playing in the uncanny valley
Jun. 15th, 2004 08:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anotheranonThis article is a few days old, but I haven't had the time/mental coherence to address it.
But IMHO it's absolutely right - those hyper-real graphics look great on something like, say Buckbeak from the latest Harry Potter, but if not creepy then just downright wrong when they try to create humans!
While the eerieness could be used to great effect, it almost never is - the trailer for "The Polar Express", (in which the character voiced by Tom Hanks looks exactly like him) seems to me to be just a vehicle for animator's wet dreams, because it certainly would have looked better if they'd used real people.
Exception: it worked ok in the Shrek movies, if only because the people were so cartoon-like to begin with.
But IMHO it's absolutely right - those hyper-real graphics look great on something like, say Buckbeak from the latest Harry Potter, but if not creepy then just downright wrong when they try to create humans!
While the eerieness could be used to great effect, it almost never is - the trailer for "The Polar Express", (in which the character voiced by Tom Hanks looks exactly like him) seems to me to be just a vehicle for animator's wet dreams, because it certainly would have looked better if they'd used real people.
Exception: it worked ok in the Shrek movies, if only because the people were so cartoon-like to begin with.
