I haven’t liked what I’ve seen so far on THE POLAR EXPRESS, but I’m willing to give Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks the benefit of the doubt - for now. However, the hype machine is getting on my nerves. Like this quote from director Zemeckis:

“I think when you see the movie, you’ll realize it’s absolutely nothing like an animated movie,” Zemeckis said. “You’ll see such subtlety in the performance of these characters that you would have to have the genius-of-all-genius animators. In my opinion, there’s no animation in the world that could have created it.”

Is he kidding?It’s motion capture - the CG equivilent of the rotoscope. This quote is not unlike the B.S. hype that surrounded Bakshi’s LORD OF THE RINGS in ‘79. Wait’ll Zemeckis sees THE INCREDIBLES. And Hanks (aka Woody) should know better.You can read the article that goes with the quote here.