Holy High Definition, Bartman!
Click to viewI usually depend on the internet to keep me informed about current events because print media is far too dirty (newspaper smudgy ink fingers!) and dangerous (ow! magazine paper cuts!) but last night my media of choice failed me. The Simpsons made their debut in glorious 720x1280 progressively scanned resolution (when you watch the above video make sure you select "HQ" so you can get a taste of what I'm referring to here) and my reaction was slack-jawed consternation; probably how Anya Suleman's mother felt when she found out her retirement check had eight more mouths to feed.
Maybe I'm just a techno-sucker but this HD episode impressed me visually. The show finally took the leap that I expected it to way back in 1999 when Futurama first debuted and used PowerAnimator to incorporate CGI into the otherwise hand drawn episodes. Then Futurama was canceled four seasons later and I imagine the folks over at The Simpsons breathed a collective sigh of relief that the bar had been lowered once again...that is, until Blu-Ray stormed the front door and crashed the party.
I got a dollar that says the only reason The Simpson Movie finally made it to theaters was because Fox was breathing down Groening and Brooks necks with a line about how they'll be able to sell the Hi-Def seasons for mucho dinero so they better be ready to produce some HD content quick to justify the price hike. The way I heard it, many South Korean animators lives were lost during the trial and error period (information about "The 9:16 Aspect Ratio Incident" was heavily suppressed and the mere mention of it is enough to silence the room inside certain bars in downtown Seoul) but once the kinks were worked out they had a movie and a template for further HD episode development.
What's really awesome about this is it will only be a few years time before the next big advancement in home theater rolls around, and if this year's CES was any indicator that next big thing could very well be 3D displays. I can't wait to see what kind of growing pains that creates in good ol' Springfield U.S.A.