In advance of Mission: Impossible—Fallout’s home release, Cruise has rallied with director Christopher McQuarrie to raise awareness on this last point, tweeting out a short PSA regarding the unconscionable movie-watching harm you and your loved ones may face if you’re not careful.
The video sees the pair imparting very important information regarding built-in TV settings on the set of the new Top Gun. McQuarrie and Cruise (who, delightfully, is wearing a little flight suit) say they “want a moment of your time to talk to you about video interpolation,” the weird, hyper-real effect also known as motion smoothing.
Like the world’s strangest Jehovah’s Witnesses standing at your front door, the pair explain that, while motion smoothing might be good for watching sports, its “unfortunate side effect is that it makes most movies look like they were shot on high speed video rather than film.” They warn that the setting is usually automatically enabled on newer TVs and that, in short, it will make viewing Fallout at home look worse than it did in theaters if not turned off. They urge everyone to Google their TV brand’s settings, even including a nice animation of text entering a search field in case you needed to have that assistance.
The weird, helpful little clip has already been endorsed by both Rian Johnson and Ben Stiller, but their support is hardly necessary when you remember that Cruise is apparently Operating Thetan Level 8. You simply cannot achieve that kind of status by being wrong about stuff like motion smoothing.
