Never Quite the Right Size: Scaling the Digital in CG Cinema

Abstract

In contemporary digital culture, computers are shrinking in size while computer networks grow increasingly large. At the same time, individuals have an array of technologies at their command, but are also faced with overwhelming options and information, and are subject to extensive and intrusive data collection. This article explores dichotomies between the miniature and vast or gigantic in recent films with narratives of scalar difference, including Jack the Giant Slayer, Pacific Rim, and Wreck-It Ralph. The author suggests that the representations of scale in these films offer implicit commentary on the digital technologies used to produce their scaled effects and images, and further serve as allegories of containment and excess, control and the uncontrollable, as pertaining to digital imagery and technologies.