Disclaimer–I have not actually seen The Polar Express….just the previews. I speak only of the 2 minutes of utterly creepy CGI that I have seen from this movie thus far. Turns out there’s a term already coined "The Uncanny Valley" (complete with graph, seen below) to describe the phenomenon I experience when I see the almost-real CGI character creations of Zmeckis’s latest opus:
The theory goes as follows:
Japanese roboticist Doctor Masahiro Mori is not exactly a household name — but, for the speculative fiction community at least, he could prove to be an important one. The reason why can be summed up in a simple, strangely elegant phrase that translates into English as “the uncanny valley”.
Though originally intended to provide an insight into human psychological reaction to robotic design, the concept expressed by this phrase is equally applicable to interactions with nearly any nonhuman entity. Stated simply, the idea is that if one were to plot emotional response against similarity to human appearance and movement, the curve is not a sure, steady upward trend. Instead, there is a peak shortly before one reaches a completely human “look” . . . but then a deep chasm plunges below neutrality into a strongly negative response before rebounding to a second peak where resemblance to humanity is complete.
The Uncanny Valley, or why POLAR EXPRESS is so creepy {Mile High Comics}