Ken Goldberg on the Uncanny Valley in Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
Warner Bros. released the trailer for their 2019 release of "Pokemon: Detective Pikachu" mid-November, and many fans of the beloved franchise had a lot to say on the live action Pokemon creatures.
In particular, fans were not pleased by real-life appearance of the Pokémon. Ken Goldberg commented on the phenomena, describing many responses as a reaction to the "uncanny valley," a term coined in 1970 by Masahiro Mori in response to the day's reactions to prosthetics. But for Goldberg, "creepy" is not necessarily a bad thing — in fact, it's "a good signal."
“When people start talking about using the term creepy, it’s a good signal,” Goldberg said of the critics bemoaning the too-real Pokémon appearances. “Because creepy is the closest thing we have to the emotion of the uncanny, that Freud talked about. We don’t have a word for it in English, but creepy is pretty close. So it could be called the creepy valley, right?”