There has been article over on Roger Ebert's website by Peter Debruge (I don't know him either) talking about whether movies were meant to be seen on IMAX and uses the Bourne Ultimatum as an example. There's a final paragraph where he says Transformers would not work at all. So it does ask the question, with all the shakiness and the curved screen, would transformers work well in IMAX?
I say maybe, I kind of felt like the shakey blurry battle scenes made it feel like you were right in the middle of the battle instead of just a spectator. It might work even more so on IMAX - or it might give people motion sickness.
Yeah, um, Peter Debruge just sounds like one of the many forum posters tooting his horn about his disagreement over putting Bourne Ultimatum and Transformers on IMAX because of the fernetic editing methods and their screen ratios (Only he's get's paid for his work), probably hoping to get the favor of the smug SOB Roger Ebert. He hardly comments on Transformers, and dedicates his half of his entire article explaining how the Bourne series just would not work on IMAX screens, before finally making brief comment on Transformers. If you ask me, that's not the way you write an article supposedly focused on two films instead of one. And anywho, no one even knows if it'll work because its not even in IMAX yet! Couldn't he have waited until the 21st to express his disagreement?
I am not entirely sure if Imax cinemas are the same around the world but I saw the Transformers movie at the Imax when it first came out in Aus. [The screen at the Imax I went to is 25m wide] The movie was a bit shaky at battle and helicopter scenes. Though that might have been because I was sitting a bit too close, if I were 3 rows back it might have been easier on the eyes. [It also probably didn't help with me suffering slight exhaustion from walking round the city all day before seeing it ^^;] So yeah if I was a few rows back the shakiness wouldn't be that noticeable. *nod* It was a very awesome experience.
I was at a big theater with a screen roughly 75% the size of an IMAX screen and it was simply amazing. Seeing the bots in what could be 1:1 scale was better than any other theater screen. You really felt you were a part of the movie, especially during the action scenes with the notorious "shakey cam". - To me, it worked. In this case, the bigger - the better. But meh.. I've seen it up to 14 times already.. I'm TF'ed out. and will wait for the HD-DVD.
The IMAX I go to has a flat screen, not all of them are curved. Considering I already watched it on the IMAX on the 4th of July, it was fine for seeing details, but then again I wasn't sitting in the first 10 rows. So I'm pretty sure that when the real IMAX version comes out that isn't just a blown up version of the standard film, it'll look better.
Again, I can never see anthing on an Imax, unless it's an Imax-made movie. I have a really great one too, at the Carnegie Science Center. Transformers, with its already fast and blurry battle scenes, has got to be the worst Imax candidate ever, imo.
If it is anything like The Matrix films that I saw on Imax - it will suck horribly. The Imax screen surrounds you and pretty much covers your entire field of vision. During the matrix films, I found myself moving my head so much to follow the action that I got very bad neck pain and had to leave. On the other hand, films made for imax tend to focus the action in one place and don't have MTV-style jump cuts throughout the film, which means that you can keep your head relatively stationary and let your peripheral vision soak up the rest of the picture. So if I were to put money on Bourne or Transformers working on an Imax screen, given my experience, I would say that no, they will not work. They may even be painful to watch
I've seen the film a few times already, so I'm just gonna go to enjoy my favorite scenes on a humongus screen. I can see how the experience might not be as enjoyable for someone who was actively trying to following the action and catch all the details, although I think describing it as painful is a little much.
I really wish major directors would understand that the shaky-cam and tight-shots during battles work to set tone, but should not be used exclusively. It's particularly funny to me that Michael Bay continues to use it exclusively. Bumblebee running through a gate gets four cameras from different positions and distances edited into the final cut. But a fight like Bonecrusher and Prime gets one camera, tight-on, shaky. Brilliant! That aside, I still want to see it on IMAX. Hopefully I'll actually be able to. Whether it "works" or not is beside the point. Transformers on IMAX? I'm going to do everything I can to get there.
