Robert Zemeckis’s A Christmas Carol opens today to a chorus of negative reviews and a rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes. A particularly harsh assessment comes from Joe Morgenstern in The Wall Street Journal:

To put it bluntly, if Scroogely, Disney’s 3-D animated version of “A Christmas Carol” is a calamity. The pace is predominantly glacial—that alone would be enough to cook the goose of this premature holiday turkey—and the tone is joyless, despite an extended passage of bizarre laughter, several dazzling flights of digital fancy, a succession of striking images and Jim Carrey’s voicing of Scrooge plus half a dozen other roles. “Why so coldhearted?” Scrooge’s nephew, Fred, asks the old skinflint. The same question could be asked of Robert Zemeckis, who adapted and directed the film, and of the company that financed it. Why was simple pleasure frozen out of the production? Why does the beloved story feel embalmed by technology? And why are its characters as insubstantial as the snowflakes that seem to be falling on the audience?

And that’s just the first paragraph of his review. I watched this short clip from the film, and it is sufficiently inept enough to prevent me from wanting to see any more. What did it for me is the scene at about 1:15 in which a ghost floats rapidly towards Scrooge and knocks him backwards. Scrooge then does a backroll and pops up off the floor in a way that is so comically devoid of the laws of physics and inappropriate to the physical movement of a realistic human that all dramatic impact is instantly drained from the scene. This film may technically qualify as animation, but good animation it isn’t.

Zemeckis’s desecration of this holiday classic comes at a reported cost of $180 million, and box office projections range between $35 to $45 million this weekend.

According to today’s trades, Dan Aykroyd has been cast as the voice of Yogi Bear in Warner Bros. new CGI hybrid flick, Yogi Bear, and Justin Timberlake could be vocalizing his longtime companion, Boo-Boo. Eric Brevig, a veteran visual effects supervisor, will be directing the film.

Anna Faris (late of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) will appear in the film, playing a nature documentarian who meets up with Yogi in Jellystone Park. The film is scheduled for release next year, in December 2010.

An article in National Geographic discusses the results of an “uncanny valley” test on monkeys. Researchers showed monkeys three versions of a monkey on a monitor—one video of a real monkey; one stylized CG model; and one realistic “uncanny valley” animated face. Guess what happened? The research suggests that “given the choice, monkeys prefer to look anywhere other than at a realistic fake monkey.”

The monkeys looked more often, and longer, at the real deal and the unrealistic fake, study co-author Asif Ghazanfar said. “This is anecdotal, but they seemed to even avert their gaze from the realistic fake face, like they didn’t want to look at it,” said Ghazanfar, a Princeton psychology professor.

The article goes on to say:

The discovery may be important, for a couple of reasons. First, Ghazanfar said, it provides evidence supporting the theory that the uncanny valley is not a result of cultural preferences—it’s hardwired into our heads.

(Thanks, Arthur Metcalf)

Here’s a few new 3D CGI films coming from Europe… is it me, or do these pictures have a slight resemblance to previous works from Emeryville?

Occhio Kochoi from Paris based TeamtTO is a feature film about birds migrating to Africa — the lead character looks a like he migrated from For The Birds or Partly Cloudy:

Finding Nemo with a turtle? That seems like the premise of Around the World In 50 Years (aka Turtle Vision) from Ben Stassen (Fly Me to The Moon) and Belgium based nWave Pictures. This is a 14-minute large format film scheduled for release to Imax theatres later this year.

A clip of the animation begins, below, at :34 mark and ends at 1:21 mark.

10 comments  permalink  posted in 3D, CGI

Luxo Jr. gets the chair

October 19, 2009 5:15 pm

(Thanks, Eric Graf)

18 comments  permalink  posted in CGI

Roberto, Live from Planet Earth

October 16, 2009 2:00 am

The Paris-Tokyo-Shanghai AOKI studio created this mix of 3D character animation and live action as a pilot for a new kids series. The lead character is a bit obnoxious, but I found myself unable to look away.

8 comments  permalink  posted in CGI

Pasta For War

September 22, 2009 10:00 am

Pasta for War is a “1930s war propaganda film made to seduce naive rigatoni to join the fight against being eaten”. Dirtected by Zach Schläppi.

(Thanks, Dan Fiebiger)

9 comments  permalink  posted in CGI, Shorts

Leaked Pixar Trailer

September 15, 2009 10:08 pm

This one’s worth a few guffaws…

(Thanks, Roque)

36 comments  permalink  posted in CGI, Ideas/Commentary

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