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Teaser Trailer for 'Cars'; Info on 'Polar Express' 303

Posted by michael from the drive-offensively dept.
Michael Wyszomierski writes "The teaser trailer for the final Disney/Pixar film, Cars, is now available on Apple's Movie Trailers page. The film will open in theaters on November 4, 2005." And reader BoredStiff writes "The movie Polar Express will open Wednesday and could create a film genre somewhere between animation and live action. Made almost exclusively with a method called performance capture, which drops digitized human actors into a computer-animated world. The technique has been used in some video games and, to a limited extent, in earlier movies. Warner Bros. says The Polar Express is the first feature made solely with the process."
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Teaser Trailer for 'Cars'; Info on 'Polar Express' More

Teaser Trailer for 'Cars'; Info on 'Polar Express'

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  • please don't ruin the story with fancy effects... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by garcia ( 6573 ) * on Friday November 05, 2004 @01:07PM (#10735221)
    Adapted from Chris Van Allsburg's slim but richly illustrated children's book of the same name, The Polar Express was made almost exclusively with a method called performance capture, which drops digitized human actors into a computer-animated world. The technique has been used in some video games and, to a limited extent, in earlier movies. Warner Bros. says The Polar Express is the first feature made solely with the process.

    I am appalled at how this article trivializes the wonder that the original book The Polar Express creates. I just want to say that calling the book "slim" might be true of the physical thickness of the book but the story and pictures contained within are fantastic. As a child I was riveted by this story and at one time seriously believed that this magic train could whisk me away to see the inner workings of all the Christmas fairytales you hear as a child.

    My mother has passed the tradition of reading this book down to my youngest cousin (1st grader) and they are planning on taking my cousin to see this movie soon after it comes out.

    I am really looking forward to seeing the movie myself and seeing how closely Zemeckis mimics my own mind's interpretation and expansion of the story and pictures. It *is* possible to recreate a story on the big screen from a novel and have it hold the same feeling that it did in print. I am crossing my fingers that the special effects and large budget don't take away from the real story that sits behind all the new-aged fanciness.

    I really hope it doesn't ruin a great story.

    • Yet it wasn't just such cinematic sleights that initially drew Zemeckis into the unproven world of performance capture. Instead, it was a search for verisimilitude.

      ...
      Had he made the movie in live action, Zemeckis says, he would have had to "throw out all the glorious paintings." Close readers of the book may recognize that each and every book illustration is represented in the film.

      Looks like he's using special effects for all the right reasons, at least. We'll just have to wait and see how the mov

    • My big problem with the movie, based on the trailers, is that they just adapted the graphical style of Van Allsburg to animation. While the illustrations in the book are riveting and amazingly done, I don't think they work well as animation. It looks hokey and kind of creepy. I don't know how they could have done this differently while paying the proper respect to Van Allsburg. It's the same as seeing Mickey Mouse in 3D animation... it just doesn't have the proper feel.

      • Re:please don't ruin the story with fancy effects. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by register_ax ( 695577 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @04:36PM (#10737410) Journal
        My big problem with the movie, based on the trailers, is that they just adapted the graphical style of Van Allsburg to animation.

        Not only did they try adapting the graphical style, they recreated each picture from the book exactly in various frames throughout the movie. I am sure someone extremely attached to the original book may be able to pick this up. If they don't, I suspect they will find it an extremely drawing movie without really knowing why. The director said this was done out of respect for Van Allsburg original work. So yeah, damn straight they just adapted the graphical style. That was the whole point.

    • Re:please don't ruin the story with fancy effects. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by lukewarmfusion ( 726141 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @01:47PM (#10735645) Homepage Journal
      What might ruin that great story for you, aside from special effects and profit-maximizing changes, is the nature of books themselves... your experience is unique. Translating one person's experience or interpretation of a book into a film is a dangerous act; you run the risk of alienating fans that didn't have the same experience. You also influence the experience of future readers by giving them a glimpse into your own vision of the story.

      When I read Stephen King's The Stand a few years ago, there was a foreword where he said that he wasn't sure he'd ever make a movie version of the story. He cited "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" as evidence of the damage a movie can do to a book. As fantastic as the movie is, it isn't the same (and does not hold the same kind of value) as the original text. If you see the movie and then read the book (as I did) you will never be able to get Jack Nicholson's performance out of your head as you read the character. Unfortunately for me, I also saw the movie adaptation of The Stand before reading the book.

      I felt this way about LOTR, but was happy to see that it matched up with my expectations pretty well. Plus, it depicted what I had failed to visualize - Ents. I just couldn't figure out what they would look like.
      • Yeah, one flew over the cuckoo's nest was horrible. You never got to see nurse ratchet's blouse ripped open :P (Hey give me a break, the first time I saw it I was a teenager.) Seriously though, I thought that was a fantastic movie, and I read the book before I ever saw the movie. The stand, on the other hand, botched the book much worse. The ents were brilliantly realized, too bad they changed what they actually do. Actually they made a lot of the LOTR characters assholes compared to what they were in the b
    • I am appalled at how this article trivializes the wonder that the original book The Polar Express creates. I just want to say that calling the book "slim" might be true of the physical thickness of the book but the story and pictures contained within are fantastic.

      And this is why I cringe at the idea of a Robert Z. redition of the book. The whole reason why the book was able to sustain its stunning dark beauty was the denseness of the artwork and story line. In stretching the story to ninety minutes in l

  • "Performance Capture" not ready yet (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sdo1 ( 213835 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @01:14PM (#10735292) Journal
    If the trailers are any indication, then this "performance capture" technology has a long way to go. The background animation is fantastic, but the characters look wooden, stiff, and completely lacking emotion. I find the animation style they've created to be very uninvolving and distracting (if those two things can coexist).

    Great idea. Lousy execution.

    -S
    • I think the parent poster is unaware that this is the technique they used to make Gollum come to life in LOTR.

      I, for one, certainly didn't find him wooden, stiff or lacking emotion!

      • Re:Gollum was wooden, stiff and lacking emotion? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by LocoMan ( 744414 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @03:22PM (#10736579) Homepage
        Gollum was completely different. They did use motion capture to get him, but not exclusively. Sometimes the motion capture was only tweaked minimally by the animators, other times it was thrown away and used only as a guide, other times it wasn't even captured at all (like when Gollum is climbing down near the beggining of Two Towers) and he was completely hand animated. His face wasn't captured at all either, it was completely hand animated based on Serkiss's filmed performance. In Polar Express they seem to be using straigh untweaked motion capture for the body and faces of the characters, and at least from what I've seen in the trailers the results are the same I saw on the Final Fantasy movie, characters that just seem like moving mannequins, lacking the (in Disney's words) illusion of life. I guess it's the same that Disney found out when they were making Snow White, they were using some rotoscoping (filming an actor and then trace on top of it), and found that when they stayed too close to the filmed performance, the resulting animation was boring and lifeless.

    • Re:"Performance Capture" not ready yet (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Meostro ( 788797 ) * on Friday November 05, 2004 @01:24PM (#10735398) Homepage Journal
      This is a phenomenon known as the uncanny valley, [arclight.net] and there's a good discussion about it here [slashdot.org]. It's the same thing as Finaly Fantasy: Spirits Within, where the backgrounds were fantastic, the people were "best.... humans.... ever!" and they still looked weird.
    • Which blows my mind as to WHY they chose to do it thisway.

      they could have completely created the places and situations in the book fathifully by simply doing the same tricksused in the harry potter films.

      why it was 100% animated escapes me. IT would have been better and certianly more entertaining if it was live actors with CG.

      and yes, it certianly could have been done. I saw the film last weekend, we had a special release here in the writer's home town.

    • Re:"Performance Capture" not ready yet (Score:5, Interesting)

      by nEoN nOoDlE ( 27594 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @01:35PM (#10735521)
      "performance capture" is just a euphemism for "motion capture" which has gotten a pretty bad rap among animators. Of course the animation style is wooden and lacking emotion! An animators job is to not just duplicate a motion, but capture the essence of that motion and then make it appealing. An animator, unlike an actor in a body suit, is in control and aware of every single part of the body in motion, and animation needs that control and focus in order to succeed in creating a living character in a computer or on paper.

      The studios would love to make you believe that motion capture is removing an unnecessary in-between from creating the character in the computer to making him live by capturing an exact motion, but I feel that motion capture is just a cheap imitation of animation.

      • What "Performace capture" really is. (Score:4, Informative)

        by WebCowboy ( 196209 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @03:12PM (#10736478)
        "performance capture" is just a euphemism for "motion capture" which has gotten a pretty bad rap among animators.

        The term I heard when I was involved in classical animation (not involving computers at all) was "rotoscoping". And yes, it did and still does get a bad rap from animators from the "old school" when it is misused. The rotoscoped characters stick out like a sore thumb becasue of the inconsistencies--the characters MOVE like real life but LOOK like cartoons when rotoscoped, so they always look out of place.

        Using computers to do rotoscoping in 3-D hasn't helped the situation. Computers capture real motion TOO faithfully, but are "not quite" there in generating realistic humans yet--so digital humans that look a bit "creepy" might even look creepier when rotoscoping is used.

        I think that maybe one day computers will be able to visually re-create humans convincingly enough to make rotoscoping work (so a black man could convincingly perform as a white woman without it being a gag like it was in White Chicks for example). Perhaps it worked on Jar Jar or Gollum because there was little to no facial capture (just body movements) and the characters were far drifferent from humans.

        In the mean time, it probably would've been better to use digital compositing to put human characters into the fanciful virtual world of the Polar Express. It has worked well enough in the past and at least the characters themselves would be consistent.

        Animators exagerate and slightly alter movement for dramatic effect and visual appeal, and so the "spirit" of the movement matches the visual representation of the charater (which is very seldom photo-realistic).

        Rotoscoping is a fine techniquein some cases (those being when the entire sceme is rotoscoped--background, characters and all, so the entire scene is "consistently inconsistent"). It is a bit much to ask an animator to paint a figure on movement she does not control and expect it to look better than when the visual appearance and movement of a character are under one person's control (be it actor or animator).
    • Yes, it looks very off. Whenever I watch a clip of it I am distracted by the animation style. The lip synch seems off although I am sure it's right. It's just like watching a movie at 30fps and thinking it looks worst then 24.5fps of traditional film because that's what we're used to.

      I had the same feeling watching trailers for Sky Captain, I was always distracted by the look of the film.

      It worked for gollum because it was a realistic character in a real environment. Dancing characters in a disney'ish mov
      • I had the same feeling watching trailers for Sky Captain, I was always distracted by the look of the film.

        I too was bothered a bit how Sky Captain looked in the trailers, but I can assure you that the full screen movie version looked amazing- like nothing I had ever seen before (in a good way). I totally enjoyed the look/feel of Sky Captain.

        It'll be interesting to see if this translates to DVD/video well.

    • I think the problem with the movie is that the characters look too real. When I see the trailer, I see zombies that haven't become ugly yet...not children. Final Fantasy had this aspect as well, but I it seems that it has been exaggerated significantly by making it an animation for kids (by "tooning" up the characters.)
    • Why do they call it "Performance Capture" when "Motion Capture" is the industry accepted term? Unless this is a new variation that I'm not aware of. Regardless, while motion capture can do a wonderful job recreating the realistic movements of a body, it doesnt capture many subtle things. The primary thing in mind being facial expressions. There are methods for this, but does anybody know if they used them in development of this flick? Motion Capture is great, and I dont believe is a bad excuse for good an
      • They're calling it "performance capture" for exactly one of the reasons (among others, I suppose, too) you say that simple motion capture is insufficient. In this movie, they actually are capturing facial expresions and such. I heard a feature about it on NPR last night. Tom Hanks (who apparently did the "performance" for both the conductor and the child protagonist) was talking about the suit and process he went through, including the 4 minutes spent each day having ihs face painted and prepared for the ca
      • "Why do they call it "Performance Capture" when "Motion Capture" is the industry accepted term?"

        A.) Motion Capture doesn't traditionally capture facil movement. Performance capture does.

        B.) Because of point A, hiring somebody like Tom Hanks is a huge win. It wouldn't be so exciting for motion capture.

        " The primary thing in mind being facial expressions. There are methods for this, but does anybody know if they used them in development of this flick?"

        Yes. Sadly I don't know a lot about it, but I d

  • The real question though is... (Score:3, Funny)

    by tehanu ( 682528 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @01:15PM (#10735303)

    "The movie Polar Express will open Wednesday and could create a film genre somewhere between animation and live action. Made almost exclusively with a method called performance capture, which drops digitized human actors into a computer-animated world. The technique has been used in some video games and, to a limited extent, in earlier movies. Warner Bros. says The Polar Express is the first feature made solely with the process."

    ...is it a good movie?

  • Creepy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Seanasy ( 21730 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @01:17PM (#10735317)

    I've seen the Polar Express trailer in theaters a couple times, now. Every time I see it I think one thing: Uncanny Valley [arclight.net].

    • Excellent point! They look way too real yet not nearly real enough...

    • Re:Creepy (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Rorschach1 ( 174480 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @01:34PM (#10735512) Homepage
      Ditto. I read the Slashdot articles on the subject a while back, and it's the first thing that popped into my head when I saw the trailer. I think the movie's going to have trouble because it's just so slightly OFF. The old guy on the train telling the kid to 'believe'? It just comes out creepy.

      It may not seem like a big deal, but I think it's really going to interfere with the audience forming any kind of emotional bond with the characters.

      I can't remember the last time I was so put off by a movie trailer. I don't plan to go see it. I think they really need to stick to cartoonish characters and ogres and such until the realism in facial expressions and body language catch up with the pretty graphics.

  • I saw a preview, and they RUINED Polar Express (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 05, 2004 @01:18PM (#10735326)
    In the book, Santa shoots first. Revisionist bastards!

  • Opens in theaters November 4th, 2005 (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 05, 2004 @01:19PM (#10735333)
    And on bittorrent November 5th.

  • I thought Pixar was done with Disney? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Phoenixhunter ( 588958 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @01:19PM (#10735335)
    I was under the impression that Pixar had fulfilled their contract for a set number of movies with Disney with the completion of "The Incredibles" could someone clarify?

    • Re:I thought Pixar was done with Disney? (Score:5, Informative)

      by tabacco ( 145317 ) * on Friday November 05, 2004 @01:22PM (#10735385)
      Sure. The original Toy Story was under a different deal. Then came Bug's Life, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, and now The Incredibles and Cars to finish off a 5-picture deal signed after Toy Story. Through some contractual madness, Disney discovered that they didn't have to count Toy Story 2 towards the count, since apparently some clause said that in effect sequels don't count.
      • Heh, well that would explain the trailer. Just push the last one out and finish the contract. Cars looks like total crap, I mean you can play video games that look 10x better now than what was in the trailer, and if a rusted truck saying "dag gum" over and over is what passes for humor, I think I will pass.
        • Well, bear in mind that Pixar frequently uses footage in teaser trailers that's not in the actual movie. For example, the original Monsters, Inc. teaser was created entirely for the teaser. I sort of suspect that the original teaser for The Incredibles is the same, although I'm not seeing the film until tonight.

          Cars is being directed by John Lasseter, who I have a lot of faith in. He was the director on both Toy Stories and on Bug's Life, so he definitely knows what he's doing.

          And as for "dad gum," tha
      • Actually this story seems to disprove that urban legend.

        http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,9847,00.ht ml

        It seems that Pixar resigned a contract after Monster's Inc, for 3 more pictures.

        More articles explain that talks broke down in January becuase Pixar wanted the new contract to cover the Incredibles and Cars, effectively altering the contract Pixar signed in 2001.

        I'd happily get refuted though.
      • I think part of the occurrence with TS2 was that Disney views animation sequels as direct-to-video cash cows. Unlike other animation sequels Pixar went all out on it and convinced Disney to move it to theatres, but it was still not counted as a 'feature' but as a 'sequel' for contractual purposes.

        This article [eyepiece.com] confirms that it originally was a direct-to-video project, as does this one [awn.com]. I thought Pixar had to fight harder, but I may have just read a biased story at the time. There was a story [geekroar.com] during the
    • No, Disney's powers of evil-but-easily-overlooked contract clauses were so great that Toy Story 2 didn't count because it was a sequel.

  • Hmpf. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tambo ( 310170 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @01:19PM (#10735340)
    Huh? Cars? That's really the next Pixar film?

    First, I can't think of a more mundane and generic title. Continung this trend, the next Pixar film should be called Shoes - or maybe Toothbrushes. It's a moving story about a friendship between a floss dispenser and a tube of whitening toothpaste, and it also promotes dental hygiene!

    Second - this is going to be hard - I love Pixar, and find their films to be great entertainment. But their schtick is starting to wear a little thin. We've done bugs, toys, monsters, and fish, and they've talked about doing robots. Now we're moving into consumer products. I'm curious how much longer this trend can continue, and whether or not they'll start slipping into that most humdrum of habits - the serial. Is it time for Toy Story 3 yet?

    Pixar is brimming with incredible talent. That's why it will be such a shame if the public tires of seeing it applied to rather cliche genres. This is fantasy - we need new fantasy environments. Really alternate-reality stuff that veers between comic and wondrous. In the end, that's the highest calling of uber-powerful CGI art: to allow us to envision a previously unimaginable world. I think Pixar is, oddly enough, missing the boat in that regard.

    - David Stein

    • Re:Hmpf. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by chrome ( 3506 )
      Damn. I just posted, and then read your post. I would have modded you up.

      Bang. Nail. On the head. Right there ladies and gentlemen. Wake up Pixar! This is what you need to be making! Not dumass movies about a hick car (I mean, come on, how cliched can you get) and his suave buddy the sports car.

      I want to see HHGTG but in technicolour! I want to see the alternate dimensions of string theory space! I want to see a five headed alien father who loses his wife in a horrible accident leaving him to look after h

    • Re:Hmpf. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Whatever - "Cars" is definitely not a neutral title. Americans, at least, have incredibly strong emotional connection to their (and others') autos; everyone from Isaac Asimov to Stephen King has capitalized on this to write some good fiction. One of the creepiest stories I ever read in my youth was a S. King short story simply titled "Trucks". I think that the concept was turned into a movie called "Maximum Overdrive".

      I have absolutely zero knowledge about this Pixar production, but a title like "Cars", pe
    • Well, Incredibles is out now, a Pixar film about retired super heroes. That sounds kinda fun. I haven't seen it yet, of course.

      They said they made Incredibles because they wanted to do something different. Lassetter said he didn't want to make the same movie again, like he has with the other films. They know they've just been making the same film, over and over.

      So Incredibles is supposed to be different. I think you have written Pixar off too soon.

      • Re:Incredibles (Score:2, Insightful)

        by MadMacSkillz ( 648319 )
        This is /. We write EVERYTHING off and criticize EVERYTHING!!! Star Trek? Sucks. Star Wars? Sucks. And now Pixar? Um, well, the TITLE to the movie sucks, so the movie will probably suck.

        Sheesh. I've very much enjoyed the Pixar movies so far. I give them the full benefit of the doubt. Some people here just like to WHINE.

    • Re:Hmpf. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Morgahastu ( 522162 ) <bshel ... fave bands name> on Friday November 05, 2004 @01:51PM (#10735707) Journal
      This is a teaser for a movie coming out a year from now. If you had seen a teaser for Toy Story with just a bunch of clips of toys you would of had the same rant. And again with a bug's life, finding nemo, and monster's inc.

      Pixar surprises everyone time and time again with amazingly polished and deep movies. Have they given you a reason to doubt them before? No.

      The racing part appears to have nothing to do with the movie, the only real hint of the movie is the clip with the sports car and the pick up talking. How can you judge a movie by that?

      Relax and maybe you'll enjoy another great Pixar movie.

    • Re:Hmpf. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by donnyspi ( 701349 )
      We've done bugs, toys, monsters, and fish, and they've talked about doing robots...

      The above list contains all the things the average kid likes. These cartoon movies are made for the average kid, with elements that their parents will like so they'll sit thru the movie with their child. Kids aren't bored with movie titles or topics like the above. Keep it rollin, Pixar, you're doing fine.

    • Book by its cover? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by hellfire ( 86129 )
      Your judging the movie by the title? That's kind of ridiculous. Taxi Driver isn't a very exciting title either, is it?

      By the entertainment value of the other pixar movies, I predict The Incredibles and Cars to both be enjoyable. I won't predict that Cars won't take a disney style nose dive the way their movies went after Lion King, but hey, they are fun so far, and have definitely taken children's movies to another level.

      Also, the alternate worlds shtick has never worn off. It's nothing new to the chi

    • Re:Hmpf. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Gogo Dodo ( 129808 )
      Tell the Chevron people that talking cars aren't popular [chevroncars.com].
    • Isn't the problem really that DISNEY won't do anything new? Pixar is locked into a deal with disney and can't release their own movies. I can imagine that after they get out from under the disney brand, they will begin to release some not so disneyfied movies. Love him or hate him Steve Jobs and Apple are not known for doing the same old thing (they may have stolen the ideas from Xerox, but they sure as hell weren't copying IBM) so why would you expect the same old same old from Jobs and Pixar? Give 'em
    • Blue Sky [blueskystudios.com] is the studio that's making Robots [robotsmovie.com]. Though you wouldn't know it from their own site or any of the promotional ones.
  • Just an opinion, nothing to see here.

    Zemeckis was a talented director pushing the envelope in just about every movie he did.

    I really felt ripped off and gyped with "What Lies Beneath" and "Castaway" with the marketing and even more so with the fact that he alone approved the maketing.

    What I'm referring to is the fact that the endings of both movies were given away in the trailers. Watching those movies was just a waste of time if you've already seen the trailers.

    What I can't believe is what he said abo
  • I might have an inclination to see a movie like Polar Express. Then I saw the trailer and frankly it looked like the most lifeless movie I have ever seen. It's like the CG actors are not renditions of humans, but of hyper-active mannequins in some sort of mall recreation of the book.

    No thanks, I'll pass.

    Anyone else feel that way?
    • I have to agree on this.

      seeing the trailer it looks like this movie was made on the same hardware to render the original Toy Story, but without the same rendering staff so it looks worse.

      Maybe my expectations are much higher now since square pictures is doing such a great job with their renderings, but frankly The Polar Express characters look emotionless and puppetlike where Advent Children's characters look almost photorealistic and sometimes hard to believe their rendered.

    • Sort of (Score:3, Interesting)

      by HarveyBirdman ( 627248 )
      I had a similar reaction. It looked cool from the poster and some quick snippets early on when you couldn't tell what it was about. My mind leaped ahead and imagined an alternate Earth story about some mad genius/millionaire bent on running a rail line over the North Pole. The kid's an orphan hired to shovel coal. Maybe they disturb some under-ice civilization of Lovecraftian monsters. Work the Tunguska event into it somewhere.

      Then I saw it was a fucking kid's movie about Santa fucking Claus with fucking

  • I have to say that the trailer to polar express has some of the creepiest looking animation I have ever seen.
    Please, if you are thinking about seeing this with your kids, make sure they see the trailer and ask them if they want to see it first. I know I would have been scared as hell seeing that when I was a kid.

    • Re:creepy creepy creepy (Score:3, Informative)

      by tsobo ( 828580 )

      I have to say that the trailer to polar express has some of the creepiest looking animation I have ever seen. Please, if you are thinking about seeing this with your kids, make sure they see the trailer and ask them if they want to see it first. I know I would have been scared as hell seeing that when I was a kid.

      I just saw a Sneak Preview of the actual film, and there were tons of kids in the theater. I didn't hear any of the kids get creeped out. Actually, for as many kids were there, I heard very l

  • I know the folks in Jesusland will be drooling over the NASCAR and Pickup Truck stuff, but I hope they throw some real race cars (F1, Rally) and Hybrid road cars in there so satiate the NW, NE and the rest of the World.
    • Haha... I don't see that happening.

      If it has "stock car racing" in it, then it most surely has no real racing in it.

      It just simply wouldn't work. Unless the story has something to do with a stock car having a self esteem problem, because it's not an f1 car. "Why does that car get to rev to 18k rpms?!?!"

      Also I'll be depressed if the stock cars have different personalities, because they are all built to be the EXACT SAME.

      Let's just thank God that F1 turned down Stallone when he wanted to make "drive

  • Where's Disney in all this? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wandazulu ( 265281 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @01:22PM (#10735378)
    I know that the Disney-Pixar deal lasts through the Incredibles (also Cars?) but unless there's some 11th hour deal to bring Pixar and Disney back together, one has to wonder what Disney is doing. Pixar is beating them to the punch with good characters and stories, and Polar Express looks pretty cool from a technology point of view (I can't comment on the story as I never read the book).

    My guess is that Disney is either in deep denial, and will let Pixar slip away and then truly be SOL, they'll resolve their differences (at which point Disney is happy that they don't have to put out their own stuff to counter-act Pixar, which would probably put some unfinished and poorly thought out stuff (think Treasure Planet), or they're really honestly working on something very cool that will come out of left field a la Toy Story, and everyone will say that "Disney has found the magic again", and "Who needs Pixar when you've got Disney's ... "

    Disney had a pretty long dry period until they hit it with Little Mermaid. Seeing how they were progressing (albiet slowly) from the ballroom scene in B&tB to the rather cool herd technology of Lion King (years before RotK), I'm actually pretty shocked that they've been unable to link good technology to a good story, being content to let Pixar do both jobs for them. My guess is that the Pixar-Disney deal never mentioned sharing source code, so Disney presumably will have to figure it all out for themselves.

    OTOH, maybe they're abandoning animation altogether so they can put out more "Old Yellar" movies. In a few years, they may not have much choice.
    • I used to work for Disney, and actually they are striking out into the CGI field on their own, after the recent falling-out with Pixar. They have done some of this in the past (Dinosaur), but look for "Chicken Little" coming out in something like Q2 of 2005. Also, Disney's normal animation department is still going, and I keep hearing rumors that the next big animated film will be a Princess movie again... though I can't think of any princess with a good story they haven't done already yet...
      • though I can't think of any princess with a good story they haven't done already yet...
        Favorite US Historical Figures: ... Abe Lincoln...

        Sorry, man. I saw your sig after that comment and putting it together with Disney's notable rewriting of any historical tale, just got this really creepy image of Abe Lincoln as a princess in the next Disney movie. Yeah. It's high concept. Poor little pioneer girl, grows up to be a lawyer, puts on a fake beard and becomes President... We're talking mega-box office bo

    • Re:Where's Disney in all this? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by cubicledrone ( 681598 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @01:44PM (#10735611)
      one has to wonder what Disney is doing.

      Simple. Layoffs. Firings. Sequels. Crap. Raising prices. Destroying their 80-years-of-excellence animation division. 24 hours a day of garbage on television. Allowing Disneyland to turn into a toilet. Unsuccessfully trying to compete with anime, losing HUGE, like eight touchdowns huge, then frantically pouring mountains of cash into licensing deals so they can keep their name in theaters, then fucking up every anime product they have or just sitting on billion-dollar licenses for years and years and years and years for no reason.

      In other words, the basic middle management results: clusterfuck

      Then they started making movies about theme park rides and complaining that they can't make money with Monday Night Football. During this time they were paying about 197 lawyers to avoid paying royalties to Marvel and the Winnie the Pooh licensors. Now how much money do you suppose Disney has made on Winnie the Pooh? Billions? Tens of Billions?

      maybe they're abandoning animation altogether so they can put out more "Old Yellar" movies.

      They're abandoning animation altogether so they can save money. Big corporations are not interested in products. They are interested in brands.
    • Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if Disney makes a play at getting Steve Jobs as the next president of the company.

  • Polar Express in 3D (Score:3, Informative)

    by Hieronymus Howard ( 215725 ) * on Friday November 05, 2004 @01:22PM (#10735386)
    Polar Express has also been created as a 3D IMAX Movie. Now I expect that will be worth seeing. I just wish that Pixar had done that with the Incredibles.
    • It could be done - it's actually very easy to turn 2D CGI into 3D Imax - it's just actual film that's impossible. It's been done before - the Simpsons' Halloween segment shot in CGI by PDI was re-rendered in 3D IMAX resolution. It's just a matter of rendering a slightly different camera views for the stereoscopic effect. Whether they'll bother on the other hand...

  • Motion-capture Animation? (Score:5, Funny)

    by da3dAlus ( 20553 ) <dustin.grauNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Friday November 05, 2004 @01:23PM (#10735388) Homepage Journal
    The Polar Express was made almost exclusively with a method called performance capture, which drops digitized human actors into a computer-animated world.

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    Homer: Yahoo!
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    Homer: Huh? What is this crap?
    Quoter: Fox Broadcasting: Down eight.

  • Good Story (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cubicledrone ( 681598 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @01:26PM (#10735422)
    Really all that is necessary is a good story. $150 million worth of special effects WILL NOT guarantee a success, as much as Hollywood wants entertainment to be a widget factory and as much as all other entertainment (except publishing) wants to be Hollywood.

    Movies and television shows often fail miserably because stories are "written" by formula. Tired setting + predictable characters + smartass pop-culture insults = crap and it will always be crap.

    Yet, just like the game industry, when something does succeed (Pixar) everybody comes running, checkbooks in hand and starts throwing money all over the place (Disney) in an attempt to duplicate the financial success without taking the time to understand the reason for the success. People like a good story. It doesn't matter if its a book, a comic book, a television show or a movie. Only the story matters.

    And note, for all their money, and all their former excellence, Disney is so busy trying to avoid paying royalties to Marvel and the Winnie the Pooh licensors (and firing their animators) that they are completely unable to compete in the animation industry. Oh sure, their name is on "The Incredibles," but buying a ticket to a concert doesn't make someone an orchestra conductor.
  • I watched the trailers for both Cars and Polar Express and the animated characters in both movies seemed stiff and unattractive. As a fan of Anime and Miyazaki in particular, I think the Hollywood studios could stand to learn a lesson or two from the masters of Japanese animation. Just think how rich the colors and characters seem in Sen (Spirited Away) or Princess Mononoke. Compared to these masterpieces, Cars and Polar Express are just cartoons.

  • Trailers look dumb (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Gothmolly ( 148874 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @01:28PM (#10735443)
    You have a cartoon that basically looks just like Tom Hanks, sounding like Tom Hanks, but isn't Tom Hanks... so why not just draw him totally synthetically, rather than attempting some live-action morph effect?

    • Re:Trailers look dumb (Score:2, Insightful)

      by kkrista ( 814366 )
      The reason that they took this approach is so the movie mimics the artistic style of the children's book it was based off of. If you compare the book and the movie, the scenary, characters, etc. you'll see that the movie's art is faithful to the book. By using motion capture and computer generated graphics they've combined realistic movements with the look and feel that's familiar to kids who've read the book. For this particular adaptation, it should work well.

  • Motion capture? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by iantri ( 687643 ) <iantri&gmx,net> on Friday November 05, 2004 @01:28PM (#10735445) Homepage
    Made almost exclusively with a method called performance capture, which drops digitized human actors into a computer-animated world. The technique has been used in some video games and, to a limited extent, in earlier movies.
    Eh? Is this different from motion capture? (I.e. when they stick little tracking dots all over someone and have them act.. this process was used to generate Gollum)

    I was under the impression that motion capture was very widely used to create realistic 3d characters..

    • Re:Motion capture? (Score:3, Informative)

      by fizban ( 58094 )
      The difference is that with performance capture, you also capture facial expressions. Most motion capture only takes into account large body movements of the torso, arms and legs. Performance capture tries to get more of the actual actor's acting into the capture as well, with all it's subtle nuances.

      Unfortunately, the current technique doesn't capture eye movements, so you end up getting great facial movements but lifeless eyes, making the characters look like the walking dead, which is why this movie wil

  • Polar Express (Score:5, Informative)

    by david.given ( 6740 ) <dg@cowlark.com> on Friday November 05, 2004 @01:30PM (#10735478) Homepage Journal
    I saw a trailer for Polar Express. It looks crap.

    Look, this has been rediscovered again and again, every time someone's tried to do photorealistic CGI. It's hard. Producing humans that look and move correctly is really, really difficult, and unless it's spot on it just looks really dreadful.

    Polar Express probably does it as well as I've ever seen it done; the result is that it;s just good enough to make it blindingly obvious how bad it is. There are figures on the screen that look at first glance like humans, but my hindbrain just screams when it sees them. They don't move right. Their expressions don't work right. They look creepy.

    Pixar and Dreamworks got this right; the state of the art is just not up to this. Notice that all their characters are cartoonish? By deliberately not trying to make their characters realistic, they managed to avoid the entire problem, because my hindbrain doesn't expect them to look like real people. But Warner Bros. for Polar Express have jumped in with both feet...

    • Re:Polar Express (Score:3, Interesting)

      by HarveyBirdman ( 627248 )
      Sky Captain had the correct idea, even if the execution wasn't perfect (I can forgive it for being a pioneer).

      Real human actors. CGI everything else.

      Oddly, an effective example of this is Drew Carrey's Green Screen Show. They do some improv skits, and then animate around it in post production. It works much better than I expected it to, and is a good example of the above rule. They actually animate clothing onto the people.

  • Animators hate this (Score:3, Interesting)

    by adam31 ( 817930 ) <adam31.gmail@com> on Friday November 05, 2004 @01:31PM (#10735486)
    The technique has been used in some video games

    Yeah, but I know a lot of video games that won't touch the shit with a 40ft pole. Animators hate the thought of being reduced to the equivalent of highway-side trash collectors, trying to pretty the mocap solely by removing the trash.

    Plus it prevents them from adding their own stylistic personality to characters. Look at Naughty Dog's games -- there's no way you could get that kind of genuine expression, both facially and with body language, from a perf-cap.

    Of course, I have no idea how good the tech has gotten lately, I guess we'll see. Still there's just no way to replace a talented animator. All you can hope for is a more efficient way to generate gobs of average-looking content.

    • Animators hate the thought of being reduced to the equivalent of highway-side trash collectors, trying to pretty the mocap solely by removing the trash.

      Therefore, management thinks it is the "next big thing" and will soon announce massive layoffs so they can invest billions in the technology. Now let's all sing the company song.
  • I just showed the trailer to my 18 month old. Anyone know how to loop it :-)

  • There are many firsts for Polar Express (Score:5, Informative)

    by NeedleSurfer ( 768029 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @01:40PM (#10735567)
    I was the soundman/video engineer on an GSTA (giant screen theatre of america) event about 1-2 month ago where they were presenting, to giant screen theatre owners from around the world, various work in devellopement and work in progress. Several flick caught my attention (the 70mm IMAX version of Ghost In The Shell: Innocence being one! :) ) and Polar Express was part of those.

    Polar Express is not only the first to be entirely made with digitized actors it is also the first feature lenght IMAX animation movie, the first feature lenght movie in IMAX 3D and the first movie funded by Tom Hanks himself. Tom Hanks was described as an avid Imax 3D supporter, he wants to push the technology and was actually the one who suggested Polar Express as a project, he was deeply involved in the process. The result does not look like a tech showdown at all, it looks like an incredibly good animation that plays with and use the 3D technology to enhance messages, emotion and aprehensions, not to showcase it. Nowhere in the extract they showed to the crowd did I had the impression they were just showing tech, actually as soon as the extract started I kinda forgot I was watching 3D, it just felt natural.

    I'm really looking forward to the full release.

  • Marionettes (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Morgahastu ( 522162 ) <bshel ... fave bands name> on Friday November 05, 2004 @01:56PM (#10735774) Journal
    The animation in The Polar Express looks similar to that of the movement of the puppets in Team America.

    The motion capture wasn't detailed enough to catch most of the facial expressions that are created by a human face.

    The way the actors are moving it seems they are over acting everything as if they were cartoons except the animation tries to go a completely different directions. What's left are ridiculous and stiff motions with out of synch speech.

    It's really creepy.
  • Here [vitalstream.com] (big file). Seen on Dark Horizons [darkhorizons.com] today.
  • WARNER BROS MOVIE

    This is a WARNER BROS MOVIE WARNER WARNER BROS MOVIE. See? We've even got snow on the logo! Warner Brothers! Remember that!

    30 seconds of LOOK HOW IMPORTANT HOLLYWOOD IS!!

    End of the trailer, for less than 0.5 seconds, the name of the author. Yeah! Way to reward the people with the ideas!

  • "Final Fantasy", the movie, did this (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @02:21PM (#10736022) Homepage
    "Final Fantasy", the 2001 movie, did this, although they used more hand animation than motion capture. It was a beautifully rendered movie with a stupid plot, from a studio that came out of nowhere and disintegrated after the movie.

    From an industry perspective, the problem with "Polar Express" is that it only took 30 days of principal photography, all of it in the studio, yet it still cost $150 million. "Sky Captain" was supposed to be low-budget, but wasn't. What's needed is technology that can produce similar movies for $20 million.

  • Cold, dead eyes (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jdbo ( 35629 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @02:27PM (#10736084)
    Well-performed eye motion is so central to good animation, but everything I've seen from the trailers makes the children look like sharks stuffed into the bodies of their child victims; I honestly find it that chilling.

    Tom Hanks's characters seem to be treated a bit better, probably because the animators/sculptors had more & better source material to work with; still, better is relative to "awful" in this case.

    This is very disappointing; Chris Van Allsburg's work is very sculptural in nature (and uses a distanced style and VERY careful framinh to invoke a sense of the wonder, and sometimes of the sublime), but from the trailers it appears that the translation to a full-motion format failed his style terribly.

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