I don't know if you have seen the new cats trailer I'll post the link here: https://youtu.be/gq50F-IDXDc
But after seeing this trailer the CG used to generate the look for these cats is very creepy and kind of disgusting. I'm pretty into furry things so find kinda odd that this is off putting. I don't know why it creeps me out but it just does, does anyone else have similar opinion or am I just the odd one out.

No, your not the only one. The movie has some good actors in it, I don't know how they got Ian in there.

There's something wrong with it. Something uncanny. It's more cats who look like people rather than people looking like cats. Even furries don't want it. People considering it to be just as, if not, worse than the Sonic movie.

What you are experiencing from these characters is called an uncanny valley. It just looks weird no material how you see it.

Uncanny valley -"used in reference to the phenomenon whereby a computer-generated figure or humanoid robot bearing a near-identical resemblance to a human being arouses a sense of unease or revulsion in the person viewing it."

There was an edit on Twitter that I just can't remember where it was for the death of me. Anyways the simple edited image adjusted the nose, mouth, and added some fluff to the characters and it looked waaaay better.

The people who dressed up and performed on stage in Broadway look way better than that CG cat filter. Actress Taylor Swift defends it too saying that it's not motion capture or CGI. Swift, pls.

[Rant]
I know that she's just saying that to keep up with the Hollywood appearance making herself look more appealing to be hired by other movie directors. Plus an actors bread and butter comes from movie profits. There's that and there's people sueing for defamation of whatever these days. She's under contract. While I can see that she is doing it for money, I can appreciate it more if she were honest about it. I'm not saying she's a bad actress, but this is an example of Hollywood pulling the strings on its cast members and making a bad movie look good by having its actors try to sway public opinion.
[End of Rant]

Anyways,

Honestly, with the right direction in how the characters look and a good script, a movie could look good. They honestly shoulda just went with good looking Anthro characters or maybe characters that look like... well, like cats?

The music may not be bad, camera shots look ok, the backgrounds are inconsistent, the faces kill it for me

-Panned by critics-

-I missed the UPS truck-

-My cat face palmed-

I want a refund

Its a mistake. Oh boy its a mistake.

When you watch it on stage your brain onows its people in suits. With this hot cgi garbage you have strange cat homonculi with massive crotch bulges and nothing there and faces that would make even a mother cry.

Its uncanny as hell and super uncomfortable.

Also it breaks the rules set forth by the original author by having them speak. Theres a reason why the broadway is only songs.

No amount of "star power" can save this mess.

vex714 said:
The people who dressed up and performed on stage in Broadway look way better than that CG cat filter.

This. Really weird choice to do the same exact thing with CGI that the musical did with theatrical costumes, given how much less limiting CGI is as a medium.

The musical, for comparison, in case there are people on this site who've never seen it lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbpP3Sxp-1U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9Kxx_o9sAs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUS22lxRxjM

https://i.redd.it/54zgcnc8ylb31.png

I still am waiting for rule 34 of it. I have a morbid curiosity.

I don't understand how this keeps happening. I'm sure plenty of people in the productions themselves notice how nightmarish these are - so why did they still go forward anyway?

Clawdragons said:
I don't understand how this keeps happening. I'm sure plenty of people in the productions themselves notice how nightmarish these are - so why did they still go forward anyway?

Money makes the world go round?

I'm intimidated by it, that's for sure. It looks like The Cat in the Hat, except worse. At least that movie kept it to a minimum...

Hot garbage. They just plastered a CGI fur pattern and cat ears on a person, and it looks horrendous. Clearly they weren't focusing on the quality, they just need the money, although I'm not sure if they will make a lot.

Chaser said:
I am sickened, but curious.

I'm sure that'll come around very quickly. If anything it'll probably look better than the actual movie.

I hear the movie was supposed to originally be an animated movie from Spielberg

Image 1
Image 2

Siral_Exan said:
Money makes the world go round?

I'm intimidated by it, that's for sure. It looks like The Cat in the Hat, except worse. At least that movie kept it to a minimum...

But... at that point wouldn't you try to hide the pure crystallized nightmare abominations you made? It seems to me that if you knew you were unleashing catastrophic hell upon the planet, you wouldn't put it front-and-center in the advertising.

Clawdragons said:
But... at that point wouldn't you try to hide the pure crystallized nightmare abominations you made? It seems to me that if you knew you were unleashing catastrophic hell upon the planet, you wouldn't put it front-and-center in the advertising.

Well, ignorance is bliss. But they could also be trying to tap that CGI film well before it dries up, how many other films have been made recently that incorporates (good) CGI, and were relative successes?

Oh, such potential missed. Clearly, for the actors, the CG modelers were trying to capture the look of the Broadway musical, only punched up with "cool" computer graphics. Not really all that bad of an idea, but this isn't Broadway.

As noted above, the looks of the movie characters isn't up to the same standard as the Broadway ones. The CG team clearly needed a makeup artist and a costumer, not as consultants, but as full-fledged members of the team (although I suppose there aren't that many of either trained in CG). The idea of taking the human actors and enhancing them with CG is a natural, but the results look like poorly made costumes with awkwardly moving ears and tails. Some research into how cats move their extremities would have been a good idea. After all, how many opportunities come up for watching cat videos on YouTube and call it part of work? :p

Further, this isn't Broadway with its inherent physical limitations. They're free to give the characters actual cat-like faces instead of primate faces jammed onto fuzzy, I-guess-they're-cat-like heads. If a convincing Gollum and Benjamin Button can be visualized in CG or a Japanese studio can make a virtually realistic CG actress (their main problem was they couldn't get the eyes' expressiveness quite right), then it shouldn't be hard to at least replace the human faces with more feline ones (here's where the makeup artist and research would be useful). They're already tacking on working cat ears after all.

Perhaps the next try at a movie Cats will better refine the concept.

(As an aside, the musical was inspired by T.S. Elioit's book of poems Old Possums' Book of Practical Cats with the addition of several unpublished poems. Of the poems in the book, only the last, "Cat Morgan", isn't in the musical. A companion book, Old Toffer's Book of Consequential Dogs, was published just this year and is based on a concept by Eliot.)

vex714 said:
I'm sure that'll come around very quickly. If anything it'll probably look better than the actual movie.

I hear the movie was supposed to originally be an animated movie from Spielberg

Image 1
Image 2

Christ that makes me sad

I think it's fine. I really don't see why everyone has decided to fuss so much over it.

CCoyote said:
I think it's fine. I really don't see why everyone has decided to fuss so much over it.

The thing about it is that this is a really poor choice in character design.

If you compare the CG stuff with the Broadway performance faces/makeup, the Broadway performance faces are far superior. That's just my opinion.

There is a right way and a wrong way to do CG. This is the wrong direction tbh.

There is subtle things they could have done to the features to make them look less like cats that look like people and more like people who look like cats.

Here is that simple Twitter edit that I finally found. Which is better?

Stellar Twitter post

Honestly shoulda been 2D animated

Image 1

Image 2

vex714 said:
That's just my opinion.

Vex, I think this is really an important point that a lot of people forget. I can't believe how many of the opinions I've read (both above and even in many of the professional reviews I've read) are presented as fact.

So many of the comments I've read are filled with senseless hyperbole. People who have never animated anything are talking as if they know more than professional artists and animators, even in this thread. The headlines are absurd: "Cats Released its Trailer, and the Internet is Freaking Out."

In the end, I think what people don't like is the style of the design choice. And that's fine: we're all welcome to our own opinions of what we like and don't like. But for me, seeing all this energy invested in trying to prove why a style choice is objectively bad? It's kind of exhausting.

CCoyote said:
The headlines are absurd

Yeah pretty much. The mass media tends to over exagerrate a lot. Blowing it out of proportion, it's what the media does for viewership and to spark interest. What my AJ teacher told me one time, "if it bleeds, it leads". I keep in mind that there's a lot of yellow journalism these days.

I still don't feel like it would be how I would have imagined a Cats movie would be.

I feel that way because of the existence of source material like the original plays and even the sketches I placed above. It's something that's already ingrained in my mind. Like, that is how I would expect it to look. When directors differ from source or original material, it just looks uncanny. People tend to look at it in a way that's basically:

[LOOK AT HOW THEY MASSACRED MY BOY]

It's a different approach I'll give the director credit for that. I'd be lying if I said I like the design [lets just say I won't go to a theater to see it, even on tightwad Tuesday]. Not jumping the hate wagon either. Just pointing out nit picky things that could have been done that would appeal to the audience, both old and new. The gripe, character design.

Think about this. Backlash from the public is what got the director of the Sonic movie to do a redesign. Sonic as a series was some peoples childhood, and when something they grew up with looks uncanny to long time fans, it just strikes a bad chord. Making fans of any series cringe is a bad thing to do.

People want Hollywood directors to do their characters justice or don't mess with them at all. Leave it the way it was, it was fine before. Don't mess with the precognitive image of a character. Sometimes directors can get away with this if it looks all around fine. Take for instance my favorite game Persona 5, and Persona Q2. The designs were different but it was acceptable to a lot of fans. Directors make gambles like that and sometimes they come out alright. Not exactly the case with Cats 2019.

I mean LOOK at what Uwe Boll did to my Far Cry. That was atrocious! I was simply disappointed. This is Uwe these days lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgAitlF_ynk

This is why directors should have at least had a sample audience before doing the whole movie. Test the waters, see how the audience feels and reacts to it. The damage is basically done.

Summary: some folks may actually enjoy it. But the majority can't get over the uncanniness and how it differs from previous Cats material.

I'm done with television and movies, so no. It's kind of alright yet kind of silly at the same time. But, like they say "we had ours so let them have theirs". Besides, that's all it's going to be from 2020-2029 anyway. Remakes, unnecessary adaptations and trilogies. Now if they start going after Sweeny Todd and Les Miserables then that's when the torches should be lit. Because these are your more "premium" plays to most.

It's good for the lulz and there will be porn of it including deep fakes.

One day we will have real furries.

Lance_Armstrong said:
It's good for the lulz and there will be porn of it including deep fakes.

One day we will have real furries.

Can't argue with that. Just watched the trailer and the 1998 trailer. no comparison to the old stuff, there's a charm to the old stuff. Maybe that's just my bias towards the older stuff.

Lance_Armstrong said:

One day we will have real furries.

I just hope that bio-sculpting/plastic surgery/crispr will be able to do a better job than this -.-

Nice bodies, horrifying faces.

Honestly, a traditional animation with semi-feral character designs would have worked so much better...

Lance_Armstrong said:
It's good for the lulz and there will be porn of it including deep fakes.

The fan-art will likely be better than the actual movie.

Lance_Armstrong said:
One day we will have real furries.

One of these days Lance, one of these days

They tried to match it with how it looks on broadway but the end result just looks uncanny imo. I'm sure the acting and story will be good but it's hard to look past the unsettling visuals. I think 2D animation or even real makeup and costumes would've made it look a little better

TheHuskyK9 said:
I think 2D animation or even real makeup and costumes would've made it look a little better

I wholeheartedly agree. They tried, but they should try again.

The actors are good, but there is just still something off putting about the faces to people.

The director should take another look at this and consider what could be done.

Will he cave in under pressure and do a redesign?

Is everything set in stone with the design and he refuses to cave to public opinion?

Who knows?

I can say one thing for sure. Money is usually what makes a directors world go 'round in America.

vex714 said:
I'm sure that'll come around very quickly. If anything it'll probably look better than the actual movie.

I hear the movie was supposed to originally be an animated movie from Spielberg

Image 1
Image 2

Wait, how long has this been in Licencing Hell?
Hollywood gave up on 2D long ago. There hasn't been a big 2D Hollywood film since Lilo & Stitch or Brother Bear (2002 and 2003).

Even Properties™️ that are traditionally 2d get pushed as 3d/photorealism now. (eg. Tintin, Peanuts, Spongebob, Dr. Seuss, Disney Remakes)
Winnie the Pooh seems like the only major Property that gets a pass, but they're quite low-grossing and I'm sure they only continue at all as someone's passion project.

MagnusEffect said:
Wait, how long has this been in Licencing Hell?
Hollywood gave up on 2D long ago. There hasn't been a big 2D Hollywood film since Lilo & Stitch or Brother Bear (2002 and 2003).

Even Properties™️ that are traditionally 2d get pushed as 3d/photorealism now. (eg. Tintin, Peanuts, Spongebob, Dr. Seuss, Disney Remakes)
Winnie the Pooh seems like the only major Property that gets a pass, but they're quite low-grossing and I'm sure they only continue at all as someone's passion project.

It was when Amblimation closed in 97' that the 2d Cats movie was shutdown (22 years ago). It was to be directed by Simon Wells (Balto) and Phil Nibelink (Black Cauldron).

Lately, there hasn't been anything really big that I've noticed as a 2-D hit in theaters. The only feature film that I see on the wiki that is 2D for the entire year of 2019 for the US was Reign of the Supermen

It's kinda funny, Simon Wells actually got a movie coming up called Save The Cat!(TBA)

The music and the actors are good and promising, the CGI is like "I expected an animated feature film of this, not this uncanny valley."

Amlthedoge said:
I don't know if you have seen the new cats trailer I'll post the link here: https://youtu.be/gq50F-IDXDc
But after seeing this trailer the CG used to generate the look for these cats is very creepy and kind of disgusting. I'm pretty into furry things so find kinda odd that this is off putting. I don't know why it creeps me out but it just does, does anyone else have similar opinion or am I just the odd one out.

people keep harping on the CGI but personally I see no issue in it, it is the design of the characters itself that is the problem, they should have ether done full on cat_humanoids(kemonomimi) or anthros but they did nether. rather they settled for a bad hybrid of both...

vex714 said:
I still don't feel like it would be how I would have imagined a Cats movie would be.

I feel that way because of the existence of source material like the original plays and even the sketches I placed above. It's something that's already ingrained in my mind. Like, that is how I would expect it to look. When directors differ from source or original material, it just looks uncanny...

Just pointing out nit picky things that could have been done that would appeal to the audience, both old and new. The gripe, character design...

People want Hollywood directors to do their characters justice or don't mess with them at all. Leave it the way it was, it was fine before.

Sorry it's taken me so long to reply, Vex! I guess when I look at the original, stage material from Broadway and compare them to stills from the trailer, the biggest difference I see is just in the amount of fur around their faces. The movie removed that, and I agree that it does look strange. I would advocate putting that fluff back in and framing the faces, and I think that would fix a lot of the problem.

I guess I'm just put off by how much so many people are overstating their cases. Uncanny? Yes. Weird? Yes. Unsettling? A little. Horrifying? Terrifying? People losing their shit? Nightmare fuel? Come on, folks, cut the hysteria.

Lastly, I think their renditions of Jason Derulo as Rum Tum Tugger, Idris Elba as Macavity, Jennifer Hudson as Grizabella, and Ian McKellen as Gus the Theater Cat were all pretty good. And in each of those cases, they maintained the extra fur.

CCoyote said:
I guess when I look at the original, stage material from Broadway and compare them to stills from the trailer, the biggest difference I see is just in the amount of fur around their faces. The movie removed that, and I agree that it does look strange. I would advocate putting that fluff back in and framing the faces, and I think that would fix a lot of the problem.

My question is why do they have to retain the human faces at all? The Broadway production needs visible faces because it's difficult to make a physical mask emote, but in this glorious 21st century of Hollywood you can show whatever you want. 2010s Hollywood could do so much with 3D CGI, instead we get Smaug being downgraded to wyvern status so Benedict can crawl around in a mocap suit, a pokerfaced Lion King remake with all the dynamic animation stripped, Sanic, and this.

MagnusEffect said:
My question is why do they have to retain the human faces at all?

That's a reasonable question, reasonably presented. I think it's a style choice really, and it's in keeping with the Broadway original. Not everyone is furry like us, right? 🙂

CCoyote said:
Sorry it's taken me so long to reply, Vex! I guess when I look at the original, stage material from Broadway and compare them to stills from the trailer, the biggest difference I see is just in the amount of fur around their faces. The movie removed that, and I agree that it does look strange. I would advocate putting that fluff back in and framing the faces, and I think that would fix a lot of the problem.

I guess I'm just put off by how much so many people are overstating their cases. Uncanny? Yes. Weird? Yes. Unsettling? A little. Horrifying? Terrifying? People losing their shit? Nightmare fuel? Come on, folks, cut the hysteria.

Lastly, I think their renditions of Jason Derulo as Rum Tum Tugger, Idris Elba as Macavity, Jennifer Hudson as Grizabella, and Ian McKellen as Gus the Theater Cat were all pretty good. And in each of those cases, they maintained the extra fur.

No prob, it probably gets annoying hearing the same complaint over and over again. I mean, it's not terrifying, it's just really not what I would or others folks would expect.

The actors? Yeah, a pretty good cast. People complaining about Francesca Hayward. Gimme a break. She's fine.

I do agree that there should be more fluff and that the faces ought to be more feline like. Kinda like the musicals. It can make a difference.

The net hype over how bad the faces looked has pretty much died. Not many news sources talk about it these days.

I hadn't even seen the cats musical till today, but I gotta say the cgi in the new movie is disturbing.

vex714 said:
No prob, it probably gets annoying hearing the same complaint over and over again. I mean, it's not terrifying, it's just really not what I would or others folks would expect.

The actors? Yeah, a pretty good cast. People complaining about Francesca Hayward. Gimme a break. She's fine.

I do agree that there should be more fluff and that the faces ought to be more feline like. Kinda like the musicals. It can make a difference.

The net hype over how bad the faces looked has pretty much died. Not many news sources talk about it these days.

It's frustrating how in these forums, people just yell the same arguments back and forth over and over again. You can tell most people aren't reading to understand another perspective most of the time. They just want to overrule the other side. I appreciate that our exchange isn't one of those.

I definitely agree with you about the cast and the need for that face-framing fluff. I don't really see any other major differences from the stage other than that, and it does turn the transition from cat-head to human-face quite awkward.

Re: the hype... *laughs* Another day, another outrage. Have to check the news every morning just to see what we're supposed to be mad about. Don't want to miss anything. ;)