So who's seen the new Polar Express movie trailer online? Well, I just linked it. Yes, in that last sentence. No, the first sentence. Stay with me.
I bet you think that those CGI humans awful creepy, and I can't disagree. A CGI Tom Hanks doing a little backwards jig? That haunted my dreams before this film was even in production. But consider: remember Chris Van Allsburg(the children's book author the movie is based on) and his illustrations?
Those were creepy illustrations! I can remember all those images from The Mysteries of Harris Burdick: the nun floating in the chair, the boys on the sailboat-railcar riding off into a vanishing point, the skipping stone ("He threw with all his might, but the third stone came skipping back"!). That whole book is one delicious nightmare. Why not use creepy CGI to render creepy illustrations?
In all seriousness, I looked up a bio of Van Allsburg and discovered that he started his career as a sculptor. If you look at his illustrations, it's brilliantly evident in the way he conceives of dimension with these subtle strokes of light. Look here (yes, that was another link). If you really study the bird that's peeling out of the wallpaper, you can see how such delicate shading can give such a powerful illusion of dimension. Look how the bird's liberated wing casts a shadow on the wall! That is so cool! I never noticed that before because it's almost not even there. And yet that bird is 3D in a BIG way. It's a tribute to what subtle rendering he's capable of. These drawings are incredibly third-dimensional, when you think about it.
It's like CGI artists pay attention to all the mechanics of light and form that Allsburg pays attention to, and as a result both of them approach this really creepy limit of reality. I like how the Allsburg stories take place in these real worlds where there's always something a little bit awry, like a disturbed equilibrum, because that eeriness feeds off the illustrations. The character find themselves on the cusp between life-like and unleashed unreality. It would be so awesome if the movie did that, too.
Unfortunately, they are playing gospel music and Tom Hanks is dancing a jig. That might've been acceptable in Bosom Buddies, but not here. So the animation might be moot if the story's not all there, and from the looks of it they have the characters going off on some jaunt that wasn't in the book. I liked the book because it was quiet and compact and a little drowsy.
Still. That clip where the wolves scatter while the Polar Express passes in the background, through the woods? Direct lift from an Allsburg illustration. So cool.
I bet you think that those CGI humans awful creepy, and I can't disagree. A CGI Tom Hanks doing a little backwards jig? That haunted my dreams before this film was even in production. But consider: remember Chris Van Allsburg(the children's book author the movie is based on) and his illustrations?
Those were creepy illustrations! I can remember all those images from The Mysteries of Harris Burdick: the nun floating in the chair, the boys on the sailboat-railcar riding off into a vanishing point, the skipping stone ("He threw with all his might, but the third stone came skipping back"!). That whole book is one delicious nightmare. Why not use creepy CGI to render creepy illustrations?
In all seriousness, I looked up a bio of Van Allsburg and discovered that he started his career as a sculptor. If you look at his illustrations, it's brilliantly evident in the way he conceives of dimension with these subtle strokes of light. Look here (yes, that was another link). If you really study the bird that's peeling out of the wallpaper, you can see how such delicate shading can give such a powerful illusion of dimension. Look how the bird's liberated wing casts a shadow on the wall! That is so cool! I never noticed that before because it's almost not even there. And yet that bird is 3D in a BIG way. It's a tribute to what subtle rendering he's capable of. These drawings are incredibly third-dimensional, when you think about it.
It's like CGI artists pay attention to all the mechanics of light and form that Allsburg pays attention to, and as a result both of them approach this really creepy limit of reality. I like how the Allsburg stories take place in these real worlds where there's always something a little bit awry, like a disturbed equilibrum, because that eeriness feeds off the illustrations. The character find themselves on the cusp between life-like and unleashed unreality. It would be so awesome if the movie did that, too.
Unfortunately, they are playing gospel music and Tom Hanks is dancing a jig. That might've been acceptable in Bosom Buddies, but not here. So the animation might be moot if the story's not all there, and from the looks of it they have the characters going off on some jaunt that wasn't in the book. I liked the book because it was quiet and compact and a little drowsy.
Still. That clip where the wolves scatter while the Polar Express passes in the background, through the woods? Direct lift from an Allsburg illustration. So cool.
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