What if The 7th Voyage of Sinbad Had Smoother Stop-Motion?

What if The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1957) had smoother stop-motion animation for its effects scenes made by the famous Ray Harryhausen? I used an AI program to interpolate the scene to a higher frame rate to see what that would look like.

What do you think of the results?

✨ Programs used:

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[mastereppsreturns]

The stop motion makes the monsters freakier and scarier imo

[andyrandall]

While it flows more smoothly now, part of the magic was Ray Harryhausen's use of stop motion animation. They'll never be another like him.

[nicholasferguson]

The jerky/discrete motion always terrified me as a kid. It makes movement uncanny.

[Denizen-Unknown]

Completely deludes the charm of Harryhausen's look and feel, only adding a nauseating aspect to the effect.

[necrofinger]

The smoother look has taken all of the 'weight' away from the animation, and it makes the creatures look like little stag beetles fighting.

[blakespower]

the stop motion is what made it cool and freaky weird because it doesnt move in a natural way. you know you are dealing with something strange!

[Bat-Twenty-Two]

When things are too smooth, you get the problem with CGI where the objects don't seem to have weight or gravity behind their movement and impacts.

[Rikki]

I've actually thought about this very thing since I first saw it as a kid. It would not have been half as scary with smoother graphics. One of the greatest horror movies ever made.

[absentfriends]

The soundtrack/music along with the stop-action motion created a fantasy world that stands the test of time. This movie is hard to beat !

[ClannerJake]

Ray Harryhausen did good with the skeletons; i watched a timelapse of him working on a scene, the amount of work that went into it is insane.

[yaffayafo]

One of the coolest films of all time along with Jason & the Argonauts.

[donalddube]

The whole idea of these films is that it is one man’s work WITHOUT computer assist.

[robertocamacho]

It’s smoother, but there’s something about it that makes it look weird to the eye. Almost like the remote is stuck on fast-forward or something.

[mrcydonia]

It suffers from the same problem that the Hobbit movies had with their high frame rate: it looks like sit-com video footage...it's *too* smooth.

[JohnDonovanProductions]

According to Ray, “The giant crossbow was actually a miniature construction about two feet in length . On the beach at S'Agaro, in Spain, we only constructed one eight - foot wheel of the carriage of the machine . This wheel was large enough to act as a background for the actors who were performing in front of it . The only other section of the full - size crossbow that we had to construct was the 15 - foot arrow seen in the foreground above . All the performers had to be placed very carefully in exact positions to allow room for the inlay of the miniature . The later addition of the crossbow would not take place for many months .”

[pschroeter]

This is an intriguing idea, but it's strange how the slight offness of the motion contributes to a feeling of unease that makes the monsters feel slightly sinister. It's the uncanny valley in reverse.

[aguilacalva]

The truth is that there is no noticeable difference

[mentecuriosa]

I prefer that jerky movement on those monsters, makes it more unnatural, more out of this world, therefore more creepy in my opinion.

[carmenmonroe]

I love the old fashioned stop motion quality

[Palsa-Achilleus]

I remember decades ago AMC (American Movie Classics) interviewed the animator that did all of these films, and he mentioned that when something interrupted him, like the phone ringing, it would cause him to forget which direction to move each of the monster's limbs, which was a big problem with the Hydra in particular, do to all of it's heads. He eventually started writing down notes for how each limb would move per frame.

As for the touch ups, x8 just makes it feel uncanny in the other direction, have you tried 2x or 4x?