[ggchappell]

Isn't the ordering of the Hobbit scenes on the graph backwards? The unfamiliar scenes ("orc-filled battlefields ...") are more acceptable because they are less like the real life we know & love than the familiar ones ("... a character standing in the doorway"). So they are on the less realistic (left) side of the Uncanny Valley, not the more realistic (right) side.

Other than that, I think your argument works.

[cianclarke]

The idea is as the graph comes 'out of the valley', things become more and more real - so the familiar scenes, which look false to us, stay in the uncanny valley, whilst the less familiar scenes have already climbed up the other side. Just my interpretation / application of the age old theory though, so it's open to question no doubt - thanks for reading :-)

[aidenn0]

I think the argument is that the valley is further left on unfamiliar scenes, as "can just barely tell it's wrong" is more wrong for those things that stuff we know really well.

Alternatively you could say "Orcs are unreal, so there isn't an uncanny valley at all for them"

[acgourley]

The orcs were mostly CG, I think that has more to do with it. If they were people in makeup and masks, I suspect they still would have felt uncanny. In fact, the orcs in the large battlefield towards the beginning were mostly costumed, and felt uncanny, while the band of orcs later were CG, and felt OK.

[cianclarke]

True, in which case I think putting the orcs elevated out of the uncanny valley towards reality is probably a strange thing to do! Can't remember the last time I came across an orc on the way to the shops..! Same theory still applies for panning through scenery or walking thru a marketplace though.

[etherael]

The graph shows a dip on the rightmost side below the leftmost side before going right up to indistinguishable from reality, that's the basic premise of the old uncanny valley hypothesis, that things which are just short of indistinguishable from the real thing are less desirable than fairly good approximations which could not otherwise be confused, due to the feeling that something implacable about them is a little off.