A Movie Without Humans (or Anthropomorphism)

[The_Snark]

It seems like a number of sequences from Fantasia would count. The Firebird, the Sorcerer's Apprentice, Dance of the Hours, the Rhapsody in Blue bit, and the Steadfast Tin Soldier all tell stories without any dialogue, although there are humans or anthropomorphized characters. The dinosaur sequence, the flying whales, and the odd bit with the flying scraps of color also have stories, but there's nothing remotely human.

It's telling that all of those are short, though—I think it would be rather hard to pull something like this off. You'd either have to make your non-human characters very expressive (without speech or human facial expressions), or you would end up with something like 2001—some people think it's great, some people think it's boring.

[Yora]

Could a movie work without humans? I think the easiest way to explain this is to give the context: After watching all the Alien, Predator and the first AvP movies, my Boy and I got talking about how Alien Vs Predator could have been made better. Basically, if you just made it flat out Alien verses Predator. Say, instead of crashing back to Earth in AvP2, the Predators make it back to their home planet, and carnage ensues. I think English being spoken would ruin the whole thing, but subtitles could maybe work, if non-verbal communication had to be ruled out. Though I would suggest that the first part of Wall-E indicates that a film without verbal communication could work, if done well.

Posible without doubt.

But it's not the 1000 times proved failsave way to make ****loads of money. So I doubt too many people with the money and the equipment to do it, would be interested.

Yesterday I saw the original animated short 9. Though the guys have arms and legs and heads, they don't talk.
But when someone thought it would be a great idea to make it into a full length movie, it did turn into cute antromorphic dolls. ;(

[Closet_Skeleton]

It seems like a number of sequences from Fantasia would count. The Firebird, the Sorcerer's Apprentice, Dance of the Hours, the Rhapsody in Blue bit, and the Steadfast Tin Soldier all tell stories without any dialogue, although there are humans or anthropomorphized characters. The dinosaur sequence, the flying whales, and the odd bit with the flying scraps of color also have stories, but there's nothing remotely human.

Micky Mouse is a human, he just doesn't look like one. The Sorcerer's Apprentice is just silent, which isn't really what this thread is about.

[endoperez]

Yesterday I saw the original animated short 9. Though the guys have arms and legs and heads, they don't talk.
But when someone thought it would be a great idea to make it into a full length movie, it did turn into cute antromorphic dolls. ;(

The "someone" is the original creator of the short! He'd probably have added speech to the original as well if he had access to talented voice actors.

[Talya]

Posible without doubt.

But it's not the 1000 times proved failsave way to make ****loads of money. So I doubt too many people with the money and the equipment to do it, would be interested.

Yesterday I saw the original animated short 9. Though the guys have arms and legs and heads, they don't talk.
But when someone thought it would be a great idea to make it into a full length movie, it did turn into cute antromorphic dolls. ;(

Speech isn't required to anthropomorphize something. "Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human characteristics to non-human creatures or beings, phenomena, material states and objects or abstract concepts." If at any point, you give apparent human-like feelings or emotions, desires, goals, thought processes, habits, etc. to something non-human, you are anthropomorphizing it.

[Zanaril]

Watership down? The rabbits definitely aren't just bunny-shaped humans, although they can talk.

Edit: Already been mentioned.

[Serpentine]

Speech isn't required to anthropomorphize something. "Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human characteristics to non-human creatures or beings, phenomena, material states and objects or abstract concepts." If at any point, you give apparent human-like feelings or emotions, desires, goals, thought processes, habits, etc. to something non-human, you are anthropomorphizing it.

What about a non-human that genuinely does have comparable but alien (not "space" alien, "foreign" alien) feelings, emotions, desires, goals, thought processes, habits, etc? Does that mean, say, Predator's anthropomorphised?

[kpenguin]

But aliens, being a human creation, will human thoughts and emotions or at least gross exaggerations of human thoughts and emotions.

[LurkerInPlayground]

What about a non-human that genuinely does have comparable but alien (not "space" alien, "foreign" alien) feelings, emotions, desires, goals, thought processes, habits, etc? Does that mean, say, Predator's anthropomorphised?

I'd simply say you're setting an arbitrary line.

We infer what an alien is like from ourselves. The Predator runs around with two arms and legs. He wears armor. He has guns. He has computers. He carries a bomb. He lives for the thrill of the hunt and comes from a warrior-centric culture.

Everything about him is an exception that proves the rule.

Elephants bury their dead. They mourn them in ceremonies. They come back and visit the location of that grave. They use tools. They have complex social structures. They're known to protect humans out of compassion.

Humans don't really have the monopoly on all "human" characteristics. And many of us think, that given the right conditions, it's possible for anthropomorphs, or something intelligent, to evolve elsewhere.

[Serpentine]

I was just trying to get away from the idea that my "no anthropomorphism" clause means "whatever the movie is about, it CANNOT show any feelings or anything that people can do!", as opposed to my intended "things like cartoons about a bug circus aren't what I'm going for".

[Rutskarn]

I was considering this a while ago. Like, could a movie about...rabbits or something work? Just straight-up rabbits. Like, escaping from hawks, building burrows and stuff. No talking, no society, nothing...just these two rabbits doing their thing. Er, not that thing. I guess. Probably not, anyway. I guess if it was tasteful...

...

Man, I could use, like, a bag of nachos the size of my head, man.

[bibliophile]

I think you could make a film with non anthropomorphised characters, depending on how you define it. As has been said Watership Down would seem to fit the bill.

That short video 9 was pretty neat, thanks!

[LurkerInPlayground]

I was just trying to get away from the idea that my "no anthropomorphism" clause means "whatever the movie is about, it CANNOT show any feelings or anything that people can do!", as opposed to my intended "things like cartoons about a bug circus aren't what I'm going for".

No feelings. Hence, nothing people can find to relate to in the aert.

Err. I'm thinking no?

I'm going to risk saying that Watership Down probably had rabbits as people to a degree. But what do I know, I've never seen it. Maybe it's chock-full of literary genius.

[kpenguin]

Given that we have the rabbits have a language, religion, and government, I'm going to say they're not all that un-anthropomorphised.

[Yulian]

Oh, and Yulian: what's wrong with inventing a new form of story-telling?

Nothing wrong with the idea t all. It's just unlikely, considering the staggering tradition of storytelling we have going back well...going back about as far as we had developed language.

Speech isn't required to anthropomorphize something. "Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human characteristics to non-human creatures or beings, phenomena, material states and objects or abstract concepts." If at any point, you give apparent human-like feelings or emotions, desires, goals, thought processes, habits, etc. to something non-human, you are anthropomorphizing it.

That's the big problem. We can only comprehend things using our own framework, the one we evolved with. We are incapable of inventing something outside that framework since...well...we can't create something we can't comprehend. HP Lovecraft and many of his fellow writers tried very, very hard to lend the impression and the effects of the incomprehensible, but none of them could truly describe it, or it wouldn't be incomprehensible.

Given that we have the rabbits have a language, religion, and government, I'm going to say they're not all that un-anthropomorphised.

General Woundwort agrees. :)

- Yulian

[Thrawn183]

I would LOVE to see a movie of aliens versus predators completely untranslated. You'd know the movie came together well if you were never really lost about what was going on even though you couldn't understand what the predators were saying.

I can just imagine a scene where the predators are on the defensive, holed up somwhere, and a new character walks into the room, dropping a crate onto the table. All the predators jump back. One predator starts saying something to the new guy and he just pulls out one of the items inside (could be a sphere, or a cube or anything really and tosses it to the predator that was talking to him. Show that predator desperately trying to catch the thing before it hits the ground, and I'm guess that everybody will figure out the things are bombs.

If you were trying to explain what was going on, you could use some birds-eye-view shots.

Anyway, the problem with this is that I'm guessing it's a lot more expensive to have scenes with predators and aliens than it is with humans. If I'm wrong, please say so.

[Wardog]

Would something like Sky Whales count, if longer?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVmKhNG6S3o

[goohber]

F any1 s serius about watching ur own custom - picked content, that s, f ur tired of watching the same drama - infested media out there, then try this:

go to n office supply store. buy urself translucent folders (those w/out pockets work best because after taping 2gether 1 folder on top of another, u want a clear sheet, so that u have no intersecting folder pockets (which, usualy, form a triangle n center of screen).

(sorry 4 abreviating & shorthand, but m a minimalist hu likes 2 say more with/less)

the company Avery sells translucent folders, w/pockets, f u don't mind having a triangle in center of screen, otherwise, shop for translucent folders w/no pockets.

next, take scotch tape, tape two translucent folders, line them up perfectly w/1 another, then tape them 2gether.

buy ur translucent folders in various colors, so that u have a few colors 2 experiment with as u tape these dual folders to ur computer's lcd display or external monitor, on top of the media ur watching.

next, go to YouTube.com & search for various black & white videos of films, documentaries, & other black & white toned media ur interested in watching. save these videos in your YouTube (video manger) playlists.

b4 i go on, keep in mind that having n xternal monitor hooked up 2 ur computer helps because the translucent folder u taped onto ur computer's display/monitor will make it somewhat tricky 2c what ur doing. these color - filtered folders will tone - out ur computer's mouse arrow or other program windows.

f u decide 2 watch a regular multi - colored movie (dvd), but want 2 watch this same movie in black & white, go to ur graphics media card, adjust the monitor video overlay settings by sliding down the (saturation) feature to zero, this will produce the pure black & white color tone on ur computer's display/monitor.

now, u can watch ur favorite movies in black & white, but in ur favorite mono - toned colors produced by ur translucent folders.

blue, aqual green, orange, & purple r my favorite colors. regular green s ok, but aqua green & aqua blue produce a nice glass - toned atmosphere, as f ur watching something through a piece of glass edge.

now u can watch ur favorite visual media on screen in one cool mono - toned color.

pink & purple - toned folders produce a nice surreal dark atmosphere. the orange toned folders produce a nice earthy feel.

Note:

u tape two folders of same color 2gether because 1 s not enuf. 1 folder alone does not produce the perfect mono - colored tone ur looking for, it just makes ur black & white media (whiter, or saturates the whie color).

or, taping 2gether two different colors will not bring out either color - they just cancel each other out, producing a general, but whiter tone on top of ur preferred black & white media.

my next goal s to find media - movies, perhaps, of strictly all objects, not people - no people whatsoever, but this media is hard to find, as most media out there is designed 4 humans w/no imagination (they like everything spelled out 4 them), not for aesthetic nerds like me who like my media as subliminally mysterious as possible - i do not like my media spelled out 4 me, i like my mind 2b given the opportunity 2 make something more out of what i see.

i hope this gives u guys n aesthetic idea 4 a different way 2 keep yourselves authentically entertained.

[Killer Angel]

What would be the point?

A wildlife documentary minus the voice-over. It would be spectacularly boring.

In Deep Blue the voice-over was really limited to few sentences.