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Uncanny Valley: When computer-animated grimaces haunt your nightmares
by Luca Fontana
Pokémon: Detective Pikachu: Which Pokémon is fluffy? Which one isn't?
27.2.2019
Translation: machine translated
Co-author: Luca Fontana
The second trailer for "Pokémon: Detective Pikachu" raises questions. How long is a Pikachu's fur? Doesn't a Pummeluff have to be bald? And who the hell put a hell monkey in the trailer?
In summer, the yellow Pokémon Pikachu will be making a name for himself on the big screen as a master detective. The voice of the lightning rat is spoken by actor Ryan Reynolds, giving him a slightly disreputable touch, not least because his Pikachu is obviously addicted to caffeine. He could quit at any time, of course, he just doesn't want to. The second trailer for the film has taught us that.
A discussion breaks out over morning coffee in the Digitec editorial team. Editor Luca Fontana and I are not sure how Pokémon should look photorealistic. We recognise the first 150 monsters that live in the fictional region of Kanto from the red and blue GameBoy editions. Back then, it looked like this.
Now like this:
What the fuck?
Pikachu: How long is its fur?
"Pikachu has fur like a European shorthair cat," says Luca. I only agree with this to a certain extent, because of all the Pokémon in the film, Pikachu's look is the one I like best.
Only the red cheeks, from which Pikachu likes to shoot lightning bolts, worry me. They're just too round to justify the length of the fur. However, the white belly looks good on the Pokémon with the origin number 25.
Kappalores: Who cares?
"This critter completely passes me by," I say, because I studiously ignore all Pokémon that come from eras in which a chair was used as a model for Pokémon.
Luca, on the other hand, has an opinion: "Perhaps Donald Trump's favourite Pokémon with its Mexican sombrero. Kappalores fulfils all the clichés". I can live with that, the creature should stay hidden behind a wall.
Glurak: Fits, but strange
We don't really know how to imagine Glurak in real life. But now that we've seen the dragon with the flaming tail, we can all agree: this is roughly what Glurak looks like.
"Maybe a little more leathery," Luca adds, with lots of "Um..." between the words of the sentence, "but as a dragon-lizard-thing, it makes perfect sense that he has scales."
Relaxo: Either hairless or mossy
Relaxo would either have to be completely hairless or have moss in its fur, because the Pokémon only sleeps. Some sloths on planet Earth have moss in their fur because they don't move enough to allow vegetation to grow.
"It looks cosy and sleepy. I like its design," says Luca.
Machomei: Fits
Machomei looks exactly like a bodybuilder with four arms should look. The fighting monster - one of the figureheads of the "Fighting" type in the first generation - is modelled on real-life bodybuilders. Just in blue-grey.
Not much else to say here.
Snubbull: We're waiting for the skirt
This is exactly what a Snubbull should look like. Like a fluffy puppy with a permanently bad mood. Because Snubbull is so loosely based on a French bulldog: ugly and fierce, but somehow still cute.
But Snubbull has fur that resembles a skirt. Until we see that, we won't allow ourselves to make a final judgement.
Bisasam: Perfect
Bisasam is a frog carrying a plant bud on its back. And that's exactly what Bisasam looks like in the trailer. The green stuff on its back has texture, Bisasam's skin less so
.
Nice detail on the side: Even the red eyes have been adopted.
Schlurp: baby skin or wrinkles?
Schlurp has always been a strange Pokémon that generally defies comparison. What possessed the designers? According to me, the design sprain in the film is complete, because somehow Schlurp almost falls into the Uncanny Valley. Someone has skinned a 50-year-old human and put the skin on an animal. Creepy. Maybe some fuzz would help.
But Luca notices something: "This is more or less how I imagined Glurak to look. Slightly leathery and with little to no fur". The black eyes look scary, but otherwise he is quite happy with the film design.
But Schlurp definitely looks better in the game. Because in pixel form, the question of whether he has baby skin or wrinkles doesn't arise.
Pummeluff: That doesn't work at all
This thing is a balloon, not a fluffy ball. The Pokédex, the official encyclopaedia of all Pokémon, even says that Pummeluff is filled with air. Sure, there's a quiff of hair, but that's it for hair on Pummeluff's body. Horrible. That really doesn't work at all. Designers, you have to go over it again. Nobody can stand that on the big screen.
One more question: Where does Pummeluff stow the microphone? And how does a microphone that becomes a pen work? Does the creature have a body opening somewhere where the microphone pen can be stowed? Why are we thinking about this?
Unknown strange monkey Pokémon: We don't know it
We do not know. Mangy beast. Moving on
Quajutsu: Is that... is that his tongue?
Design-wise, a direct hit. The movements fully match the design, and the fact that Quajutsu swings through the trees like a ninja from the Shaw Brothers films gives him additional style.
Only question: Why does the tongue have to serve as a scarf? It's completely pointless in evolutionary terms and kind of disgusting.
Mewtwo: Creepily perfect
Mewtwo must look like he's a genetic experiment gone bad. Because that's exactly what he is, according to the first animated film. He has to look evil, threatening, half-finished and pissed off. And that's exactly what the filmmakers achieve in the 62-frame trailer.
Hopefully Mewtwo has a bigger role in the film, because then the nostalgia bomb would have succeeded.
Pantimos: Kill it with Fire!
Oh god. I'm sure every second of the pantimo's life is agony and it should therefore be released from said agony. The proportions are biologically irresponsible, the head is that of a completely different animal on a body that puppeteer Gepetto has thrown into the skip due to qualitative deficiencies and the Pokémon's gaze indicates an acute risk of suicide.
No.
Admittedly, Pantimos looks exactly the same in the game and in the animated film. There, too, it's better to get behind the mop of hair quickly with the Häslitöter.
So that's it. Luca leaves the meeting room and looks for a GameBoy. He has to play the games again. In preparation for the film, of course. Because a real Pokémon trainer is never unprepared. <p
Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.
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