The Uncanny Valley represents the feeling of awkwardness and discomfort that human viewers get when they look at progressively realistic virtual humans. One can see concepts related to the Uncanny Valley at work in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (Sakaguchi & Sakakibara, 2001). This is because Final Fantasy demonstrates an attempt at photorealism. Photorealism is an attempt to reproduce indexicality by way of non-photographic means. This attempt to simulate the indexical in digital media often falls short, where viewers get that sense of the Uncanny Valley, as photoreal virtual humans are distracting. This type of hyperreal animation is an attempt to emulate the idea of eventually replacing live action cinema. Some viewers may be astonished by how real these characters look, even Aki Ross cannot believe she is real as in the opening sequence Aki Ross wakes from her dream and touches her face like she cannot even believe she is real. It is a like a dream becoming reality in cinema, actors and locations are almost disposable now. However, I argue that Final Fantasy is like one long video game introduction. Final Fantasy attempt’s to create realistic simulations of humans merely turn out to be boring, eerie and awkward to watch. It is necessary to investigate how the idea of the Uncanny Valley applies to a viewer’s experience of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. This can be achieved by applying the four Uncanny Valley hypotheses to the film.
The first hypothesis deals with “considering the role of presence”. When viewing digital characters there is always an argument over how it is human versus how it is not human. By attempting to replicate a photoreal human Final Fantasy invites viewers to be consciously aware that these characters are not real. As a viewer I was constantly judging how the characters looked in the film and how they could and could not be compared to real people. I found what the characters lacked took me out of engaging and enjoying the film, but also I found the use of distinctive and well-known actors for character voices took me completely out of the film. Such as, Alec Baldwin for Gray, Ving Rhames for Ryan and Donald Sutherland for Dr. Sid. Alec Baldwin being in the body of a Ben Affleck look-alike drives the improbability of the characters further. All three actors have specific star personas and how they look plays into that persona, which I can not disregard while watching. Taking their voices and putting them in new virtual human bodies was jarring. This is not like animated films like Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995), where Tom Hanks is the voice of a toy cowboy. These types of films combine live action and animation to create a film viewers can accept. I cannot accept this replication of live action cinema in Final Fantasy as it is still a realm of filmmaking with problems that need to be worked out.
The second hypothesis, “mismatch of cue realism”, means as technology allows for these seemingly realistic characters to be created, what often happens is their behaviour and movements fall short and are viewed as non realistic. While watching Final Fantasy I found myself staring at characters faces and was uncomfortable with their movements. For example, character’s words do not really match up with their mouths and when they speak it is awkward and takes away from any photoreal aspect they offer. Also, it seems a great deal of attention was paid to the way the characters look and less to the way they move. Movements seemed robotic, mechanical and stiff, while Aki’s hair moved effortlessly in the wind and Dr. Sid’s age spots were highlighted. These increasingly photoreal characters come with high expectations and when these expectations are not met or when something is “off” about these characters, viewers meet with the Uncanny Valley.
The third hypothesis, “cultural habitation”, deals with the concept that humans have become comfortable with film representations of humans. Humans no longer feel uncomfortable to look at a flat projection of themselves. This is no longer uncanny and the same may happen with digital avatars. I disagree that digital avatars will become accepted as flat projections of humans have. This is because filmed photographs still offer us the real while digital characters have no indexical connection to reality, it is a simulation of a human, and it should not be confused or accepted as a real human. While watching Final Fantasy I found the digital characters had a very limited range of expression, when characters were upset or happy it was difficult to read and seemed awkward, like the characters were trying to move their faces but could not quite do it. These digital characters may offer us realistic representations, but I think it will take more than getting used to to accept these avatars.
Finally and to be brief, the last hypothesis of the Uncanny Valley is “the contribution of the eyes”. Eyes are the signifier and recognition of life because they give perceptual shape to life forms. The characters’ eyes in Final Fantasy fail to communicate presence, as their eyes look dead. The characters seem to be missing the life that exudes from eyes, such as emotion and meaning and end up with these blank expressions on their faces. Digital characters are missing real life experience.
In conclusion, the Uncanny Valley hypotheses represent the problems inherent with attempting to create photoreal environments. In the case of Final Fantasy, viewers do not accept these simulations of humans because what separates them from humans is what they do not have. They have jarring movements, blank expressions and eyes, and their words do not match up with their mouths. It is awkward to watch and gives viewers an eerie feeling. Aki Ross looks lifelike, but is not living. Watching Final Fantasy is an invitation to scrutinize these characters, I do not find them uncomfortably real, I find them creepy looking and inhuman, yes a superior attempt to replicate humans, but only end up looking like unrealistic artificial virtual humans. For myself the entire notion of replacing real actors with digital actors makes me uncomfortable. The idea that spectators would rather watch a computer-based virtual human fall in love and fight battles is bizarre. If I want to have a digital character enter worlds human actors cannot I will play a videogame. These digital character driven films have a lot to build on if they want digital stars to be accepted in filmmaking and to viewers.
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