Astro Boy

I love that this kid has purple angular hair in a movie where all the architecture is Art Deco Streamline.



Does this dog have two sets of ears? Somehow, this does not freak me out as much as I would expect it to.


There is a little bit of the rustic look in this movie and there is some texture. More texture than "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" and less texture than "9".



The coloring in this movie is similar to "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" though the color scheme seems more exact in this movie where as "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" used the entire rainbow. However, both movies feature soft colors with soft facial features and lots of light.

Astro Boy seems to have a very Pinochio type aspect to him in that he is a "real boy" but does not have a real body.


It seems that robots in the movies are big in the past couple of years; "Astro Boy", "9" and "Iron Man" all are lighting up the big screen. All these movies have a common theme which is that technology has its strengths and weaknesses; its positive aspects and its damaging ones. What's thought provoking is that all of these movies have successfully communicated this message with different aesthetics and set in different time periods/worlds.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meat Balls

The first thing I notice about this movie is that the color scheme is bright and the textures are soft. It is not vintage looking at all which is very different than most movies sci-fi/fantasy movies coming out right now.

Lots of light too. This is again contrasting to most of the chiaroscuro type lighting in the vintage movies.


Cute, round, soft fur, hair, colors and skin tones.


Notice all of the materials appear to be new and not old and beat up like in "9".


The interesting thing about this, is that the book "cloudy with a chance of meatballs" has very iconic illustrations. http://www.thingamababy.com/baby/2009/03/chanceofmeatballs.html , http://ny-image3.etsy.com/il_430xN.52494531.jpg , https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhagB2a4X8cFnYdjDxAZTH9l572LU00zGhdtwfzavOWJcZOwOyVcmPb7yIz_oLF20tZETCbA3cAmMgKEQl68S-2jXX5GDPjDH_l-1csO9jWdxE0kei8-9L8VXrnJ_ji6XaA7wY_BqGP3q9M/s400/hamburgers.jpg. They are pen ink drawings with lots of texture and light coloring. The look of this movie is very different from the book. I think the producers were right to avoid the vintage look with this particular movie for a few reasons 1) it is much more fun bright, 2) the vintage look copied from a book is already being done with "where the wild things are" at the moment. I wonder however, if the plain jane rainbow look with resonate with viewers and if they would have been more emotionally invested if the movie looked more like the book.

Images from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0844471/mediaindex?page=1

9

Whatever these guys are, they appear to be small in size. That is why the texture is so strong. It's a close up view of things they are made out of, thus making the texture more visible than it might normally be.

The textures are realistic and there is a large variety of materials shown in every shot. In this image we see several different kinds of metal, wood, textiles, paper. Notice his fingers are calligraphy pen tips and he has been drawing. Very clever.


More reused materials are shown in this screen shot. Namely zippers, ropes and buttons.


Everything appears to be very old, rusty and dirty. It's not hard to figure out that this movie is set in the future and most likely has some sort of commentary on environmental issues (as that is the case with many fantasy movies these days). What I find more interesting is the "realness" of the materials and their environment. This is a really interesting video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKTAJBQSm10 which talks about why we like things that have human attributes and why we don't like cg animation that looks almost like a real human because it gives us the creeps. Seeing a animated cg face can be really creepy because it lacks a genuine quality.

I wonder how much this concept of the Valley relates to how we view "real" cg animated materials. More specifically, how we feel about a texture looking perfectly real on a creature which we know does not exist. This was also the case with the creatures on "Where the wild things are" because they were composed of costumes with cg animated faces. The creatures in 9 are entirely cg animated but have the same concept of creatures with detailed textures. I think rather than creeping me out (like the realist looking cg human face), these creatures really stir me up emotionally. They evoke a positive reaction because I so love to pretend fantasy creatures exist and this is just one step closer to making them seem more real.

Images from http://www.imdb.com/media/rm840861696/tt0472033