jaeufraser

So they did something that's more expensive and much harder to do as a way of excusing themselves? Pardon me, but that's just silly. Maybe in the end it didn't turn out as well as they had hoped (personally I think it looks quite good...the animation, the movie looks like junk nonetheless) but to think they animated it all to make it easier on themselves is...well completely wrong. I'm a little biased, I know some folks working on this...but in no way is the film a throw away. It IS way over budget, and supposedly Zemeckis takes way too many vacations and doesn't really understand how difficult some of these things he's asking for are. But...let's not kid ourselves...what they're trying to do is exceptionally difficult, and to say a PS2 can do the same things means you don't have much of an eye for this sort of thing. As a technical achievement, this is really top of the line. But top of the line doesn't always work for everything, and necessarily look good. In my opinion it's a mistake to animate wholly realistic looking CG people, as those minute differences become huge because the human eye perceives those little issues. It's better to use real people or exagerate, otehr wise you get this or Final Fantasy. Both of which I think look incredible for what they're doing, but still seem a bit unecessary and unengaging. I'll just have to see if they do anything interesting with the CG people, which I hope they do.

Patman

I saw a sneak peek afternoon of "The Polar Express" today.

I was very interested to see it due to the combination of using motion-capture and textured CGI for rendering the entire film, as it offers the director an enormous amount of freedom in utilizing the actor's acting for each role in the film, and placing it into the film from any camera angle possible.

Well, I came away from this "exercise" mildly bored from the film. There are a lot of "Cool, look what we can do with this technology!" scenes that really don't add to the meat of the story for the film, but just feel like padding out a story that didn't need to be 90 minutes long, or even 60 minutes long.

What sort of bothered me about this new motion-capture/CGI technique is that the eyes for the characters just don't look or move "right", they just have that doll-like sparkle to them, not a more realistic feel to them, and it distracted me to no end.

The other thing I wasn't crazy about was Tom Hanks' voices for multiple characters because his voice is too distinctive at parts, and it destroys the illusion of different characters, different voices.

I'd suggest ratcheting down your expectations if you plan on seeing this "experiment" of a film.

I give it 2.5 stars, or a grade of C+.

jaeufraser

Well, I know the eye thing was an issue, but I've read they've actually come up with tech that can mocap eye movements, so look for those issues to be fixed up more in future productions of this sort.

Myself, I'm going for the IMAX 3D version. This film holds pretty much no interest for me save for the technical achievements and pretty visuals, and seeing a full length film in 3D just sounds nifty and would make this film worthwhile to see even if it wasn't that great. Hopefully the movie isn't boring though, even though...it looks like it is. never was much of one for santa claus movies.

scott shelton

I dug it. It reminded me of the Bakshi "rotoscoped" films. Tech nerds can nitpick it to death (that's what they do best), but for the average Joe, the look of the film is pretty interesting and emotionally fluid.

It's a nice big Christmas movie that is quite different than most CG offerings around.

It had heart, big time holiday goodness, and awesome visuals.

My only complaints would be that it's padded as all get out, and the songs lack in power. But overall, I would recommend it. Kids are going to love it.

I've seen it in an Imax house and a standard theater, and there's no comparison. See the Imax version if you can.

Patman

I heard many kids yawning outloud at my sneak peek showing yesterday. They just wanted the movie to be over as well.

scott shelton

And I heard the same thing at THE INCREDIBLES. Doesn't mean anything these days. You could put a strobe in front of a kid, and they'll eventually lose interest.

chowchris13

I think the incredibles might take away some of the steam and box-office from this movie....the film is too close to the release date of the incredibles

scott shelton

I couldn't agree more with that.

WB wants to find that soft patch between the INCREDIBLES and SPONGEBOB. It will be an uphill battle.

Steve Phillips

This film should be especially creepy in the IMAX 3-D prints.

This being the first full length IMAX 3-D movie; I'll be going, but if not for that I wouldn't bother.