Post-Processed Dinosaurs

Finding myself with a free afternoon this week, I strolled down to the local Odeon to see Jurassic Park: IMAX 3D. (It should be noted that the 'IMAX" bit  doesn’t mean much -  the screen at the Odeon is nowhere near as big as a true ‘IMAX’ screen). I should say, I love this film a lot - hence my willingness to pay £12 (£12!!??!) to see it again on the big screen. I first saw it in the Shrewsbury Empire cinema when I was 10 years old, in one of my first (and possibly only) trips to the cinema with my Dad, and instantly loved it. This is not entirely unsurprising considering I was essentially the target audience at the time. Following that I wore through a pirate VHS copy obtained from a friend, then an actual legitimate VHS copy, followed by the inevitable much hardier DVD purchase. When we finally embraced streaming media a couple of years ago and sold off all the DVDs it was one of only a few that I was desperate to keep. I like the movie so much that I can even forgive Jurassic Park 2 and 3.

It’s sad then for me to see the movie in this format now. From minute 1, it’s clear that the 3D conversion is very poor quality. It’s basically like watching a moving pop up book, as flat characters and objects make their way across the screen at varying depths. At some points individual characters have been picked out of the background so poorly it actually looks like they’ve been filmed with early green-screen effects, so they’re totally divorced from the background. It just doesn’t add anything to the movie, and is actually often distracting. It’s a waste of the already impressive visuals of the movie, and so easy to see it for what it is: a cheap gimmick to try and cash in on a successful property. The problem is that it’s totally unnecessary - all that’s needed to get a bunch of new film goers interested in Jurassic Park (and become the ready made audience for the next ‘new’ JP movie) is to release the film again. I’m sure it would have done just as well as a 2D re-release, so this poor 3D affair is a waste of effort.

Of course the film itself is still amazing, and the sound quality (whether due to this new version or because of the IMAX standard speaker system) absolutely blew me away. I heard lines of dialogue that were previously just characters muttering under their breath, and the roar of the dinosaurs combined with that John Williams theme made me forgive the awful awful 3d conversion and fall in love with the movie all over again.

Also the raptors are still bloody terrifying.