Limitations of Motion Capture CGI with live-action

[Bitsy83]

The main reason so many people were complaining about this movie was that they were replacing the animatronics from the previous movies with the MoCap. I adored the animatronics as well because it gave a sense of realism back in the 90s. As a kid, it felt like the Turtles were right there in front of you and, unlike the people dressed in suits at Disney World, they expressed emotion and "talked."

Of course, now that the "magic" has worn off, I can see the flaws that the suits had. The love is still there, though, but it's clear that these wouldn't have been quite as successful with todays youth. In fact, a friend of mine said that her son loves the new Nick show AND the new movie, but when she tried showing him the '90 movie, the suits scared him. *shrugs* go fig....

For me personally, MoCap can be very hit or miss. I love how it's still similar to animation, but it gives the actors a chance to really delve into their characters in both motion and interaction instead of just having them in a sound booth. Tintin is one of my favorite movies and it made sense for them to use MoCap since it's such an obscure world and characters that having them be real life would've been....well, there's a French movie that tried that awhile back and if you look it up, you'll see what I mean.

I won't get into Uncanny Valley or "dead eyes" or any of that because I thought the Turtles looked great here. I loved the details (though a bit too in your face at times), I loved how they had the actors portraying them instead of just voicing them (excluding Leo, of course). And even though the Turtles weren't THERE like they were with the suits, the actors could still act alongside Fox and Arnett and such, thus helping the interactions feel more natural during filming.

However, the one thing the suits did offer that the MoCap might not be able to is just how MUCH interaction there can be with the live actors and MoCap actors. What I mean is how much physical interaction can there be? We've seen hand holding and even that part where Leo draped his arm around Megan's shoulder, but let's just say....something a bit more romantic were to happen --

*ducks from projectile objects thrown to her head*

I'M NOT SHIPPING APRIL!!!! I want to make that perfectly clear! I still don't see why some people want her to be with Raph, anyway...

Ok, moving on. What I was saying is...well, I was sort of having ideas of what they could do for the sequel and I had this idea that they could bring in Angel Bridge from the comics, only alter her backstory. A lot.

(Hey, they turned Bernard Thompson into a black woman and (almost) made Shredder a white guy. Why not?)

Anyway, I had this idea that Angel could be a young intern working at a genetics lab that is owned by Baxter Stockman in New York. One day, she uncovers some secret plot and is captured in attempts to keep her from spilling the beans. The Turtles rescue her and Donatello sort of thinks she's cool. The two become good friends and eventually a very INNOCENT romance starts to occur.

Back to my MoCap question: Just how much interaction could you have with Angel and Jeremy Howard as he's playing Donnie? Or any of the Turtles' actors while they're doing things with the live actors? Like obviously talking and hand holding are easy enough to do in those suits, but I saw how they had cameras attached to their heads so they could record the facial expressions, so if they were to go for a kiss scene (again, a very mild one), would it be hard to film? Would they have to do like they did in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" where they would use a Roger-doll to mark the shots and have the actors grab him and move the doll when need be, then animate the rest later? Or could Angel's actress and Howard actually do a proper kiss without....breaking the equipment.

I know this is a weird question and I'm sorry if I'm causing a lot of eye rolling, but I would like to see a few more emotional interactions with these future movies instead of just punching, fighting, and screaming. I'm asking for a lot, I know, but for me TMNT always had plenty of emotion to deal with that is not easy to ignore.