that's, uh, incredible.

i saw the incredibles this weekend, early on sunday morning. our company was hosting a customer showing, where they could bring their kids and see the movie for free, so i volunteered to help out.

which did mean that i was down in the south bay for the seventh day in a row, but that’s just poor planning and a little bit of madness on my part.

in any case, it’s a really great movie. really fantastic. those pixar guys really know what they’re doing.

the interesting thing for me was to notice that they were able to catch and reproduce such intricate details as holly hunter’s slight facial tic in her mouth. these are the things that movies like hmc’s polar express are advocating the use of facial motion capture to ensure that realistic portrayals are preserved, and yet pixar manages to do this just with animation, and i imagine, lots of video reference.

then again, tools like mocap are sort of like computers, right? taking the power out of the hands of the select few artists, and bringing them to the (relative) masses. commoditization. to an extent, anyway.

is this a good thing? well, if more good movies get made, then sure. and at least if people can still see that the masters are making masterful work and appreciate it, then all the better.

the most amazing feat is that they’ve made a flat-out great movie, not just a movie that’s great-for-being-animated. sure, there are parts that are just jaw-dropping, like the big fight scene. but regardless, it’s still just a great movie in itself.

Posted at November 8, 2004 10:31 PM