We saw The Incredibles this afternoon. What a fun movie! The thing that stood out to me was that even though I knew I was watching an animated film, I completely forgot I was watching an animated film. But it wasn’t because it was so realistic!

For me, this movie represents a real “coming of age” for this genre. It’s as though the filmmakers have realized that trying to make things as realistic and/or human as possible is not always the way to go — especially when it comes to the human characters. No matter how good these animators/programmers are, there will always be something that gives away the fact that we are watching computer-generated characters. And that is distracting to the viewer. It disrupts the suspension of disbelief that is at the essence of appreciating this genre.

With The Incredibles, it seems like they’ve really embraced this concept. They’ve moved away from “realistic as possible in all ways” and moved toward using the freedom of animation to augment the personality of each character. However, much of the background and inanimate objects in this film look better and more realistic than ever, so they clearly aren’t giving up this pursuit. I think they’ve just learned where best to apply it.

The end result is a near-seemless suspension of disbelief because from the get-go you know human realism is not what they are striving for, yet much of the “other stuff” in the movie is as realistic as it might look in a big-budget special-effects flick. Ultimately, it’s about the characters and the story, and you are never yanked out of that world as you watch The Incredibles.

This entry was posted by Steve on Saturday, November 20th, 2004 at 10:35 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.