Final Fantasy; The Spirits Within - essay?

Some people say that the un-success of Final Fantasy spirits within was down to its relation towards the Uncanny Valley. The final fantasy series has always been well known for its epic storylines and amazing CG cutscenes throughout each of the games. In 2000, square decided to take it to a new level and make a film with a photorealistic characters based on the final fantasy world.
When looking at this movie we can see that the theory of the uncanny valley is most prominent when looking at the movement of the characters. If we look closely we can see that the characters also lack realism in facial movemtent, especially within the eyes and mouth movement. Probably two of the most difficult things in animation is trying to correctly syncronise a characters expressions and facial movement(lip syncing). Other examples that have suffered from this are; Polar express and Beowulf. These also have come across similar problems. Polar express for instance had some children reduced to tears as the computer animation was too creepy making it un-familiar to them.

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The two images below which I had mentioned, the first is the Polar Express with Tom Hanks and the Second which is below that is Beowulf with Ray Winstone. Take a look at how Uncanny they look. In fact I'll add an image of Angelina Jolie from the film because she looks unusual.

Polar Express

The next few images are from Beowulf. Beautiful Animation within this movie but it still suffers from the same problem as Final Fantasy.

Angelina Jolie rigged up ready for shooting the movie

Look at the image above, compared to the image below the matching of their faces is very similar but still drastically different at the same time. Pull two images of her together, one in CG and one real life then we can see the change almost immediatley.

Although very shiney, I personally think this is some of the most amazing photorealistic work I have ever seen. I could almost fancy her :).

In this last image, Beowulf himself. Also a superb piece of work to create this character. The hair and the water/sweat on his body is amazing. Still, the character still lacks something which allows us to accept them.