INTO THE SUN!

There's many things I want to point out, but mostly overwhelmingly the small details that absolutely sell the "robot" nature of the act. During the intro, of course, you hear that classic Rabbit stutter because her voicebox is old and broken, which is always a wonderful auditory and character detail. It’s a shame this performance doesn’t have any of the sound effects they produce (except for a tiny bit at 0:19), but in a lot of their performances you will see them replicate the noises of machinery with a level of accuracy resulting in most new fans wondering genuinely if they pipe the noises in via SFX (nope! they make those noises with their mouths!). You see her program boot up as she starts moving and--can I add? If I were to build an animatronic, or any sort of robot with the purpose of performing, this is just a very logical "dance" for her to perform, this basic swinging back and forth of her arms. Her feet are planted (which is a trick most animatronics employ) and her torso and arms are more mobile, providing a more stable build. You will notice that Bunny very rarely moves her feet when performing here other than to shift her weight--she employs this trick specifically to emulate that inspiration.

I’m not going to touch on a lot of the more visible and obvious robotic movements (i.e. keeping her limbs very stiff, bending at very specific points, very clear fixed range of motion/rotation, etc), but I am going to point out three specific moments where I think they’re very effective. At 2:09, you see her gesture to the audience in this grand, completely stiff-armed motion. Again, mechanically and program-wise very efficient–it’s much easier to code a limb that moves in one motion rather than coding the entire process of arm lifting → bending at elbow → wrist bending → hand gesturing and, for that matter, is much easier on the joints mechanically. At 2:48 during the sustained note on the bridge, you see her face entirely freeze as her torso slowly rotates, and as her torso stops rotating and the note cuts off, she resumes moving again. These two coordinated acts create a sense of a purposefully programmed motion to be visually appealing. Like, I just watched an if-then statement take place: if singing this note, pivot to this extent. Very robotic, very animatronic, very subtle and very effective. Finally, at 3:13 there’s one of my absolute favorite moments of physical acting and I have replayed this countless times–where she gestures to her head. I love this moment because the moment her wrist stops upon reaching its maximum range of motion, you can visibly see the momentum of the servos keeping the hand moving even as it comes to a stop, resulting in this very distinctive inorganic wobble. That is absolutely one of my favorite bits of physical acting SPG does–their drops and movements as their motors force them into a certain motion, and the resulting wobbles and stutters when those motions stop and their suspension system catches the leftover momentum. It is a wonderful method of selling the illusion that these are not organic performers, but metallic, programmed, artificially intelligent creatures.

The most subtle and the most effective to me that cements the uncanny valley nature of the act is how she isolates the muscles of the upper half of her face--she barely blinks, her eyes are for the most part looking at a fixed point in space, and she very rarely moves her forehead muscles, keeping them much more still than people usually do when they sing (it’s very easy to raise your brows when you reach for those high notes, for example). I can’t imagine the level of dedication and effort it takes to be so incredibly aware of every single muscle you have control over. It is incredibly effective in a way you don’t notice at first, but sticks in your head.

Even the ending is as spot-on as the beginning and middle–she stops abruptly, as if her programming cut out a millisecond earlier than the music, in this blank, abrupt sort of pose as she stares fixed into the audience, mouth still open. It perfectly matches the song–a happy, upbeat sort of tune that is cut off as the apocalypse rolls in. It’s abrupt, slightly unnerving, and very fitting. Again, she utilizes those mechanical stops and wobbles I pointed out earlier–she doesn’t come to a complete stop immediately, but halts and wobbles a bit as her momentum falters.