The Last One Percent

The Polar Express, the latest animated feel-good Christmas movie making the rounds (and roundly being panned by critics), we’re left wondering about the problem.

The Incredibles did well by nearly anyone’s standards. A Shark Tale was reasonable. Finding Nemo was stellar, as were the Shrek movies and a dozen others. So what gives?

It seems the most commonly heard complaint is about the rendering of the people. One of the reviews above goes into more detail than the others by mentioning the eyes and the tongues of the characters lack realism. That could be. Or it could be that the characters are just missing something. That something is small – perhaps as little as 1% of the qualities that make humans. But it’s missing.

And when it’s missing, we notice. If a hairy blue monster doesn’t look human, we don’t care. If a story about toys has a human here and there that look cartoonish, it isn’t an issue. If a sea turtle doesn’t look like we’d expect it to, we couldn’t even tell. But if we see something that so closely approximates humans missing something, we notice. This problem previously affected video games and robots, and now the animators are at a point where it’s becoming an issue.

I’m sure that it will not be an issue forever. Somewhere, sometime, someone will come up with a way to make things look real. Look at live-action: While those are real people, we don’t always get to see the depths of their soul through their eyes, nor do we get to see their tongues. We are still viewing an image of those people, and it will only be a matter of time until someone finds the missing link. But for now, it’s probably better to stick with the non-human and obviously cartoonish features rather than go for the creepy look. Unless you’re creating a horrific video game, of course. Then it’s okay.