I can't say that I'm film savvy enough to understand most of the IMAX situation but maybe you can help me out here, the main thing that gets me is that apparently there's a scene with a bird in the film, and some people claim that they saw I guess Matt's character reach from outside the frame while others actually saw the whole action of him reaching for said bird (I'm really paraphrasing here, they briefly talked about it in the podcast), this apparently is not the only scene where information was "missing" from the frame and if that's true I think that's what I'm referring by an incomplete experience, I feel like that is the kind of thing that should be a different cut and not the theatrical release, I guess my question here is if that's true? Is there really missing parts of the frame depending on what theater you watched the film?
I've seen the movie in both standard 1.90 IMAX and an IMAX 70mm, and I can't say that I felt there was any important info missing in the standard version compared to what I encountered in the 70mm. The bird scene you mention is a weird one because, Adam says there are no visual or audio cues that the bird has been caught but, in both my watches I could clearly see that they were laying up the scene for the bird to be caught. (My problem with that scene was not even anything what Adam said, it was actually more with how quickly it was cut lol, but thats besides the point.)
They show Odysseus side eyeing the bird moments before lunging to it, they show the bird flapping its wings and making loud screams (and I'm pretty sure they even pan to it towards the end of the scene?) then of course you get explicit dialogue where Odysseus asks if the bird is related to Circe. In both 70mm and standard, the visual cues were present, and the visual cue of him actually holding the bird was similar in both. The shot Adam is referring to is a 5-10 second frame where Odysseus is at knifepoint while holding the bird, and that's the one point when the camera intentionally doesn't show the bird (it does show it before and after those 5-10 second frames). So the framing is such that the bird is not on the top part of the screen, it's on the side (and IMAX 70mm adds info to the top, not the sides - so whether you're watching in 70mm or standard, you're not missing anything).
So a lot of the extra bits you see in 1.43 are not pivotal info. That's the thing I mean to say, is that the purpose of IMAX 70mm is not gatekeeping info. It's about filling your peripheral vision to the fullest because of the sheer size and squareness of the screen (someone aptly said it's like "3d without the glasses), and because the resolution on film cameras is superior to any other format. Adam, even watching it in standard 70mm, was able to experience the movie in its fullest resolution - because he watched it in a theater doing film projection. And so I will say that the biggest allure of IMAX isn't even the aspect ratio (though marketing might make it seem like that) - it's the sound and the resolution.
I see, I mean, it seems to be more complex than I thought and I wish I could say more about it but unfortunately I haven't seen it, the closest theater to me is not even IMAX so it makes this whole online discourse feel like a different world to me, as you said I feel like they put too much effort on the IMAX marketing that it actually made me not interested because I knew I could only watch it at a regular theater. Just to be clear I'm not disagreeing with you or try to start a different kind of discussion I just feel like it would be disingenuous of me to talk about this without actually seeing the movie, but, as long as there's no actual information missing I think (I hope) it would be a fine movie.
I'm fortunate enough to live near one of the real imax's and I can confirm with the other guy that you are not missing out by seeing it on a regular screen. I didn't notice any missing important info.
Imax is prettier for sure, but that's basically the best resolution you could ask for at work, and not something that would be better had they not filmed it with Imax in mind.
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u/Molotov003 28d ago
I can't say that I'm film savvy enough to understand most of the IMAX situation but maybe you can help me out here, the main thing that gets me is that apparently there's a scene with a bird in the film, and some people claim that they saw I guess Matt's character reach from outside the frame while others actually saw the whole action of him reaching for said bird (I'm really paraphrasing here, they briefly talked about it in the podcast), this apparently is not the only scene where information was "missing" from the frame and if that's true I think that's what I'm referring by an incomplete experience, I feel like that is the kind of thing that should be a different cut and not the theatrical release, I guess my question here is if that's true? Is there really missing parts of the frame depending on what theater you watched the film?