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POPSBeowulf - Digital Actors are Not Actors
"(...)it's got a big ol' epic scope all right, with lots of vistas and gorgeous design and some great huge set-pieces including one hell of a fight with a dragon (I mean that; it's a legitimately great battle scene, perfectly staged and edited). But it also has absolutely horrifying characters, and not just the ones that are supposed to be: time and again, we've seen that mo-cap isn't really up for the rigours of facial expression, but the characters in Beowulf, looking as they do exactly like CG versions of some very familiar actors, represent a new depth in the Uncanny Valley. Anthony Hopkins and Robin Wright Penn are particularly unpleasant to look at, almost photo-realistic in still frames but when they move, their flesh is revealed to be plasticine and eerily smooth, like watching Barbie dolls come alive without human souls." Really like epics and love the Beowulf poem, but really didnt like the film... The images and the actors are too artificial.
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POPSRobert Wright on his interview with Dan Dennett I confess to having a problem with this. There is no reason to suppose that there is a 'higher' purpose just because something heads in a particular direction. It is fair to say that if something has a purpose it will head in one direction, as otherwise it probably isn't well designed. But if something is not designed, it can still have directionality. To ascribe the idea of design purely on the basis of directionality is the same as ascribing the quality of being a football to things just because they are more or less round. Heads up, people.
by indolin 
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