Uncanny Express
When I first saw the trailer for The Polar Express, something about it struck me as disturbing. Since then, I’ve come across more and more reviews that echo my opinion. Then, yesterday, I learned about the Uncanny Valley, and it all made sense.
It’s like this: as an objects resemblance to real humanity grows, people’s empathy for it also grows, until a certain point where empathy drops severely into what is called “the Uncanny Valley”: a place where something looks both amazingly realistic while remaining not quite right. In my opinion, and apparently in the opinions of many others, The Polar Express falls quite neatly into this valley: it looks like the moviemakers attempted to create realistic animated people in the film, but also tried to make them stylistic, like Chris Van Allsburg’s drawings. The end result is a bunch of creepy animated dolls who seem vaguely sinister for no obvious reason.
Suffice it to say, I won’t be going to see this movie.
(While doing some searching on this topic, I came across this great post on Mile High Comics’ blog on the same topic.)
