Did Rise of the Apes conquered the uncanny valley?

[TremblingBluStar]

What I'm arguing against is the assumption that CGI can or should completely replace using live actors at all.

Oh, I most certainly think it should not! I don't want to see a movie that completely eliminates the human element. I'm just saying that once CGI gets to the point where you can cheaply and easily replace a real human actor, Hollywood will. It goes against the mindset of business in American, especially Hollywood, to not save money by any means necessary.

It probably won't be many years until this is possible, but given how quickly CGI overtook traditional special effects and how many movies of all genres use it, I feel it is only a matter of time.

 

[Christopher]

Unless we'd somehow reached the point of accurately synthesizing a vocal performance.

But consider what that really means. There are so many factors that go into that -- not just the timbre of the voice, but the rhythms, the pronunciations, the body language that accompanies it. I still question whether it's realistic to define that purely as a technical matter. Maybe you could do it if you had a "voice designer" artist who had a keen ear for individual speech mannerisms (like I do, which is why few impersonations really seem dead-on to me) and could work with the computer program to shape the simulated vocal performance. But they'd have to be really good to get it right. Like I've been saying, it's missing the point to think of the machines as doing all the work. They would still need to be operated by human artists and craftspeople, and the success and quality of the creation would be more a function of the skill with which the technology was wielded than of the sophistication of the technology alone.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Yeah, when you put so much energy into trying to duplicate someone, you have to wonder, is it truly worth it? At a certain point, all of what was cheap becomes more expensive to maintain, especially if you're going for the best of everything in the business.

 

[Kegg]

the success and quality of the creation would be more a function of the skill with which the technology was wielded than of the sophistication of the technology alone.

No argument there.

I just think being able to basically simulate historical figures in film is a pretty neat idea and it's something I'd like to see done at some point.

 

[Christopher]

^True. I'm just saying it needs to be understood as a creative challenge for talented artists, not just something you can program a machine to do automatically.

 

[Reverend]

^Unless computers get to the point where they can mimic human brains and then you're into A.I. behavioural modelling which, when combined with perfectly realistic graphics, things get increasingly terrifying.

I mean never mind recreated historical figures, what happens when you can credibly fake footage of real living people? Just imagine the implications for politics and criminal justice.

 

[TremblingBluStar]

But consider what that really means. There are so many factors that go into that -- not just the timbre of the voice, but the rhythms, the pronunciations, the body language that accompanies it.

I think that eventually computers will be able to mimic human voice with near accuracy including rhytims and timbre, and tone. However, I don't think it will ever sound 100% genuine unless someone actually designs a computer intelligence that can act human.

Which won't be happening for a good, long while!

 

[Christopher]

^To mimic human voices in general, yes. But accurately capturing a specific individual's speech rhythms, and reproducing them in a way that isn't just parroting, would require much more complex understanding and judgment. Even the best human impressionists can only come so close.

Although on the other hand, I suppose a computer would have at least one advantage over a human impressionist in that it wouldn't have to suppress its own habits of speech and pronunciation in order to replicate someone else's.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Exactly. Heck, you see just how broken computerized speech is. No matter the quality of a computerized voice, it always has pauses between words and has pronunciation problems.

If we take Majel Barrett's voice as the Enterprise computer as an example, if we assume that the voice in the Trek universe was duplicated from someone who had once been living in that universe, in reality we have a long way to go before we can mimic anything like that due to how smooth sounding it is.

Actually, that would make an interesting story in itself, ie how the Enterprise got its voice. The living person would have had to be someone important that they wanted to honour.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Actually, that would make an interesting story in itself, ie how the Enterprise got its voice. The living person would have had to be someone important that they wanted to honour.

You know, the very idea that this kind of thing would constitute "an interesting story" is the core of what killed oldTrek.

 

[Christopher]

Actually, that would make an interesting story in itself, ie how the Enterprise got its voice. The living person would have had to be someone important that they wanted to honour.

Or it was just the technician who programmed the computer. Or maybe it was an unknown professional voice actor they hired to provide the sample, as is usually the case with recorded voices today.

According to Peter David's TOS novel The Rift, it was Pike's Number One who provided the computer voice. Makes sense, doesn't it?

 

[TremblingBluStar]

Actually, that would make an interesting story in itself, ie how the Enterprise got its voice. The living person would have had to be someone important that they wanted to honour.

You know, the very idea that this kind of thing would constitute "an interesting story" is the core of what killed oldTrek.

I believe there was already a novel that stated that the voice was modeled after Majel's character from the first Trek pilot. Much better choice than Lwoxanna Troi!