I've heard lots of reviewers say good things about "Polar Express" but it just looks really creepy to me.
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No kidding. Don't think I'll be catching that one.
I read an article on The Incredibles in EW where they said that ultra-realistic computer animation is creepy, which is why the cartoonyness of TI is better. Polar Express could be the poster child of too-realistic computer animation. Somewhere I saw it explained that when an artificial human (be it computer animation or robot or whatever) looks almost real, the fact that it looks almost real but is not causes people to be creeped out. There's even a term for this, but I forget....
Uncanny Valley, which someone mentioned above.
I wasn't creeped out by the very real animation in Final Fantasy. But that wasn't a kids movie, either. That could make a difference.
Uncanny Valley, which someone mentioned above.
Oh. Now I remember - it didn't ring a bell when I read JZ's post....
Motion-capture has the capacity to make things look extremely creepy, if you use it as anything more than a rough guide. It lends a sort of Gentlemen-esque glide-y-ness to everyone's movements, especially walking and hand gestures.
I wasn't creeped out by the animation in Final Fantasy, but the fact that they put the voices of well-known actors on different bodies bugged me.
I wasn't creeped out by Final Fantasy either, but I did experience a lot of something akin to cognitive dissonance, as some scenes did look totally real to me and some (most) did not. I had this weird sensation of the reality of the movie flip-flopping between animation and live-action.
I thought the animation in FF was incredible, and easy to watch (even though there were still problems with hand movements and lip movements). Somehow, whatever they did for FF, they did NOT do for PE.