Computer Animation Puts Filmmaking at Crossroads

Computer Animation Puts Filmmaking at Crossroads
Though more than a century old, in art-history terms -- think of the 2,600-year-old Greek Kouros or sixth-century architectural remnants at Chich�n Itz� -- cinema is still in diapers.

Seen this way, The Polar Express, the latest in a series of digitally conceived features, might look like the first tottering steps toward a huge developmental milestone in the early childhood of American cinema. Along with new, computerized movies The Incredibles, Shark Tale and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Polar Express highlights an industry in the grip of an unprecedented growth spurt in imagination and technical promise.

Visually, movies can now transport us to previously unreachable photo-realistic dreamlands, whether the destination is a North Pole of storybook luminescence or a futurist's glance at the past. But artistically, we're still traveling: No matter how glorious these films look, no matter how eye-popping, they're still the work of apprentices, because the tools of the trade keep morphing.

Each time movie directors master the language of film, the mechanics of filmmaking evolve -- some new technology emerges that alters not just the "hows" but the "what ifs" inherent in the form. It happened with the introduction of sound, and again with the introduction of color.

At such junctures, movies can become tempo