Not a bar, but plays one on TV

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

10:29 AM

@trogdor Is that you by any chance? ^_^

(Probably not.)

trogdor

1:36 PM

twas not

I don't post in a lot of places and certainly not reddit, or I think that's reddit?

wherever it is I probably am not there

SPArcheon

1:58 PM

and obvious result.

don't worry, @trogdor, I don't expect you to use this avatar :P

AncientSwordRage

@SPArcheon this is a triumph

SPArcheon

@AncientSwordRage to be fair, it is so perfect that it seems almost done on purpose

it is like the old pre-rework Sonic model in the Sonic movie.

Still suspect that was a revenge from some angry worker...

AncientSwordRage

they're both uncanny

SPArcheon

2:21 PM

what? the sonic models?

AncientSwordRage

2:36 PM

@SPArcheon it's uncanny how the sonic model was made and then very neatly cleared up and improved on

SPArcheon

@AncientSwordRage the model was made by the same company that handles the various Project Diva games. So a company that is fully capable of doing good 3d character models that are used in a dance game, with lot of facial expressions and movement.

AncientSwordRage

@SPArcheon yah but then it makes too much sense not have gone with the fixed model first...?

SPArcheon

that is why I think the first bad model was done on purpose as a self sabotage by some overworked employee

I mean....

EVERYTHING in that model matches the Sanic meme

AncientSwordRage

@SPArcheon yeah, that transition is what I think is uncanny looks up definition of canny .... I mean canny?

I mean, it too much of co-incidence not to have been deliberate

SPArcheon

To be fair, it is not like the new model saves the movie either... ^_^'

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

3:01 PM

I still think the outrage against original model seemed . . . a tempest in a teapot? Manufactured outrage? People seeing someone quote the fancy-sounding phrase 'uncanny valley' and parroting it despite not even having an objective criterion for something being 'uncanny valley'?

The difference between old and new model seems overhyped and not as big as the reactions to it.

Andras Deak

@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica I disagree, the original was really really creepy to me, and the new one is not

SPArcheon

@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica that is just because the new one isn't good either, just less bad.

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

3:16 PM

@SPArcheon If anything, the second one looks it might've had less detail quality than the old one.

SPArcheon

And that is not a problem since I don't really want Sonic to look like Jigglypuff in the Detective Electromouse movie.....

Andras Deak

3:28 PM

@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica are you still arguing the same thing? Because detail and uncanniness are distinct things in my opinion

(and they had to re-animate the whole thing so it's unsurprising if it ends up being less finely rendered)

the original was "awful taste but great execution" (the name of a subreddit, as it happens :P)

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

@AndrasDeak Well, that was in reply to the statement that the new one isn't good and is less bad.

Andras Deak

I see

SPArcheon

@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica by that I mean that the new one still isn't exactly loyal to the original character design.

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

3:51 PM

@SPArcheon Oh, definitely . . . and inevitably, what with the medium change. Even with medium retention models often are not exactly faithful to the original (e.g. how Agent 47 changed).

@AndrasDeak These kinds of discussions remind me of this scene from Interstate 60 where the connoisseurs say, while staring at a good work of art, that it has no soul (replacing 'no soul' with pretty much just as ephemeral 'uncanny' criticism).

SPArcheon

@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica that is kinda different I fear.

This...

is kinda different from this...

which is also very different from this.

but I guess that in this case the audience is different and they kinda expect differences in styles, story, and so on.

The problem with Sonic is that you have a community that was already kinda feed up with the "real world" thing (coff coff coff Sonic 06 kiss...) and in a market that had already quite a lot horrible "dropped in real world" movies (Smurfs.....)

So, the fans probably were already on the aggressive side.

The trailer looked quite bad on the plot too (see: Sonic and the anesthetic dart, the "meow" scene where he pretends to be a cat, the "it is my baby" scene with the elevator....)

So, having a Sonic that didn't look at all like the game was the final straw that everyone jumped at.

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

4:11 PM

@SPArcheon Ah, that makes sense.

SPArcheon

The issue is that while people probably accept that Raven looks different in the various not-always related media... videogame characters are often defined by a specif appearance and changing that... is a big no most of the time.

If someone made a Metroid movie... and made Samus red haired, people would rage. A green Megaman would cause rage too (see: Captain N)

That probably comes from different expectation.

With a comic character getting another comic, you enjoy seeing something new and even expect it.

When a game character gets a movie, you want to see the games you played made into a movie, not something different.

Andras Deak

5:09 PM

@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica if you believe that connoisseurs thinking that a piece of work "has no soul" is the same as some possibly-evolutionarily-ingrained aversion to not-quite-human entities, then sure

I'm obviously biased as someone who can tell what came out of the uncanny valley and can't tell what piece of art has a soul (or even worth or quality)

SPArcheon

5:32 PM

@AndrasDeak @vicky_molokh ... let me try to be a pacifier here... To be fair, I think that the term "uncanny" that Andras used wasn't mean as for its "dictionary" meaning. The reference was probably to the "Uncanny valley" trope

Uncanny valley

In aesthetics, the uncanny valley is a hypothesized relation between an object's degree of resemblance to a human being and the emotional response to the object. The concept suggests that humanoid objects that imperfectly resemble actual human beings provoke uncanny or strangely familiar feelings of eeriness and revulsion in observers. "Valley" denotes a dip in the human observer's affinity for the replica, a relation that otherwise increases with the replica's human likeness. Examples can be found in robotics, 3D computer animations and lifelike dolls. With the increasing prevalence of virtual...

Andras Deak

yes, I assumed vicky is aware of the concept (and I explicitly mentioned the valley in my last message)

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

@SPArcheon Oh, I understand it's what the reference is too. But both of the aforementioned statements seem to be, at best, results of glitches in neurology where people attribute some intrinsic difference in æsthetic quality to a thing in a situation where, objectively speaking, the artistic merit is comparable.

SPArcheon

@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica possible, but that probably isn't the intent there. @AndrasDeak probably just meat that the picture ended up felling disturbing for him.

Andras Deak

Well, yeah, I can only say for sure that the original creeped me out. People's mileage will vary. But when enough people seem to have consistent experiences concerning some concept (something something qualia) it might make sense to speak in more general terms. Like, colours (which many people perceive differently or not at all), or the uncanny valley (which I assume many people perceive differently or not at all).

Perhaps what I find different between the two cases (valley vs artistic criticism) is that uncanniness is not an aesthetic category here, to me. It's a more physical response to the thing. Low-key "run away" vibes.

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

Yeah, colours seem like a perfect comparison, because what people think a colour is . . . is often very different from what it objectively is. The human perception is buggy, and so there are cases where people label two colours as the same when they're very distinct, or the reverse. (The most obvious example would probably be non-spectral 'colours' that are often confused with certain spectral colours.)

Andras Deak

5:43 PM

so we can probably agree to disagree

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

Yeah, that we can.

SPArcheon

As a little side note, I would add that even the wikipedia page I linked mentions... the Sonic movie as an example.

That said, Andras finds even poor Carrot uncanny so...

in Sugarcube Corner, Jun 29 at 17:02, by SPArcheon