Movie Recommendation by AGuF
“The Polar Express,” released in 2004, is a CGI film that tried to capture the Christmas Spirit of other Holiday films but ended up somewhere in the uncanny valley close to it. Based on the novel by Chris Van Allsburg it tells the story of a little boy who is starting to doubt that Santa exists. On Christmas Eve, the Polar Express stops right in front of his house, and he is invited to visit the North Pole and accepts. With a group of children his age, the train departs for Santa’s workshop and encounters all types of obstacles on the way. Throughout the film, the means of transportation appear unpractical but adhere to a principle of mobility for fun’s sake that might be the closest to a holiday message as the film gets.
With the use of motion capture technology, it reproduced life-like facial movements that stood in contrast to elements like eye movement that cannot be designed this way. Some viewers noted the resulting discrepancy filled them with an eerie feeling that scientist attribute to the uncanny valley. The uncanny valley is a term coined by Masahiro Mori to describe the divergent responses to objects that very closely resemble humans in some aspects while remaining starkly different in others, a phenomenon witnessed in robotics and animation. Therefore, “The Polar Express” is not only an interesting selection for lovers of Holiday films but also for people interested in the developments of animation.
American Matters 