# "A Scanner Darkly"...What's the effing point? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 24, 2006, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-scanner-darkly-whats-the-effing-point/362000 "2006-06-24T18:41:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2006, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-scanner-darkly-whats-the-effing-point/362000/21 "2006-06-25T05:08:46Z")
Awright. I appreciate what **Cervaise** said, and how the use of rotoscoping in this instance might actually have a purpose beyond trotting out someone’s misguided idea of a spiffy effect. We’ll see if I can stomach it. Too bad about the gratuitious junkie philosophizing, though. It’s true: Simply pasting a Dick story on the screen is a bad idea. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2006, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-scanner-darkly-whats-the-effing-point/362000/22 "2006-06-25T08:58:40Z")
[QUOTE=Cervaise] I’ve seen the movie. And I’ve read Dick. [/QUOTE] Really? You should go to a Library and grab some books sometime. Reading is great! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![bubastis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d07c76/32.png) [@bubastis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bubastis)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2006, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-scanner-darkly-whats-the-effing-point/362000/23 "2006-06-25T22:16:29Z")
Sin City would have been cool, rotoscoped. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2006, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-scanner-darkly-whats-the-effing-point/362000/24 "2006-06-25T23:57:17Z")
[QUOTE=Sublight] Did either of these movies use rotoscoping? Both are Rankin-Bass productions, and I though they used straight animation. Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings was the one that heavily relied on rotoscoping (and is a perfect example of the technique’s shortcomings). [/QUOTE] Most of the reason the animated LOTR sucked though, is the inconsistency; as the movie progresses, they rely more and more on rotoscoping (and of progressively poorer quality - towards the end, it’s nothing much more than badly posterised live footage), at the expense of drawn animation. they were running out of money and it is painfully obvious. _A scanner Darkly_ looks interesting and I think I can accept that the effect was chosen to give it the feel of a comic book/graphic novel, but there’s something about the animation I don’t like - it has touches of that floaty, fluid movement from which early CGI suffered so badly - as if everything has more mass than it ought to, or is moving through syrup. I can’t quite understand why this should be the case, given that the motion should be natural if it is rotoscoped (or something like that). ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2006, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-scanner-darkly-whats-the-effing-point/362000/25 "2006-06-26T01:02:13Z")
Is there an online link to this trailer of which you speak? ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2006, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-scanner-darkly-whats-the-effing-point/362000/26 "2006-06-26T04:25:00Z")
[QUOTE=kaylasdad99] Is there an online link to this trailer of which you speak? [/QUOTE] [Here ya go](http://www.apple.com/trailers/warner_independent_pictures/ascannerdarkly/). ---
**Author:** ![KJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b2d939/32.png) [@KJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KJ)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2006, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-scanner-darkly-whats-the-effing-point/362000/27 "2006-06-26T06:03:18Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] _A scanner Darkly_ looks interesting and I think I can accept that the effect was chosen to give it the feel of a comic book/graphic novel, but there’s something about the animation I don’t like - it has touches of that floaty, fluid movement from which early CGI suffered so badly - as if everything has more mass than it ought to, or is moving through syrup. I can’t quite understand why this should be the case, given that the motion should be natural if it is rotoscoped (or something like that). [/QUOTE] That’s probably because of the technique that **Corporate Hippie** mentioned; instead of tracing over each frame exactly, they can interpolate between two different frames in such a way that everything is smooth. It looks less jerky than hand-traced rotoscoping, but it can also eliminate those subtle shakes and small movements that happen in natural motion that you usually don’t notice. If it’s not done well, it can be visually jarring, and some animators use the term “underwater effect” to describe the look of badly done amateur 3D animation. I do think it worked in Waking Life (and probably A Scanner Darkly) because it made it seem more surreal. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-scanner-darkly-whats-the-effing-point/362000.md?page=1)