polar express 1.0

[aimeekitty]

btw, just FYI, anyone who sees this movie is not my friend.

Tom Hanks should have a big 666 tatooed on his forhead. ("I can act better than ANY animator, and also better than any actor, so not only should you use my voice for a ton of characters in the film, but you should also MOTION CAP me for even MORE characters because animators can't be trusted to act! Animators can't act, only I can act! animators get in the way! Motion capture is AWESOME!" )

More later when I'm less exhausted on exactly WHY this movie is the first coming of the antichrist. (not to mention it's going to SUCK.)

so
please.
please
please don't give money to SATAN.

Comments

[spadix.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the warning. I really enjoyed the book when I was little so I was contemplating it, but after seeing the Trailer again I decided not too. IT would ruin the memory for me.

[sapphic-lens.livejournal.com]

Really..? I loved the book as a child and I was looking forward to seeing the film, but if it's going to suck that bad, maybe I should just keep my memory of the book and avoid the movie... hmm...

[tengukun.livejournal.com]

*amused* Well, I'll add that to my list of reasons not to see it... so far the only thing remotely interesting about that movie to me is that they kept the animation style looking remarkably like the book illustrations. Otherwise... :P It's a rape of the original story, which really was far too boring to be animated for the big screen anyway. There's no big adventure... a little boy gets on a mysterious train to the North Pole, drinks hot cocoa, and Santa gives him a bell only children and those with the Christmas spirit can hear. The end.

Seriously. The End. No Tom Hanks lookalikes stowing away on the train, no struggle with the meaning of Christmas or great train heists... :P It was one of those books your parents read to you on Christmas Eve to put you to SLEEP. (Cuz we know how kids are on that night of nights.)

Noted. No money for Satan!

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

based on the trailer, the animation of the children alone looks very very stiff.

now maybe I'm SUPER biased being as I work in animation, and maybe that makes it hard for me to watch things that are badly animated. so you should take what I say with a grain of salt.

but if this movie makes a lot of money, it could also be bad for people in my business. if people think it's ok to just motion capture actors instead of having us do some or all of the acting...
you see what I mean? Personally, I find motion capture to be lifeless, stiff, and DEAD, and I dont like watching movies that employ it. I feel it doesnt have any of the charm or magic of a film that was given that extra personal touch by an artist.

[leene-chan.livejournal.com]

I thought the trailer looked kind of creepy with all the stiff zombie-like people. Besides, Tom Hanks has had so much Botox done he can't even have facial expressions.

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

and once you put him through motion capture (without having animators go in and add more acting) he'll have even less.

and besides, who wants to see that many people not even pretending not to be tom hanks? they all look creepily like him!

and how about the opening scene with the little kid supposedly being scared that his house is rattleing?

hrm. how do we know he's scared? It cant be his facial expressions, because he HAS NONE!

[lokabrenna.livejournal.com]

Yyyeeeaah, I dunno. The first time I saw the trailer, I was immediately ambushed by the part of my brain that remembers loving that book, and my reaction was something like "ASDFFGHJASKFHJKfhjkll THE TRAIN!!!1`"

Then I thought about it, and realized it was kind of a daft idea to stretch a full-length film out of a story that's... what, a dozen pages long? I can't remember, exactly.

The end.

[tania.livejournal.com]

Ugh. I saw the trailer about a year ago (a reeeeeal early trailer) and the whole thing was just... guh. GUH!! *makes warding-off signs* Frankly, I wouldn't see it if it was the last movie on earth.

On the upside, maybe it'll help convince people that just because a movie is done in 3D animation, doesn't automatically mean it's awesome. >_

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

actually since it's tom hanks and santa claus, it'll probably make alot, much to my chagrin.

[xevron.livejournal.com]

to be perfectly honest with you, i would wather be shot than lower myself to see this movie.

say much less actually pay money to do so...

[tania.livejournal.com]

Tom Hanks can have flops too. At least, I sincerely hope so. Look at "The Terminal", that kinda sank without a trace.

We will stand against Tom Hanks! VIVA LA RESISTANCE! ;)

[sakon76.livejournal.com]

Upon seeing the trailer, my husband and I turned to one another and agreed that it was on our Don't Want To See list. It looks stiff and plotless.

[umigoddess.livejournal.com]

oh noooo =(
That is horrible to hear...I'm so sorry about that.

That makes me totally feel awful - one of my students is in that movie (the voice of the daughter) she's only 7. It's like the biggest break she's had. So I was hoping it would do well for her sake...but that is totally lame about the motion capture, I definitely don't like that.
*sigh* oh well

I dont' think it'll do well anyway cause it looks crappy. =P

[uminomamori.livejournal.com]

I agree. Computer animation looks creepy and wrong when you try too hard to make it look like real people.

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

that makes me sad! I'm sorry! Maybe her voice is wonderful, and it probably will do well since it's a big budge movie and tom hanks is connected. I'm just so insensed on the behalf of animators everywhere!

[trionfale.livejournal.com]

You know what I said about it earlier that I think the whole movie's "animation" looks creepy to me and I didn't want to see it before but now I REALLY don't want to contribute any money to a man with an ego that big @_+

[swankkat.livejournal.com]

I for one will not be even thinking about this movie. It totally belittles and grossly overshadows the original book. I have fond memories connected to the reading of that book, and I'm not about to spoil them by watching a shoddily made CG film made seemingly only to give Tom Hanks another film credit. I'm not much of a CG ani fan -- the exceptions are the odd pixar flick -- so as soon as I realized it was CG, I immediately added it to my "no go" list.

[thundermew.livejournal.com]

I boycott Tom Hanks and scary animation. Fear not, that movie will be on my Must Miss list this season.

[hoshikage.livejournal.com]

I definitely wasn't planning on seeing it, anyway - the trailer completely turned me off. I didn't even know it was motion capture. It just looked bad... gave me bad flashbacks of "Night on the Galactic Railroad." *shudders*

[jyuni.livejournal.com]

I agree with you (somewhat).

I do beleive that Motion capturing is good if your A) actor is over acting. A lot of the actor's facial expressions and moves often are reflected in works but only by the artist's will or/and B) Try to figure out a difficult pose or action. I feel that scenes with those so be helped by motion capture. That way you can get all the angles, foreshortening, and perspective better. Plus it makes it more fluid with some parts in the scene.

The Polar Express just looks like those horrible 3d Barbies movies (they define the lowest waste of money and energy for all 3d animation) lately. Cookie cutter art. And the fact they use Tom Hanks for almost everyone scares me.

My mind: "What a minute who's talking now? Tom Hanks #1 or Tom Hanks #65?"

And the children look like zombies. I seen some great realistic 3d stuff but this just pretty much is not good. They put too much detail in the 3D skins and not enough in animation.

I do agree with you, the movie/trailer is badly animated. It's really badly animated.

[yakkette.livejournal.com]

Ugh ugh ugh.

I was just bemoaning today the trend of having big name actors do voicework in films. I mean, ever since Aladdin, it's been all downhill. It's distracting and annoying because you recognize the actor's voice and you can't get into the character as much, and how many horrible animated movies have relied solely on their cast to get people to see them (i.e. anything from Dreamworks, ever)? UGH.

Plus, I LOATHE Tom Hanks.

[kwsapphire.livejournal.com]

It looked dumb, so I wasnt gona see it anyway. :)

[draca-serpens.livejournal.com]

My first thought when I saw the preview was, "Why didn't they just film it?"

[foxfur.livejournal.com]

ARRRGH! I am so so so so PISSED that they are screwing up one of my FAV childrens books! The animation isn't even close to pixar quality and the story looks ridiculous....With Tom Hanks playing almost EVERY character??? WhaaaA??

Oh the travesty.... ;_;

I dunno

[ballpointpen.livejournal.com]

I'm back in my "optimist" mode now that I'm doing a trial run at an animation studio, but I personally think that even if Polar Express does shoot off and make a lot of money, there will always be a place for Non-MoCapped animation. I mean, sure people are going to enjoy Polar Express, but not so much to where they're going to completely forget about the Incredibles. But yeah, that would be a nice victory blow if the Polar Express ended up looking really crappy to the general public in comparison to any of the recent Non-MoCapped movies out there. I think mostly people are just trying to be "innovative" with the latest and (not so) greatest technology. And sure there will come a time where Motion Capture would work PERFECTLY for a certain movie Idea, but I honestly don't see any animation jobs in jeapordy due to this flick. But then again, I'm still not very familiar with the industry.. Especially in comparison to you.. I don't think I'm going to waste my $8 on it, but I'm not a fan of the story in the first place.

[bluejeans07.livejournal.com]

I completely agree with you regarding your standard on motion capture. I got really interested in it after watching LOTR since Gollum was a great combination of mocap and animation.

I was thinking about watching the Polar Express since I love the book and I didn't watch the trailer very carefully but now I'm going to have to rethink that o_O

saw the trailer...

[damoclesangel.livejournal.com]

and instantly thought would have been better as a traditionally animated feature. Or stop motion... Stop motion is nice. :)

[lybell.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with you. The other day everyone at work went out for lunch, and as I'm the CGI artist there everyone asked me my opinion about PE.

I spent an hour convincing everybody that it was a bad idea. They were like, "oh my! I didn't know you felt that strongly about motion-... what's it called again??".

I'm afraid people will see it because they have no idea about the artistic implementations. But on the bright side, the audience knows what it likes. And I'm pretty sure it'll be disappointed by this movie.

What's bad is that if they don't like it, they'll say "at least it had some awesome animation!" because they don't know anything about it. I guess we can help by pointing out to as many people as possible that it's NOT.

*crosses wings* here's hoping.

[zalem.livejournal.com]

Well I wasn't going to see it anyway because it look really cheesy and stupid.

LotR used motion capture....of course they used animation as well for the more detailed stuff like facial expressions...

I think that's the problem with this movie. Motion capture is fine for capturing the movement of an actor and stuff, but it sucks for facial expressions. The characters in this movie look so fake and plasticky.

[lynxkittn.livejournal.com]

I had no desire to see the flick and all of my friends, in fact, most of my schoolmates (three cheers for animation school, where everything 3D is looked at critically,) loved the book but were iffy on the movie. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks it will be positively godawful.

plus, they show essentially the entire movie in the trailer. that cannot be a good sign.

[rotem.livejournal.com]

Hey, since Israel is Jewishland and it's a story about Christmas, it prolly won't makeit over here. Yay? xD;;

[mayuka13.livejournal.com]

I had no interest in seeing it anyway.

[zorichan.livejournal.com]

Well, it might have already been said, but the whole point of animation is to draw exaggerated motion and movement. Interpretting actual movement in a more dynamic way. So when someone motion caps actual movement it just doesn't come off right whether rotoscoped or motion capped. This movie scared me in the theater trailers. It was like why didn't they just do standard live action with some computer effects like Harry Potter or something. But anywhoo...

Off topic- Maybe sometime we could hang out sometime have an artjam or something since we live relatively close... I saw you at anime expo and wanted to say hi but the "people" I were with were fighting with each other on what to do next so I couldn't get away.

[lberghol.livejournal.com]

oH MY GOD! AMEN!!

This movie pisses me off so much. Motion capture pisses me off so much. My first reaction when I saw it was "Why didn't they just go Live action, what the hell is the point?" The reactions of the characters don't even read in close up for crissakes!!

What pisses me off more is I read an early review of it, from the Jim Hill Media site (which I would consider to be pretty animation biased) and the reviewer was going on and on about how cool the characters were with motion capture and how it picked up all the little details of emotions in the chacters faces. I could not believe it! If some animation fan thinks this is good acting then Lord help us when the general public sees it.

I must say seeing a preview for it before The Incredibles puts it all into perspective...we should make the rest of the world see it that way... ;)

[chunkygoat.livejournal.com]

My first thought was also - "if they're going to make the characters that realistic looking - they should have just filmed it with actors & added lots of special effects - ala Sky Captain or Harry Potter or something." It reminded me of something I saw or read about Toy Story, where at first they had made the humans MUCH more realistic looking, but in the end they PURPOSELY made them more cartoon-like, because they didn't match the style of the toys & looked forced and ackward - or something to that effect.

Go to The Incredibles instead. That one is MUCH better, I'm sure (just saw it last night - it was GREAT).

[little-teacup.livejournal.com]

You'd think people would have learned after the Final Fantasy movie: computer animation doesn't work if it's TOO real. Why not just do live action?

I haven't seen the trailer, but just by looking at some production stills in a magazine I had all sorts of bad feelings about this film.

[karine.livejournal.com]

My reaction as well; I wondered why the film was made in 3D and the trailer has the worst creep factor I've seen yet. So the trailer turned me off completely.

I feel that this should have been filmed with 3D sets (like Sky Captain) or made in 2D. This is the worst use of 3D ever...

- Karine

[patrickat.livejournal.com]

I saw the trailer this past summer and all it did was make me wonder why they didn't just do it live action. If you're going to do computer animated characters but then make them look exactly like the actors who are voicing them... what is the point?

I'm putting this on my "HELL NO!" list for Christmas... right below the William Hung album.

- Patrick

[slai.livejournal.com]

Hi Aimee and draca_serpens,

That was my first reaction as well =/. With the special effects wizardy that's available today, why did they turn it into a CGI film anyway?

I admit I'm a bit tempted to see it for the story, but the CGI people just looks so creepy O~O! I guess I could ask my parents to buy a bootleg copy next time they're in China to prevent the corporation from getting the money ;b!

[kujachan.livejournal.com]

I remember liking the book when I was a kid-- I just don't -remember- the story at all. I think Tom Hanks was a good actor in a some movies, but putting him into multiple roles is rather annoying. His voice was horrid enough to put up with in Toy Story, much less multiple roles in PE. He should stick to the live-action stuff and leave CGI roles. I most likely won't see the movie, as I'm always strapped and flat broke. I'd rather spend the money on a better scripted/sculpted movie. At least with Pixar, they don't go for exact lifelikeness, and have achieved a very good general feel.

I'm sorry you don't want to be friends...

[cathryn.livejournal.com]

Hi,
I know we've never been close friends... but way back when you were an artist AND a person I really looked up to. I've always enjoyed our passing hellos at cons and the well thought out and intelegent journal entries you post.

Honoring this journal entry in particular - I will not longer attempt to be your friend at all. Nor would I want to. I used to think a lot of you, but now I just think you're really close minded. It would be one thing if you commented that you thought this movie would suck, it's another to be really nasty about a film you haven't seen and a person
(tom hanks) you haven't met. And to say you don't want to be friends with anyone who has seen this movie is pretty insulting too.

I would have thought you, of all people, would be open minded enough to accept that there are many art forms. I for one thought "Waking Life" was a cool movie, though I wouldn't say the techniques used in it, or the more advanced variation of mixing live acting and animation used in Polar Express, would replace animators or other forms of animation.

Seeing as the original artist whose work this film is based on has commented that he's VERY happy with the results... I'm really looking forward to seeing it. If you don't want to see it that's cool, but after making comments about not basing your friendships on who people voted for... I'm surprised you'd comment about not wanting to be friends with people based on what movies they want to see.

Re: I'm sorry you don't want to be friends...

[kujachan.livejournal.com]

Opinions set apart people or bring them together. We all have discussed our own opinions that Aimee has brought up. You can still look up to her as an artist-- but as a person? Maybe not. I know a bunch of crappy people that are such awesome artists. I'm glad to see an opinion such as yours come up, as I believe with Aimee's popularity that she would most likely attract both crowds. But keep in mind that she's open to having her own opinion, you yours, and mine belongs to me. Just one opinion shouldn't make or break a friendship. It should be mutual to begin with. She, nor anyone else, can be forced into a friendship. With my friends, if there is a conflicting opinion, we go back to the things we have in common and leave conflicts out. :)

Re: I'm sorry you don't want to be friends...

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

um, are you mental? "anyone who sees this movie is not my friend" is a figure of speach, a JOKE.

I strongly dislike the methods used to create this movie, however, I'm not going to "defriend" anyone based on what movies they like! You obviously don't know me at all if you think that I would do that!

However, I will gladly take you off after this if that's what you really think about me! SHEESH!! jump to conclusions in someone else's journal.

Re: I'm sorry you don't want to be friends...

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

just for the record, I would never "defriend" someone based on their choice in movies, politics, religion, etc. I've been completely misunderstood here. I was simply joking around and making a dramatic statement. I do feel very strongly about the creation of this movie, however I wouldn't "hate" someone or not be their friend anymore if they saw the movie.

Re: I'm sorry you don't want to be friends...

[kujachan.livejournal.com]

You've got every right to rant and rave like the lot of us. ^^ We should respect the contents of your public journal and know what we're getting into when we do. Aimee, you're such a hard worker! You've done so well thus far.

[ncsujen.livejournal.com]

Not seeing that movie anyway, since everyone (the non-godlike EWmagazine included, but I still read it for the Stephen King articles) totally lambasted it. Glad to hear it sucks from someone I trust ;)

[ncsujen.livejournal.com]

From what I remember as a kid, there really WASN'T a story. Just some kid riding on a train, like having Christmas Even dreams or something.