The Uncanny Valley Strikes Again!

It seems that The Polar Express movie has fallen into The Uncanny Valley. Almost every review I can find talks about the “creepy,” “eerie,” and even “frightening” characters.

At this point, CG animators have to choose between trying to dig themselves out of that chasm or falling back to more cartoony representations, as in The Incredibles. Looking at the diagram of the Valley, it’s an awfully steep climb, so we’re probably going to see a couple more creepy movies with “doll-like” characters before producers and directors realize the technique is flawed.