The Uncanny Valley

This is so true.

Way back in 1919 Sigmund Freud postulated his concept of the uncanny. In the (cleverly named) The Uncanny, Freud explored a problem of aesthetics—when something is both familiar and unknown the experience of viewing it can be strongly unsettling. Fifty years later, roboticist Masahiro Mori presented his own work on the uncanny. Drawing heavily on his predecessor's work, Mori developed his "uncanny valley" hypothesis.

It seems the closer that robots or computer graphics get to life-like, the worse they look.  This is the 'uncanny valley', where close is simply not good enough.  We more easily accept human behaviors projected onto an obvious robot then human behaviors from something that almost looks human.  I think this is why, in general, computer generated movies have shied away from trying to be completely realistic.  Sure, there are some CGI (computer generated images) subbing in for actors in dangerous stunts, but you rarely see them standing around talking to each other.

The first movie to really try for that replacement reality feel was Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.  It was hard to take seriously because it was diificult to listen to Steve Buscemi's or Alex Baldwin's voice coming out of a different "human".  They touch on this in the video when they look at The Polar Express.  At least those characters looked somewhat like Tom Hanks, so it was easier to swallow the illusion.

I imagine the day is coming when the images will be indistinguishable from the real thing.  It appears that the first step is digitizing actors and actresses bodies when they are in the prime of their life so that they can play parts later when all they can offer is their voice.  It will be a total reversal from the first days of the movies, when all they had to offer was their looks.

Posted by: jcallery at 08:13 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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