The Uncanny Valley

At last I happened to watch movie Tintin last to last week. As it was major venture from two "biggies" of Hollywood, Steven Spielberg & Peter Jackson, I was already prejudiced with the wellness and greatness of movie. Ultimately I experienced the same feeling which is always there with Speilbergs' movies : disappointment. No.. No before you go for some misunderstood meaning, I'll clear myself. Tintin as a movie is amazingly fun and enjoyable. It's definitive Speilberg adventure and must watch. But again I was compelled to think that we as a audiences are not fit enough to appreciate it.

We Indian people as audiences had developed very careless approach of watching the movie. For people who use to see bollywood, its just process of watching and nothing else. And it works fine for most bollywood " senseless" movies and also with some summer Hollwood blockblusters. But sometimes it is required to get to know the source upon which movie is based so that it can be put to proper context and views and also movie can be appreciated in its right manner. I had experience of same when people just expected "War of the worlds" to be some kind of superhero flick or second part of Independence Day without having any knowledge of H. G. Wells and its classic sci-fi novel with same name on which movie was based. Even I had not read it then, but before going for some criticism, I found it, read it, and than again I watched movie. ( in fact after that I saw it too many times ). And believe me it was brilliant and faithful adaptation. Not the same case here with Tintin but still I heard some people buzzing with negative views. Who is going to make them understand that in movie there are so many deft touches which were incorporated with ease that you as a audience just failed to understand it and enjoy it. For example a classic opening credit which is pure homage to the Tintin comics and its creator Herge. I can write whole new blog on this but right now I dont want to go in that direction as the topic of the blog is entirely different. Though it is some how connected with Tintin movie. Tintin was filmed with very lifelike animation by Mo-cap technique and with this surfaced the well-known problem of "The Uncanny Valley".

Now if you feel like more attached, emotionally, to animation movies which are more close to comic or surrealistic representation of characters rather than absolutely real and life like animations than you are nothing but following the principle of "The Uncanny Valley".In short, if you prefer movies such as The ice age, Kungfu Panda, Up, WALL-E etc. over Beowulf, The polar express or final fantasy series, than its nothing but work of "Uncanny Valley". This principle which was first termed by robotics professor Masahiro Mori states that in terms of AI or robots or animations we are more akeen to attach ourselves as the animations moves towards reality. As animations closes its gap towards becoming real, we like it more. But only up to the point or say, peek point. Aftet that, even though animations are absolutely real, we feel revulsion towards them hindering the ability to close the gap to attach ourselves emotionally. Once this curve move away from reality, we begin to like them again. This gap is called "Uncanny Valley". 

There have been many theories proposed responsible for such kind of cognitive behavior ranging from mortality salience to evolution to sexual preferences. Anyhow I'm not going to much detail about them as you can have better idea from other internet resources. Main purpose of writing this blog is to introduce the idea of "Uncanny Valley" to those who don't know this principle so as next time when you watch animation movie which has far greater resembles to real people and still somehow you could not able to connect to them than you perfectly know the reason why.

Last note: "Uncanny Valley" or not, Tintin is far more entertaining movie than average flick. Just give it a chance and fall in love of old adventurism.