Did they all forget about Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within?!

I don't care if you enjoyed or hated Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (personally I loved it), but you have to admit, it's the most life like CGI film ever made, and it was released years before all these supposedly 'stunning' CGI films. Whats your take on this whole thing?

*I spelt 'everyone' wrong. *

I'm not the least bit interested in the film.

My official position is: meh.

I've seen the trailwers on TV, and its disturbing to me. Sure, the story is not supposed to be scary, but the people look like reanimated corpses. Even their eyes look hollow.

When it comes to computer-generated people, less realism is better (ala the Incredibles).

I think it's a dumb movie. And I never even noticed the CGI, that means it's not too interesting, if you don't notice it.

They ruined a good book.

As far as the look of the film; it's not supposed to look like live action, and it's not supposed to look like a cartoon either. It's supposed to look like the paintings in the book the movie is based on.

Whether or not it succeeded in that is debatable, but you can't knock it for failing to do something it wasn't trying to do.

Yeah but the critics in the reviews I've read are like "OMG OMG AMAZING GRAPHIXX! BETTAR THEN ANYTHING EVAR~!"

The models look great. If you took a still image from the movie and compared it to Final Fantasy, Polar Express would look better.

However, the animation in Polar Express is retarted. The characters seem to have a strange robotic movement which is really distracting.

Its really frustrating to watch IMO.

The problem is that it comes too close to live action. We know
how to interpret body language, and that is part of what makes us human. Very realistic CGI models can't transmit those subtle movements and expressions, so they appear dead and lifeless. This would be great in a movie featuring zombies, but in this movie, the illusion of life is shattered.



I also hear that they bloated the hell out of the story.

This movie would have been great as a 30-min holiday special with good old-fashioned hand-drawn animation.

I heard they're using all this sophisticated motion capture equipment for the animation, and IMO the animation sucks.

I don't think so, but people can judge for themselves.

Close, but Final Fantasy > Polar Express

Isn't there some site that says that humanity will generally reject animated constructs the more and more they resemble humanity up until a peak point?

First of all, I think the movie is a piece of ****.

Second, there was an article in the Globe the other day talking about how The Polar Express is biting visual technology from video games. It wasn't specific, but nice to see the industry getting some recongition.

Yet another fond childhood memory raped in the name of cold, hard cash.

The phenomenon is known as the "uncanny valley", I think. It refers to a steep valley in graphs of lifelike-ness vs. emotional response.

Aha, Wikipedia has something about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_Valley

Edit: Oh, and that Final Fantasy movie kind of looks like Half-Life 2 (at least from those screenies)

Yes, I know, you're right; if you think its supposed to look like a live action movie, then you'll think it looks wierd. All I'm saying is that it isn't supposed to look like a live action movie. And the animation is obviously not 100% life like. But neither are cartoons, and no one complains about them. Think of Polar Express as a very beautifully computer-drawn cartoon...because...that's what you're supposed to think of it.

True, but cartoons are not realistic enough to evoke these kinds of expectations that 90% realism invokes in us. If something is only 90% realistic, its easy to compare it to the real thing and see how much it falls short. CGI people are especially prone to this.

Cartoons are abstract enough that people are generally more lenient to it in an attempt to make it more human.

Wow it's so not even close. FF pwns it.

I know. All I am saying is that it isn't fair to compare Polar Express to real life, because it isn't supposed to look real. Yes, it does look sort of realistic, and if it were trying to look like a live action movie it wouldn't be doing a very good job for all the reasons you've explained. But it's not. So, though like you said, it's easy to compare it to realism, it isn't intended to be compared.

Everything you are saying is true, it's just...not what I'm talking about.

I think that CGI shouln't be used in place of real actors, unless the intent is to make something that looks cartoony, such as in The Incredibles.

Gollum is still the most believable human-esque CGI character of all time.

(And Shelob. Wow, I didn't even think about Shelob being CGI until I saw RotK for the third time.)