WARMING TO A COLD REALITY

OF the two fundamental questions presented by “Happy Feet,” one concerns an intriguing plot conceit and the other an off-screen marketing challenge: What is it like to be an Astaire in a world full of Sinatras? And are audiences ready for another heartwarming film about frigid and flightless birds?

The first question is actually the answer to the second, said director George Miller, who has pieced together the film over three years. “Happy Feet” uses an animation technology billed as a breakthrough for its dynamic realism, but Miller said the bells and whistles were not as important as a sound narrative concept. “The ideas of the film, the story of the film, those are its strength, as they must be,” Miller said during the making of the movie, which arrives in theaters on Friday. “You can have all the technology in the world at your disposal, but if the story is not there, it’s a terrible waste. My strength is as a storyteller.”

With “Happy Feet,” the tale is of Mumble, an emperor penguin who is one mean tap-dancer. The problem is, among a vast avian tribe of singers, he alone can’t carry a tune. The emperor penguins each have a “heart song,” and it helps them find their soul mate and leads to splashy mash-ups. In other words, Mumble is stuck in a jukebox culture that’s geared toward vocal duets, but all his talent is down in his feet.

The movie features the voices of Robin Williams, Elijah Wood, Brittany Murphy and a number of stars from Down Under, among them Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Hugo Weaving and the late Steve Irwin. The heart songs themselves make the film a pop-culture crazy quilt; hits made popular by the Beatles, Queen, Stevie Wonder, Rufus and the Steve Miller Band are among the songs that come out of the penguins’ mouths, as well as a new tune called “Song of the Heart” written for the film by Prince.

“Happy Feet” may have plenty of familiar sounds, but Miller and company are hoping that its cutting-edge visuals will set it apart from the now-routine parade of big-budget animated features.

The distinction of “Happy Feet,” Miller said, is its approach to animation, which he described as a “new level of photorealism.” Film crews with digital gear were dispatched south to film the sea, the tundra, the skyline, the wildlife and the unique light of Antarctica. They came back with reference material that was converted to data at Animal Logic, an animation factory outside Sydney.

“The computer memory here, in this building, rivals the Pentagon for sheer size,” Miller said. The goal was to tap into the natural spectacle of the vibrant environment and create an on-screen computerized image that might fool a naturalist in the audience. Most animation starts with an artist’s creation and goes toward reality; this one went in the opposite direction. In other words, most cartoon films start at Snow White; this one started at white snow.

“It’s a huge playground for us,” Miller said, cuing up footage in a screening room at Animal Logic. And, indeed, the visuals -- the sheen on the water, the translucent beauty of ice, the moisture on tufts of feathers -- were remarkable. The vistas will pull people in, Miller said, but, as with his earlier film “Babe,” he expects the story and the fable to keep them cozy in this cold new world.

geoff.boucher@latimes.com.