Interstellar and the end of the film era

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in movies on (#2TYH)
story imageToday, nearly all movie theaters have converted their projectors to fully digital systems. Although movie theater 4K (4096 x 2160) is a little higher resolution than consumer TV 4K (3840 x 2160) - and definitely an improvement over standard HD (1920 x 1080) - nothing can match the resolution and shear awesomeness of 70mm IMAX film projection. Christopher Nolan is one of the last true film holdouts and with his new movie Interstellar, is pushing for the full "film only" versions to be shown across IMAX theaters.

Bottom line: this is one movie you probably want to see in the theater. Otherwise you won't get to see its true glory until 30 years from now when the industry starts selling 32K resolution digital TVs.

Re: IMAX killed it (Score: 2, Interesting)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-11-09 14:43 (#2TYQ)

IMAX didn't kill film. Film is *expensive* and *heavy* and a huge pain in the ass to do anything with. Don't get me wrong, I love film, I was a projectionist for 4 years while in college, but I can tell you from plenty of first hand experience how much of a giant pain in the ass it is to do anything with film. Just to show a single movie I would need to put in probably about one "running length" of time before the movie even started to prep the film. Compare to a digital set up where you just go download an press a button. It's no big surprise that's winning out over film.

For what it's worth, I saw Interstellar yesterday in 35mm at a local theater (no one is showing 70mm IMAX around :() and I thought it looked great, much better than many of the digital movies I've seen lately. Real film lent a grittiness to the movie that meshed well with the story and desperation and it would be impossible to replicate that with digital. Of course, it also sucked when the sound cut out for 30 seconds during one scene because there was no way to rewind it, but oh well.
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