5 replies on “Movie Discussion – “Polar Express””

1. I took my son
   He’s almost 5 years old. He loved the movie. It’s the first time I saw him really “get into” a movie in that he would yell “OH NO!” during the intense scenes and “YES!” when things worked out.

   My problems with the film weren’t many. CGI films like The Incredibles or Finding Nemo are great. The characters look cartoonish and it WORKS! In Polar Express, they tried to make them look TOO human — and in my opinion, made it kind of creepy.

   I remember reading that if you give something SOME human facial traits, humans can and will appricate and respond to it (and even find it “cute”). But if you pass a certain point, unless it’s CLOSE to perfect, we ‘feel’ a sense of ‘wrongness’. This is how I felt looking at the faces, and basically dead-eyes of the characters. Their smiles looked dead. Their eyes looked dead. Their expressions were — well, lifeless.

   It works with Nemo and Incredibles because the characters are CARTOONS and they dont TRY to make them look human. It didn’t work in PE.

   That said, I did enjoy it and it was time/money well spent.

   • Re: I took my son

     I remember reading that if you give something SOME human facial traits,
     humans can and will appricate and respond to it (and even find it “cute”). But
     if you pass a certain point, unless it’s CLOSE to perfect, we ‘feel’ a sense of
     ‘wrongness’. This is how I felt looking at the faces, and basically dead-eyes
     of the characters. Their smiles looked dead. Their eyes looked dead. Their
     expressions were — well, lifeless.

     It’s called the Uncanny Valley. I found out about this theory in a recent
     slashdot post about something to do with movie animations (probably the
     Polar Express). The link is an interesting read. As you get closer and closer to
     human features, people emphasize more and more, until you reach some sort
     of point, where the object is now creepy, until you reach a second point,
     where it becomes cute (or harmless) again. pretty strange. Neat graphs in the
     linked article too.

     • Re: I took my son

       I remember reading that if you give something SOME human facial traits,
       humans can and will appricate and respond to it (and even find it “cute”). But
       if you pass a certain point, unless it’s CLOSE to perfect, we ‘feel’ a sense of
       ‘wrongness’. This is how I felt looking at the faces, and basically dead-eyes
       of the characters. Their smiles looked dead. Their eyes looked dead. Their
       expressions were — well, lifeless.

       It’s called the Uncanny Valley. I found out about this theory in a recent
       slashdot post about something to do with movie animations (probably the
       Polar Express). The link is an interesting read. As you get closer and closer to
       human features, people emphasize more and more, until you reach some sort
       of point, where the object is now creepy, until you reach a second point,
       where it becomes cute (or harmless) again. pretty strange. Neat graphs in the
       linked article too.

       Don’t take it personnal, but MAN am I tired of reading about this in every single internet discussion involving CGI characters.

       • Re: I took my son
         Hey, I feel your pain. I’ve been sick to death of hearing phrases and
         sentiments along the following lines:

         crappy CGI

         taking perfectly good puppets and replacing them with crappy CGI

         CGI sucks because it is CGI

         this nearly-photorealistic CGI still looks fake for reasons I can’t or won’t
         articulate

         stop-motion was somehow much better than CGI and still is

         because this is CGI I will somehow relate it to Jar Jar Binks

         CGI renders an otherwise worthwhile movie or animation dumber / more
         money-grubbing / more appealing to the lowest common denominator by its
         very presence

         for YEARS. Yet, there it is, like clockwork, every time any movie that
         features any computer graphics at all comes up, especially (God forbid) Star
         Wars. Mentioning the Uncanny Valley is the only way to really deal with this,
         as most people just dislike CGI, apparently on completely knee-jerk
         principles, and never, even once, fail to mention it. At least now there’s a
         rational reason for someone to have a problem with computer graphics, apart
         maybe from unrealistic nostalgia.

         Maybe I’m the only one who remembers those giant bounding boxes and
         unmatched colors and visible strings and so forth through previous
         generations of special effects. Don’t get me wrong, I love special effects
         history, and I have a great fondness for the difficulty and charm of
         rotoscoping and miniatures work and puppetry, but for the most part, those
         tools are on their way out. And yes, there are plenty instances where CGI has
         been used poorly, in excess, or needlessly. But there have been plenty of
         great things to come out of the computer revolution, too. I doubt Jurassic
         Park would have been half the film if they’d hired Ray Harryhausen instead of
         Phil Tippett.

         I’d be glad to never mention the Uncanny Valley again, if I never had to
         hear someone abstractly bitching about how CGI, which has some truly
         breathtaking potential, sucks “just because.” But, unfortunately, that’s not
         going to happen anytime soon.

         • Re: I took my son

           for YEARS. Yet, there it is, like clockwork, every time any movie that features any computer graphics at all comes up, especially (God forbid) Star Wars. Mentioning the Uncanny Valley is the only way to really deal with this, as most people just dislike CGI, apparently on completely knee-jerk principles, and never, even once, fail to mention it.

           See, I’m The Opposite. My Only Interest In this Movie Was The CGI.