When I was a toddler I watched Thunderbirds and for some reason it subconciously distrubed me in a profound way, making me cry violently. I found the fairly lifelike but not human puppets unsettling, and they gave me vivid nightmares, in the disconcertain way they moved and talked. That must've been the Uncanny Valley effect: the more realistic a puppet/animated character/robot gets, the more overtly eerie and ghoulish it is. That is why CGI movies with less realistic characters in them (such as Antz and Finding Nemo) are generally well received, while CGI movies featuring more human like characters are generally panned (like The Polar Express which might as well been renamed The Haunted Dummy Express).
A Japanese animatronics artist, Masahiro Mori, was the first person to coin the term, "Uncanny Valley", after a robot copy of her daughter invoked a negative reaction in her. In science fiction, the Uncanny Valley effect is occasionally used in the depiction of androids and cyborgs - Mr. Data's attempt at laughter in this video at 0:55 is more scary than the alien brainbugs that came on later in that episode. The Borg drones are also somewhere in the Valley, especially when they are "sleeping" in their alcoves.
Of course the Uncanny Valley predominantly features in The Terminator, especially when the T-800s passing as humans are seriously damaged and revealing their mechanical innards. Also when Skynet first attempted to make its android soldiers pass off as human, they had rubber skin as their disguise, which was a dismal failure. Some people theorise why there is a subconscious Uncanny Valley and it is some kind of alarm mechanism to catch out people who are seriously ill or injured and (perhaps controversially) also pick out people who are mentally disabled. I personally think very drunk people belong in the Valley as well.
A Japanese animatronics artist, Masahiro Mori, was the first person to coin the term, "Uncanny Valley", after a robot copy of her daughter invoked a negative reaction in her. In science fiction, the Uncanny Valley effect is occasionally used in the depiction of androids and cyborgs - Mr. Data's attempt at laughter in this video at 0:55 is more scary than the alien brainbugs that came on later in that episode. The Borg drones are also somewhere in the Valley, especially when they are "sleeping" in their alcoves.
Of course the Uncanny Valley predominantly features in The Terminator, especially when the T-800s passing as humans are seriously damaged and revealing their mechanical innards. Also when Skynet first attempted to make its android soldiers pass off as human, they had rubber skin as their disguise, which was a dismal failure. Some people theorise why there is a subconscious Uncanny Valley and it is some kind of alarm mechanism to catch out people who are seriously ill or injured and (perhaps controversially) also pick out people who are mentally disabled. I personally think very drunk people belong in the Valley as well.
Gimme a good old-fashioned actor with rubber bumps on his nose any day. 
