Work in Progress
This short film starts with two guys creating a huge grotesque machine monkey. One guy is kinda full of himself and is talking about how he creates things, I think. The other says that they should wait for her. We do not know who her is, but I get the feeling that they should wait for her too. Despite the second guy’s protestations they started the monkey up. We see a little girl walking through a wonderful fantasyland surrounded by wondrous creatures, animals that were mixtures of other animals. The girl enters the laboratory where the two men were working on the machine. This scares me, because the monkey is out of control. I did not realize that the girl was her, the one they should have waited for. The girl went up to the monkey and blew on it, bringing it to life. She takes the now living monkey out to live with the other created animals.
This story is heart rendering. While the animation is a little bit uncanny, the story was good. I do kinda see what they were talking about with the uncanny valley. Someone mentioned Polar Express as an example of uncanny valley, and I may have to agree with them. I did not like Polar Express when I watched it. And while I tried to pin down a reason I could not. The story was a little slow and childish but I expected that and it should not have bothered me. I think that the real reason that I did not like it was because the animation bothered me. Even now when I picture it gat a little weirded out. I am not entirely certain but I think that the animation may have killed that movie for me. If I were working on or directing Polar Express I would rethink the animation used in it.