Uncanny Valley/Live-Action TV: Difference between revisions

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** From "The Beast Below", the Smilers with their fixed expressions and rotating heads.
** A couple of [[Doctor Who Expanded Universe]] novel have this apply to the Doctor, who is, after all, a [[Human Alien]]. One instance is after he's [[Fainting|fainted]] at a sideshow:
{{quote| In Hugo’s arms, the Doctor hung bonelessly limp, as if he might suddenly flow to the floor in a puddle. Anji had never seen a human body sag like that; no human being had that sort of muscular-skeletal frame. For a frightened instant, she felt more kinship with the man with no limbs than she did with the Doctor.}}
*** And one even has a character feel something of the sort applies to the Doctor's human companions, who are fairly ordinary-looking 20th-century Earthlings, as said character is a member of a much more homogeneous future human society:
{{quote| Their variegated pigmentation, certain small inconsistencies about their facial and bodily forms, evoked a terror in me in some quite other part than if they had been merely monsters. We do not look at a Vlopatuaran land-going octopus or a Wilikranian aerial predatiger and feel quite that fear, I fancy; it takes a man like us in most but not quite, deformed in ways we simply cannot expect, to in this particular manner fright us out our lives.}}
** The [[Memetic Mutation|infamous]] [http://i39.tinypic.com/egqniv.jpg Terrifying Pertwee].
** In the novel 'Nuclear Time', Rory feels this way about a [[It Makes Sense in Context|severed plastic robot arm the Doctor tosses to him]].
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** The abundance of nudity mods for popular PC video games seems to indicate that people aren't so creeped out by that as they should be.
** And of course, this explanation in a way even Tracy Jordan can understand:
{{quote| '''Tracy:''' Tell it to me in ''[[Star Wars]]''.<br />
'''Frank:''' All right. We like R2D2 and C3PO.<br />
'''Tracy:''' They’re nice.<br />
'''Frank:''' And up here, we have a real person like Han Solo.<br />
'''Tracy:''' He acts like he doesn’t care, but he does!<br />
'''Frank:''' But down here we have a CGI Storm Trooper or [[Tom Hanks]] in ''[[The Polar Express]]''.<br />
'''Tracy:''' I’m scared! Get me out of there. }}
* The miniseries adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's ''The Lost World'' (the one starring Bob Hoskins) subtly uses this one to make the Australopithacines distinctly creepy.
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* Mr. Data, the android in ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'', sometimes slips a little ways down the right side of the Valley -- though, as he's played by a person, he never gets very far down. Though the grimace-lockjaw-rictus-smile he had during the dancing scene in "Data's Day" greased the slope quite effectively. This trope was cited in all but name when it was revealed to Data that he was designed to ''not'' perfectly mimic humans as it tended to creep people out.
** Switching him off also had this effect, though for the opposite reason (the character we were expected to believe was a machine looked disturbingly human when he was deactivated and effectively, dead.)
{{quote| "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v{{=}}rA22rOx8mgo Pinocchio is broken. Its strings have been cut.]"}}
*** Of course, since Data spent so much time ''out'' of the Valley, the scene makes the audience [[The Woobie|sympathise with him]] and make Riker look like a [[Jerkass]]. Turns out he felt like one too.
** Which may be a big reason why the Amargosa scene in ''Generations'' willied out a lot of people. Especially when his emotion chip overloaded and he couldn't stop laughing.