Two recent trailers have got me thinking about human progress on the Uncanny Valley dilemma, the phenomenon where, as an artificial facsimile of a human being becomes more lifelike, its flaws become more apparent and we find it disturbing. The characters in the computer animated film Beowulf suffered from this phenomenon, as did Final Fantasy, The Spirits Within before it. Terminator: Salvation took advantage of the spooky effect, intentionally or not, with a computer animated Arnold Schwarzenegger cameo.
A Young, Computer-Animated Arnold Schwarzenegger
While my first view of it, via a cell phone video at the Comicon sneak peek, instilled excitement, the Tron Legacy Trailer in HD is sorely disappointing. The character’s body movements alone are off, but their faces, the brief glimpses we get of them, are even creepier. The film has another year of production left to it, so it might improve, but, for right now, it is firmly in the Uncanny Valley.
A Young, Computer-Animated Jeff Bridges
On its face, James Cameron’s Avatar Trailer doesn’t seem particularly awe-inspiring in comparison to other epic special effects films like Star Wars or LOTR, making us wonder why it took Cameron years to develop the technology to produce it. It’s visually-impressive, but what isn’t these days?
The trick is in the fact that Avatar, as far as I can tell, doesn’t betray where the reality ends and the CGI begins. Marines interact with computer animated mecha and get devoured by dragons in the trailer, but there’s no hint of which are the live action humans and which are the CGI. The irony of Avatar’s accomplishment will be the fact that, if it is the landmark special effects film James Cameron is striving for, then we shouldn’t notice a thing.
Also, if successful, then we can look forward to Cameron directing Battle Angel next (Greatest manga ever!). : )
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