Well for me it was Gollum-killer, -trampler and -pisser-on-the-grave)) and an easy hop over the sinister uncanny valley. Main breakthrough of Avatar besides photorealistic CGI is perfected motion capture, up to the slightest movements we can't even consciously detect... that means we must rate ACTING models (and stone-faced, rubber-skinned occasionally-weightless FF:TSW models won't even come close, you must be joking)
I was referring strictly to the character models of FF:TSW. I don't have the DVD and haven't seen it in a while, so I don't know how they appear in motion. You may be correct that the animation is smoother in Avatar; however, I would be surprised if they did not use mo-cap with FF:TSW, considering that the technology has been around for a long time.
It's real-time motion capture, as in the director can actually "reshoot" the scene because the computers are powerful enough to render the motion captured sequence right there on the sound stage.
I've seen "Spirits Within". Their characters are far more uncanny because their faces don't change much when they aren't talking. Body language is lacking in that movie. Plus they don't breathe much. Avatar's Mise en scène was far more live action oriented than like an animated film.
I can see both Golem and Na'vi talking to each other without problems.
- I've seen "Spirits Within". Their characters are far more uncanny because their faces don't change much when they aren't talking. Body language is lacking in that movie. Plus they don't breathe much. Avatar's Mise en scène was far more live action oriented than like an animated film.
- I'll grant you those points, since I confess to not having seen Spirits in several years.
Relatedly, which is more realistic: the Na'vi or that creepy blonde in Inception?
You thought she was creepier than the dude's wife? She stabbed him!
The blonde was visually creepy, in the unsettling structure of her face.
Mal, on the other hand, was absolutely terrifying! She would have all my hairs standing on end in an instant.
Then it's settled. Na'vi are more realistic than the blonde woman, because reality is unrealistic. And cat-people are cool.
Reality's left off-screen. All you see on screen is processed image and makeups (unless you watch some very low-budget stuff)
Leave a Comment:
Fails to bridge uncanny valley but beautiful all the same
In this review I intend to focus on the CGI of Avatar. Everything to be said about the story and characters has already been said, and the consensus is so overwhelming that I won't devote any ink or server space to my own thoughts on those aspects.
Two months before Avatar came out, a profile of James Cameron
appeared in The New Yorker saying, "The digital elements of Avatar, he claims, are so believable that, even when they exist alongside human actors, the audience will lose track of what is real and what is not." That's a pretty bold claim to make in 2009, and I basically took that to mean that the film would be a Gollum-killer, that it would handily beat both General Grievous and prequel-Yoda in the ultimate 2-on-1 lightsaber battle of CGI chops. Watching Avatar on DVD, however, I was disappointed.
Don't get me wrong: the CGI of Avatar is beautiful. Pandora is deeply immersive and boasts virtually the greatest CGI Scenery Porn of any film to date. Artistically it is quite astounding, and little willpower is required of the viewer to maintain Willing Suspension Of Disbelief throughout the film. That said, I didn't find the CGI even marginally more convincing than other landmark films of the past two-and-a-half decades.
I follow the school of thought that the best CGI is unnoticed — seamlessly integrated into the picture. Avatar takes a different route, instead using CGI liberally in order to make the film beautiful. Avatar demonstrates this quite magnificently. But in terms of character models, this really isn't the Gollum-killer I'd been led to believe I would see, as the CGI elements were all plainly discerible. In fact, I don't know if the character models are any more realistic or convincing than those
of
Square-Enix's 2001 feature, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.
Avatar shows that a film can use CGI as an extensive art medium that, in the right hands, can produce an engaging tapestry of characters and environment. But it also demonstrates that the Uncanny Valley is something we will just have to deal with, regardless of budget and technical prowess.