Polar Express a "creepy ride"

Movies
21

I think they just have too many flaws in their motion capture.

It’s weird, but the motion capture for GTA:SA seems more natural than the stuff I’ve seen in the trailers for Polar Express. It seems to me like they have the modelled character not move at all if the detected motion of the actor is below a certain threshold, which makes it so the models stand relatively still, then move, then go still, in their body motions. It’s just too jerky for my tastes. With GTA:SA, it’s obvious that they overexagerate body motions, even when standing still, but that comes across better for my tastes.

22

I saw this last night with the family. I was extremely skeptical about it, but my wife wanted a family night out.

We saw it in IMAX 3D. It was by far the best 3D show I’ve ever seen. I’d actually recommend it on that alone. There was a preview for some James Cameron exploring the ocean Imax 3D movie, and it was supposedly in 3D too, but it just didn’t work at all for me. I was worried. But as soon as Polar Express started, it looked great. We had excellent seats, dead center maybe just a couple of rows lower than the best possible seats. The theater actually sells fewer tickets for 3D shows and marks seats along the edges as “the 3d won’t really work from here”.

The kids liked the movie a lot, my wife thought it was OK. But other than the 3D, it was pretty disappointing. Not only the “still not there” human modeling, but the story just didn’t do anything for me. I never read the book. But it was very vague really, about “the spirit of Christmas”. What’s that? It didn’t really say, just “something in your heart”.

There really wasn’t a lot to the story, and I assume the eleven roller coaster ride scenes were not in the book. Again, they did look pretty cool in 3D.

Not only was the human animation “not quite there”, but some of the casting/voice acting was awful. The annoying kid’s voice was a particularly horrible match for his animation.

I had forgotten about the preview’s glimpse of Tom Hanks face as he apparently moonwalks. It still looked ridiculous. And I actually wondered at first, “Christ, do ALL of these kids have braces?”. After much careful study of their animated teeth, no, none of them did. It was just part of the creepy facial animation & imperfect matching with the voices.

There was some news clip on tv after the movie and my wife said, “Boy, that voice sure doesn’t match that face”. I said she should be used to it by now. Though she liked the movie, she agreed the animation didn’t quite work and asked me why - surely computers can do that now she thought. I explained that computers are still no match for a human eye & brain when it comes to understanding the human body. We’re not nearly so critical with other creatures or objects, so cg animation of almost anything else can be done “perfectly”. The caribou in Polar Express looked fabulous. She agreed that she never once while watching The Incredibles was distracted by anything “wrong” with the animation.

I thought it was unintentionally funny that we overheard one of the supervisor elves using Yiddish.

spoiler

I was a little surprised & disappointed at what the hero chose as his gift. His choice doesn’t really seem to say anything. How about asking that the kid who’s apparently never gotten anything get the first gift? Isn’t that the real good stuff about Christmas? Giving, and thinking about what others want & stuff?

23

What is IMAX 3D? It’s not like the 3D where you put on the funny glasses, is it?

24

There are indeed funny glasses. But they’re not simply colored lenses. They are hard plastic and aren’t flexible anywhere. They seem to have adult & child sizes.

I’m not sure exactly what is funky on the lenses. Without them, there were 3 pretty clear images on the screen, with them, there was only 1 very clear 3D image.

I couldn’t even find technical details at www.imax.com, but their site says Polar Express is the first 3D feature for them, and they have a list of theaters showing it here:
http://www.imax.com/ImaxWeb/polarList.do.

I wonder if being CG is a big advantage for 3D. The multiple views should be able to be pixel-perfect. Capturing 3D in live action has all kinds of potential analog problems, from the separate cameras not being aligned exactly, to lighting interfering with the color filters. As I said, the live action preview did not work at all for me, but it was like someone flipped a switch when PE started.

25

Actually, it says it’s the first “full-length” feature film. They had 'em when we went to see Ghosts of the Abyss a while back (last year, I think), unless they’re newer than those.

26

On IMAX 3D:

The glasses are polarized, and so is the movie (actually two movies). Grab the glasses of the person sitting next to you, put two lenses together and turn them 90 degrees to each other, they go opaque!

The movie is projected twice, simultaneously, one polarized vertically, the other horizontally, and each offset from the other so your left eye only sees the left move and your right eye only sees the right move. I’m sure the two movies are distorted somehow to provied the 3D effects, but it’s practically the same technology as the old red/blue glasses from the 50’s.

Dean

27

What Dean said. I think Captain EO at Epcot Center was the first “commercial” application of the polarized 3D technique.

It’s like the red/blue glasses thing - you wear glasses to try and ensure that your right eye sees only what the right eye is supposed to and same with your left - but it’s a far better way of filtering out the unwanted stuff.

28

29

Captain EO was actually the second movie using the technique to debut at Epcot. The first one, whose name I don’t remember, didn’t have any particular theme or name star. It was just a travelogue type thing designed to show off the technology: “Look at the fish swimming in the audience!” Anyway, when Captain EO debuted, Disney moved the first movie to another theater they had set up in Magic Kingdom. I remember that clearly because my wife wanted to see it, and we had to studiously avoid going near the “It’s a Small World” ride in order to enter the theater, lest that damned theme song get stuck in my head. Again.

30

Actually, it says it’s the first “full-length” feature film. They had 'em when we went to see Ghosts of the Abyss a while back (last year, I think), unless they’re newer than those.[/quote]

Oh, GotA was an IMAX feature? No wonder it was so goddamned boring when I rented it. All those long sweeping shots are dull as hell on a TV screen.

31

So what faces are more expressive? The characters in this movie, or Alyx and Barney from HL2?

32

The HL2 expressions are pretty damn impressive.

33

It’s funny you mention that. I showed my girlfriend HL2 last night, and she commented on how it looks better than the characters from Polar Express.

34

Just saw this with the wife and kids. I was really dissapointed - I was really hoping for a good family Christmas movie.

The choice of almost realistic animation didn’t work for me. It would have been better had it been either real life or more traditional animation. As it was, it was just awkward looking.

The whole movie came across as “look what cool animation we can do” for the sake of how cool is this rather than a good story. Ooooh, look, the ticket is floating and now an eagle has it and is soaring over a waterfall. Three or four roller coaster scenes. And always the swelling “OK, this is the touching part” music cued in for the pasted in “moving” parts. Oooh - look, it’s the Northern Lights! Swell the strings, ok, that 5 seconds is over, next scene. The theater was packed, but it was oddly silent the entire movie. No “oooh!” at the scenes intended to ooh and ah you, no laughter the entire movie, it was eerie.

It looked and felt like a 2 hour cutscene from a good computer game.

35

I saw the IMAX 3D version and loved every second of it. Made me feel like a kid again.

36

Finally had a chance to rent this last night and what in the fuck is up with the animation?

First off how bad did that little black girl look? Like the white kids looked just fine but damn that black girl didnt look right at all. She was freaky looking really… though they did have her hair right.

Also the animation of the “hero” running was the worst I have ever seen at some points in the movie. I dont know much about animation but I would be willing to bet I could do a better job of it then they did with some of the parts in this movie.

The story was ok but like someone above said why didnt he give the poor kid his gift? That would have been a lot better but I guess the “hero” is kinda an asshole.

Also Santa didnt look quite right there. Something about him just threw me off.

PS what the fuck was Steven Tyler doing in the movie that was just lame.

37

I found the actual movie too boring to get through. But hey, now I can watch the Pitch Meeting video for it! Yay!

38

We got the book for my daughter this Christmas and I read it for the first time. I found it interesting that the Tom Hanks character (the conductor) isn’t even illustrated in the book!

39

You can’t have a movie without some type of celebrity in it though.