MovieChat Forums > The Polar Express (2004) Discussion > One of the worst animations ever!

One of the worst animations ever!

posted 7 years ago by MrJJay
5 replies | jump to latest

And i'm not even trolling. I hate when people come here and say 'x' is the worst movie i've seen etc. etc. because most of them are just troll but this one is literally one of the worst animations especially for such a big budget movie.

Almost everything is awful about this movie. The screenplay is so lifeless, so cliche full of meaningless moments just to serve to show the potential of the animation. Digital motion capture animation was new at that time but even that wasn't done great. The characters especially the 'hero boy' all had some kind of sinister look on their faces. Definitely wasn't done on purpose. In a few instances i've noticed the body parts of the characters got tangled. For instance; at one occasion when the hero girl laughed her gingiva and upper lip got interlaced. Not very obvious but it was there.

I'm sure many people were amazed back in 2004 as the 3D technology was new for the audiences and they hadn't seen that kind of animation before which is why some may still defend this movie. Seeing this now the animation looks dated which was the only redeemable thing about this movie in 2004, 3d is nothing exciting now and the screenplay makes everything a disaster. There is nothing about this animation movie that makes it great. Some people find the 6.6 rating too low but on the contrary the the rating is too generous for this movie. It should be no more than 6.0.

I generally love the works of Robert Zemeckis. Archetypally, Who Framed Roger Rabbit is an amazing movie and still looks great and fresh for its time but this one, i'm very disappointed.

[–] strntz 7 years ago

Too bad you can't enjoy this.

I love Polar Express and I love Christmas movies in general and I tend to binge on them the two or three weeks before Christmas. The more the merrier as far as I'm concerned.

I feel the same way you do when it comes to Elf. I wish I could enjoy it as much as so many people do.

Is very bad to steal Jobu's rum. Is very bad.

[–] jdw50 7 years ago

I agree (and I'm not a troll either). The experiment with motion-capture really didn't work at all. Sometimes the figures look rubbery, sometimes they look jerky; at no time do they look either realistic or cartoony. They just looked like the way a bad artist might draw a human. I don't know whether the all-motion-capture approach is inherently unsatisfactory or if they simply didn't do it well.

[–] Error_PC_LOAD_LETTER 7 years ago

The animation is supposed to look like the illustrations in the 1985 book (all scenes in the book's twenty-something illustrations are replicated in the movie), which were dreamy but only mediocre artwork. The animation, especially the mechanical things such as the train itself, are highly detailed. But the human figures, especially the background ones, less so. Most of the characters are ugly, and that bothers me more than the quality of the animation, which could indeed be better in most places.

The architecture, the train itself, the landscape, the snowflakes, all were awesome. Regrettably there was a lack of Christmas lights throughout the movie, and some of the children were badly animated and most were ugly to boot.

[–] strntz (10816) 5 years ago

Regrettably there was a lack of Christmas lights throughout the movie, and some of the children were badly animated and most were ugly to boot.

I'm a big fan of this story and the subsequent movie, yet must concede that your points have some validity.

The great thing about computer animation is that things can be redressed years later. I'm not one of those puristists that would demand that no movie should ever be tampered with, so I would actually like to see a 20th anniversary redo with some animation cleanup with respect to the children's faces (particularly eyes).

This certainly wouldn't need to be dramatic, and should be far easier 20 years later with the advances in computers and animation software.

[–] magnusplin 7 years ago

Watch more animated movies.