 |
|
|
|
|
The Polar Express | |||
 he
Polar Express, a 2004 Xmas film, was host to perhaps the
creepiest-looking computer generated humans yet seen on the screen. I've
yet to see the film, mainly since I fear it would give me nightmares,
but that hasn't stopped me from writing about it, chiefly in an article
I did for a gaming site I co-webmaster.
I doubt I'll ever see the film, not even on DVD, but if I do I'll add a real review. The following was excerpted from an article I wrote on October 18, 2004, for Diabloii.net, a computer game site. The mentions of the "cinematics" refer to the computer generated cut scenes in Diablo II, the game. Cinematic Memories and the Uncanny Valley Have you seen the trailers for the upcoming Christmas film, The Polar Express? I don't know much about it, but it appears to be a kid's movie where various annoying brats take a magical, Hogwart's Express-like train, piloted by conductor Tom Hanks, to the north pole, a journey that reinforces their belief in the power of wishful thinking, Santa Claus, and naughty lists. Or something like that. The movie is entirely CGI, like Shrek, or Finding Nemo, or Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius and despite being produced by the same people who turned out Ice Age, my current pick for most boring CGI film ever (Though since I never saw Final Fantasy: Spirits Within, my vote is probably skewed.) it might be pretty good.
It certainly looks like a CGI version of Tom Hanks, doesn't it? And that's exactly the problem... it looks like a CGI version of Tom Hanks. (Worse yet, he sings in some of the movie clips now online.) Did anyone want that? Why not just do the movie live action, if you're going to this much trouble to make it life like, in this plastic sort of way? Go watch the trailer or some film clips if you haven't seen it already and trust me, he looks even creepier when he's lip synching and waving his disfigured fingers. As do the kids, the weird dancing waiters, the menacing hobo on top of the train, etc. The problem with the look of the film, in my opinion at least, is that it falls deep into the Uncanny Valley.
I'd say that pretty well sums up what's wrong with the look of things in The Polar Express. Compare the Plasti-people from that trailer to the much more organic, warm, and less realistic models in The Incredibles, and you'll see an immediate difference. Humans, for whatever reason, much prefer their cartoons to look... cartoonish. Rather than like demon-possessed, almost-alive, Barbie Doll things. Ironically, the one area that a Barbie Doll looks real, the hair, is where The Polar Express seems to fail completely. Check out the plastic one-piece moustache and sideburns Mr. Potato Hanks is sporting up there. Certainly a far cry from Shrek 2, where the hair looked too perfect; like a human wig on a manikin. (And if you're wondering, yes, I do this sort of thing all the time. Pick a movie I've not seen and will never see, and spend hundreds of words ragging on it. Garfield the Movie, for instance. It's a gift.) Why do I bring all of this up in what is ostensibly a D2 column? I was afraid you might ask that... um... oh yeah!
He certainly looks more alive and more human than the Polar hobo, and when you consider that the Blizzard guy was created 7 or 8 years ago, on a shoestring budget, for a computer game, on computers with a Moore's Law fraction of the processing power of current machines, you've got to give the Blizzard Cinematic Department some props. It's almost enough to make you want to sit through the cinematic next time you finish an act, isn't it? Okay, maybe not. But now you can at least feel more appreciation for the images you're frantically clicking to bypass as Warriv's caravan carries you merrily towards Lut Gholein.
Reader Feedback Surprisingly enough, a few readers actually had some comments about the article itself; mostly the "Uncanny Valley" and CGI movie comments.
He's got a point about the novelty of 3D still selling tickets, but you have to wonder how much longer that's going to last. It's still working obviously; just compare Shark Tale's box office to its reviews, but with the technology and talent to create an entirely-3D movie growing more widespread you just know the quality is going to drop rapidly as every studio starts turning their crappy 2D cartoon concept into a 3D feature, without bothering to upgrade the plot to Pixar or Shrek level.
Micha's reaction, that better graphics = less empathy is basically a perfect example of the Uncanny Valley effect. People naturally empathize more with animals and other non-human things; just compare the public reaction when some cute animal is injured vs. the indifference to the millions of people who die of starvation and war every year. And as many authors have commented, they can kill fifty people per book, but if a dog dies, that's all they'll hear about in outraged reader mail.
No WoW plans, as a form of self-preservation. I need to spend my time working, and knowing how addicted I get to games I really like, taking up a new MMORPG would be a very bad idea. I never even installed the Beta copy of it I got from Blizzard (at least partially since my 3D card was malfunctioning at the time), and that's after passing up War3 and War3X as well, for the same reason. You'd think I'd have some damn novels finished by now, given all the quality video game time I've skipped, wouldn't you?
Several readers had useful information about The Polar Express.
In retrospect, I should probably retract some of my snarky comments about the plot of the movie. True, it doesn't look very smart or good in the trailer, but trailers are two or three minutes cut from the movie and edited together with little regard for anything but getting viewers interested in paying to see the film. The book might be really good, and hell, so might the movie. I think the Uncanny Valley look of it; the almost-but-not-quite human appearance of the characters; will prevent lots of people from really enjoying it, but I'm sure it will still make decent money. Look how Shark Tale is doing, and that's much less of a kid's movie with no holiday season tie in to exploit. That being said, there are three possible conclusions for the look of the movie and the look of the book's illustrations.
I'd say there's some truth to both statements. I don't have a copy of the book and wasn't organized enough to go get one from the library or leaf through one at a bookstore, but thanks to Matthew's links I've found one illustration from the book that shows a character's face... and it doesn't look much different from the CGI characters in the movie. There's not much life on either face, in my opinion.
They're human, but not so nearly life like to look creepy. I'm not so sure about the "All Heil Santa!" thrusting fist salute, but I'm confident he's not actually advocating Santa Power in the children's story. However, while they look fine here, if they were moving and talking... we might be back into Uncanny Valley territory again. Which makes me think that #2 above is the key issue, when it comes to the phenomena of very high quality CGI looking creepy.
I've never seen The
Polar Express, but that hasn't stopped me from writing
about it at length. (This is beside the point, but I simply could not
find where I'd done so, not by searching my site via Google, not by
looking through the archives, and not even by searching my images folders
for the pictures I remembered posting in my blog entry. Until I finally
remembered, after like 2 hours of looking and getting sidetracked, that
I'd written about it, but
not on this website. D'oh!) Anyway, I found the movie
very creepy-looking, with the dead-eyed CGI characters falling so deeply
into the
Uncanny Valley that they could never even hope to climb out. I wasn't
alone in that reaction, and lots of other reviewers and commentators
seized upon the same visual oddity. One such article that I wish I'd seen
at the time can be found here, on a blog devoted to the subject:
Art, animation, and anything aesthetically pleasing to the eye.
Thanks to Oroboros for sending me the link, and while I don't entirely
agree with him that part
one of The Polar Express blog entries was confused and babbling, I do
agree that part
two was very well done. In that part the blogger, who is a
professional artist himself, takes several screen caps of the human-like
faces in The Polar Express and fixes them up with Photoshop. His
changes are very subtle; adding sparkle to the eyes, lines to the face,
stronger eyebrows, etc. You can hardly tell exactly what he's done in
them, but they do look better. His analysis of the problems with the film
is also spot on.
If you checked out the Newsweek
article that I mentioned last time, you were subjected to the above
image, with multiple Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks all dolled up in
hi-tech mo-cap gear. Here is where Warner Bros' marketing was really
banking on the prestige of Hanks getting all dirty, showing that he's
willing to go the extra mile to give us, the audience, something worth
watching. But, unfortunately, we are given the actual image from the movie
from where this performance was captured. A "before and after"
scenario, I guess. It's all too telling, if you ask me. Do you see what's
happened from Point A to Point B? Somehow they spent millions of dollars
to literally take the soul out of an Oscar-winning actor's performance.
That's quite a feat! ... I
did not like the look of this boy at all. He's supposed to be the lonely
boy, with a (possible) broken home, poor, untidy, without any spark of
drive left in him. Well, his creators felt that to convey this type of
sad sack you should give him a dull haircut that makes him look like
he's wearing a nicely round fur helmet, making his ears protude, Dumbo-like.
Also, they give him strange, rat-like eyes, with no lips at all. He
looks like a death mask. But alive! Terrible character design. Again,
I had to fix the eyebrows. (What's with the eyebrows?) I made them more
pronounced, and raised them just slightly. I gave him tussled hair,
since he's supposed to be "unkempt," but I think I went a
little too far. But the roughing up does give some personality to him
now. There needs to be some assymetry to this character and you can do
that with the hair. Hair can do wonders for character design, as it's
unique for each character. You can do so much with hair to convey any
type of personality, even with a simple lock. I fixed the bridge of his
nose, as it was too strong. I gave him a turned-up nose, similar to a
childhood friend of mine. Also, I had to do major work around the
character's eyes to try to steer away from that mask-like quality. Plus,
I gave him some lips. He was a toughie. I'm not sure if he's at tip-top
shape, but he's better off than he was, that's for sure. He goes on to talk about why the techniques used for Gollum in the LotR
movies yielded a character that looked so much more realistic, and why
other movies, like The Incredibles, don't even bother trying to make a
perfectly-realistic character at all:
"In my opinion it's always been a fallacy, the notion that human
characters have to look photo-realistic in CG. You can do so much more
with stylized human characters. Audiences innately know how humans move
and gravity works, so if a human character doesn't feel right, they'll
feel something's wrong. But if the weight works for stylized characters,
the audience doesn't question it - like the Dwarfs in SNOW WHITE AND THE
SEVEN DWARFS, which were so cartoony and stylized. In THE INCREDIBLES, the
characters are cartoony heroes but they can be hurt and they have this
family dynamic that makes them believable."
Ralph Eggleston, Artistic Director for THE INCREDIBLES
I'm basically quoting all of this since I agree with it and have said
similar things when given the chance. But since it's my blog, you've
probably come to expect that by now. |
||||
| Return to the Reviews Index. |
|
All site content copyright "Flux" (Eric Bruce), 2002-2007. |
