The Uncanny

I went to see the new Tintin film last weekend. This had much going for it: based on the original comics by Hergé, produced by Peter Jackson, with an initial script by Steven Moffat and directed by Steven Spielberg. I have to say I did enjoy it and it is refreshing to see an adaptation of a European comic rather than the standard Marvel / DC type adventure with their interchangeable caped avengers, implausible fight sequences,  pointless explosions and wafer thin plot. However, I spent the first half hour or so really taken aback by the odd animation process: this uses motion capture in which real actors film sequences which are then fed into a computer; the animated characters are then drawn over the actors' captured motion. The result is to give the action a very realistic feel but, given that the animated characters are taken from Hergé's often surreal drawing style, the end result is slightly disturbing: the eyes and mouths of the characters look real but the odd distorted features are really rather hallucinogenic. Apparently, I am not the only one to feel this and the effect even has a name: The Uncanny Valley.

The term Uncanny Valley was coined by Masahiro Mori, a robotics professor, based on a concept by Sigmund Freud that anything which looks and behaves almost ,but not quite, human will lead to revulsion and unsettlement in people. I think he may be on to something and I have often found things such as life-like dolls and automata to be a tad creepy - and yet they  fascinate me all the same. I studied robotics whilst at college (although this tended to be the industrial beasties) and I find things like chatterbot software interesting - although I have never found anything to approach the Turing test.

Tintin isn't the first film to use motion capture - similar techniques have been used in films such as Beowulf and Avatar. For some reason I didn't find those quite so odd. Avatar's animated sequence features blue alien humanoids or alien fauna and flora, whilst Beowulf's human characters are lifelike. Tintin appears to fall into the Uncanny Valley as it's characters appear close to human - but just not close enough. This effect is not new. My elder brother used to be terrified of the marionettes in Gerry Anderson's puppet series - but particularly the later ones such as Joe 90 which had its characters in correct anatomical proportions. Also, my children were quite freaked out by Disney's Snow White which used a technique called Rotoscoping in which the animated characters (at least the human ones) were drawn over film of the real actors.

Anyway, I hope this doesn't put anyone off Tintin. It was a very enjoyable night out (especially as I went to a 2D showing) and the film really brought the comic to life in a new and refreshing manner. In fact this was really what the last Indiana Jones should have been like - it seems that Spielberg is on form again.