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Live-Action TV
"Look, I don't know. I just had the CGI team mock-up a furry potato with a corpse's face. Someone smarter than me can figure out if that's nostalgic for people."
— John Oliver imagining the thought process behind Sonic's initial design for his movie, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Music
I've been thinking about the uncanny valley today — that is, the idea that something alien or unfamiliar produces a mixture of discomfort and pleasure as it gets closer to normal — and it occurred to me that "Hey QT" is exactly that. It's a pop song, a romantic chart pop song, except there's a somewhat unnerving, odd, and thrilling difference to it from what we call pop and, somehow, what we call music. QT's vocals stand in a plane of pop singing very near ours. We can identify the hooks, parse the lyrical sentiment, and understand the beat, but it doesn't come together in what we've been used to calling the right way. We sense that somewhere inaccessible to us, there are a group of people who find this perfectly ordinary, and are writing a review exactly like this one but for Britney Spears.
— Epithalamion's review
of "Hey QT" by QT, on Rate Your Music
of "Hey QT" by QT, on Rate Your Music Web Original
While nothing in Tintin is quite as richly nightmarish as the waxen-faced corpse of Tom Hanks sauntering through The Polar Express or the kinky video game avatar of Angelina Jolie in Beowulf, it's still a bit eye-watering in places. Particularly in the beginning, before one has a chance to really get used to the sight of almost photorealistic people with comic book facial features, which we've never really had in the movies before, and Jesus Christ is it ever something the brain's not really equipped to deal with.
"Oh, dear God, have we entered the school of the damned here? Why are they all speaking in unison and what's with their eyes?!"
— Linkara on the Tandy Computer Whiz Kids, Atop the Fourth Wall
If a commercial features children or animals doing things that children or animals are incapable of doing without the help of a computer, I'm almost certain to hate it.
— Scott Tobias on a common bane of watching Superbowl ads
The more realistic CGI tries to make its characters, the more creepy and unreal they look. The human eye is nature's finest bullshit detector.
— Steve Heisler's "I Watched This On Purpose" column, on S1m0ne
, on S1m0neI think Jack is trying to ramp up the "adorable," but he instead drives full-force into the grotesque.
To me, porcelain dolls seemed like something you only buy when you know you're going to die alone and the only revenge you have left on the world is forcing an unblinking phalanx of $400 toy children to watch your corpse get hollowed out by dusty spiders... Collectible Doll Care taught me more than how long a grown man can sustain one terrified pee. For example, did you know that giving your doll a haircut is important enough to take up 20% of a doll maintenance instructional video? I didn't. I didn't even know that doll hair grew. And by the way, fuck you for that, sorcerers.
Mac is one of the ugliest, most off-putting characters I have ever seen in a kid's movie. The armored rape goblin from the Alien series is less terrifying than Mac and his sallow rubber plague mask. It isn't hard to make a movie about space that delights little children — the only way to screw that up would be to film their parents putting on spacesuits and telling them they're getting a divorce. Or, apparently, making Mac and Me.
Danny: Ugh, I don't really like the way Apple looks. Those flat blinky eyes and that 80's [sic] damaged-perm hair. It's a great Kathy Mullen voice, but I don't like looking at her. Is there a way for me to watch this special and not look directly at Apple?
Kynan: I was just thinking that myself, but then she did this really adorable thing where she put her hands on her hips. But yeah, she does have an Alien Doll Head, which is a problem.
Kynan: I was just thinking that myself, but then she did this really adorable thing where she put her hands on her hips. But yeah, she does have an Alien Doll Head, which is a problem.
"Oh my god... OH MY GOD, it's the invasion of the army of PLASTIC WHORES!"
"GEE, BEASTIES! LOOK AT HIS ARM! Look, if you can't make muscles properly contract and extend, then simplify the forms! Do I really have to tell you this?!"
— ShogunGin0 reacting to the human models in the 2007 CGI movie The Ten Commandments
"Whether it's in loading screens or pause screens, some games just love to make us stare at some gormless fuckwit's face twitching and gurning for ages, and I hate it. I hate it because they're trying to show how great-looking and natural these faces are, but they overanimate the shit out of them trying to replicate a 'lifelike appearance' and end up going in the opposite direction, giving us rubber-mouthed aliens that contort and twist with facial tics that just make my feeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrking skin crawl." [groans]
In drawing, you can get away with leaving certain things out, like upper-lips per say; they would look like wrinkles if you put them in a drawing. But in real life, it looks fucking scary. The reason Cindy Lou was the only cute character in The Grinch was because she was the only one allowed to have an upper-lip. Everyone else looks like a demon-possessed Hungry Hungry Hippo! And these two look like The Shining girls if Bozo the Clown gave them lager bombs!
5: Make sure your characters look as dead-eyed and zombie-like as possible. Make sure their skin has that special plastic texture to it, so the audience feels like they're staring at undead Barbie dolls.
6: Congratulations, you now have your walking abominations. Now ensure they mug to the camera in order to terrify your audience. If your audience is not crapping their pants, then continue to practice.
[7 doesn't fall under the trope; it falls under Squick]
8: All movement should be unnatural, highly disturbing, and make your audience envision the dancing demons of hell.
6: Congratulations, you now have your walking abominations. Now ensure they mug to the camera in order to terrify your audience. If your audience is not crapping their pants, then continue to practice.
[7 doesn't fall under the trope; it falls under Squick]
8: All movement should be unnatural, highly disturbing, and make your audience envision the dancing demons of hell.
"Oh my God, WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOUR FACE?!"
The entire film was created inside a computer. How does it look? Cool. Buildings, sets pieces, vehicles, and aliens all look amazingly cool. People look really cool when they stand still and face away from us.
"Chun, what the fuck did they do to you?!"
— Game Care Network, Everything Wrong With E3 2017, Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite segment
Seriously, does he have a disease or something that makes him look like some kind of Neil Gaiman creature made manifest? Just looking at him makes me want to rub my eyes and then wash my hands with harsh soap until my skin turns pink.
"This is terrifying. This isn't Snow White. This is more like evil porcelain dolls come to life!"
— The Angry Video Game Nerd on the Snow White and the Seven Clever Boys cover art.
"I mean, under normal circumstances I'd say that this looks like a gross bastardization of God's law, it looks like something that was made in a lab by Germans, it looks like... fucking Frankenstein's beast, the ultimate culmination of man's hubris given unholy flesh, but hey, what do I know?"
— Max G on Sonic's original movie design, Brain Dump
"Cats is a film seated so firmly at the bottom of the Uncanny Valley that it has set up residences, sown and harvested wheat, raised children, and developed its own system of divine mathematics."
"I can't even make commentary on this, so I'm not gonna, except why, God, why did they give the mice children's faces?!"
— Lindsay Ellis, Why is Cats, discussing the "Old Gumby Cat" sequence
I think I know the reason for why people prefer "unrealistic" animation.
For some reason, humans really don't like things that look like humans but aren't quite human. Hence why a lot of people are uncomfortable with movies with animation like Monster House and The Polar Express. It looks too realistic to us and sets us off.
Scientists call this the "Uncanny Valley" effect and it's thought to be an evolutionary tactic for survival.
The funny part is. No other animals that we know of experience the uncanny valley effect. Only humans. Which leaves the question: what was out there that mimicked humans so well and was so dangerous to us that we evolved to have this as a tactic for survival?
For some reason, humans really don't like things that look like humans but aren't quite human. Hence why a lot of people are uncomfortable with movies with animation like Monster House and The Polar Express. It looks too realistic to us and sets us off.
Scientists call this the "Uncanny Valley" effect and it's thought to be an evolutionary tactic for survival.
The funny part is. No other animals that we know of experience the uncanny valley effect. Only humans. Which leaves the question: what was out there that mimicked humans so well and was so dangerous to us that we evolved to have this as a tactic for survival?
here's the bomb I'm about to drop.
This image... this image here. I cannot stare at it for more than a few moments. It haunts my brain, even now just choosing the file from a bunch of thumbnails. I can't see this at 100% zoom. I don't know why but it's wrong. This image is wrong, what it portrays just... it... I don't know. It scares me on a primal level I cannot explain. Way, way deep down, a part of my animal self tells me that it wants to hurt me or is about to attack me. I just can't explain it.
official source is that it's just a really horrible "police crime suspect recreation drawing from witness description", but it is still terrifying to me for a reason I can't explain.
I hope you feel the same horror I do. Good luck, I'm out of this thread, now.
This image... this image here. I cannot stare at it for more than a few moments. It haunts my brain, even now just choosing the file from a bunch of thumbnails. I can't see this at 100% zoom. I don't know why but it's wrong. This image is wrong, what it portrays just... it... I don't know. It scares me on a primal level I cannot explain. Way, way deep down, a part of my animal self tells me that it wants to hurt me or is about to attack me. I just can't explain it.
official source is that it's just a really horrible "police crime suspect recreation drawing from witness description", but it is still terrifying to me for a reason I can't explain.
I hope you feel the same horror I do. Good luck, I'm out of this thread, now.
pukicho: Happy feet woulda been better if it wasn't horrifying
ramune-explosion: Explain???
pukicho: The eyes of those penguins hold real human souls in them
ramune-explosion: Explain???
pukicho: The eyes of those penguins hold real human souls in them
— Tumblr
Western Animation
German Soldier #3: Dead eyes, like a doll's eyes! It's called The Uncanny Valley! It happens in animation when the human eye sees something it doesn't recognize is real, but they design of it is so photo-real—
Tintin: Top of the mornin', Guv'ner!
Tintin: Top of the mornin', Guv'ner!
Real Life
The big problem that one has to face is the fact that everybody in the audience is going to be an expert on how humans move. This makes it pointless to attempt to use rotoscope or any other device to imitate human action. I believe the answer lies somewhere in working out a mode of movement that is edited action, just the way that the animals in Bambi and the dwarfs in Snow White were. An audience will accept any convention, any point of view, as long as it is carried out consistently. I think there is less chance of rejection by this approach than by that of stupidly trying to draw animation with all the complexity of live action. In the first place, it can't be done, and in the first place, why try to recreate the approach of the Hudson River School of painting? It fizzled out like a soggy firecracker. After the viewers marveled at a match head that looked as if it could be picked off the canvas or a torn envelope that uncannily simulated real life, they got bored with it.
Imitation of real life is not art, and art is what we are involved with, despite mutters to the contrary from Madison Avenue and the networks.
Imitation of real life is not art, and art is what we are involved with, despite mutters to the contrary from Madison Avenue and the networks.
— Animator Shamus Culhane discouraging the use of the Rotoscoping process, quoted from his book Animation: From Script to Screen
To see the snowman is to dislike the snowman. It doesn't look like a snowman, anyway. It looks like a cheap snowman suit. When it moves, it doesn't glide — it walks, but without feet, like it's creeping on its torso. It has anorexic tree limbs for arms, which spin through 360 degrees when it's throwing snowballs. It has a big, wide mouth that moves as if masticating Gummi Bears. And it's this kid's dad.
— Roger Ebert's review of Jack Frost (1998)
I think that the closer animation gets to superficial "realism" the faker it looks. Do these look remotely "believable?" Not as believable as if they just shot the actual actors. This has been demonstrated over and over again in our history — going back to Snow White. Everybody (even then) loved the cartoony Dwarfs and noted the complete incongruity and stiffness of Snow White and the Prince. Well animated cartoon characters are far more "believable" than "realistic" mannequins.
These were robots in human form with distorted faces, and they gave my daughter nightmares. When I asked her why she was frightened of the Cybermen but not of the Daleks, she replied that the Cybermen looked like terrible human beings, whereas the Daleks were just Daleks.
"Very much funfair. There's nothing creepier than something that's supposed to look friendly and human, but doesn't manage either. Oh, dolls, they just shouldn't smile."
— Steven Moffat, about the Smilers
Whereas formerly, before the advent of machinery, the commonest article you could pick up had a life and warmth which gave it individual interest, now everything is turned out to such a perfection of deadness that one is driven to pick up and collect, in sheer desperation, the commonest rubbish still surviving from the earlier periods.
— Harold Speed, The Practice & Science of Drawing chapter VI: The Academic and Conventional
"I could never look long upon a monkey, without very mortifying reflections."
— William Congreve
"This is Maya. Look at Maya. Look at Maya's eyes. Look at Maya's lips. Look at Maya's nose. Look at Maya's hair. The flowers. Something ain't right about Maya... Unless it's a perfectly normal picture of Maya, and then I'm very sorry. But something don't seem right about Maya!"
— Markiplier, playing SIMULACRA 2
For a brief while, let us mull over some items of interest regarding puppets. They are made as they are made by puppet makers and manipulated to behave in certain ways by a puppet master’s will. The puppets under discussion here are those made in our image, although never with such fastidiousness that we would mistake them for human beings. If they were so created, their resemblance to our soft shapes would be a strange and awful thing, too strange and awful, in fact, to be countenanced without alarm.
— Thomas Ligotti, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race
