical lightly-colored bands just left of center, all the way up and down the screen. These were not noticable at all when the picture was dark, like a night scene. But there was a lot of light colored images in this movie… such as _the sky_! These bands were noticable.

I guess IMAX isn’t what it used to be. It’s a real shame. I used to _love_ going to an IMAX film.