This reminds me of stop-motion animation and how CGI could replace it, but then you'd lose why this is so impressive It serves the same purpose as the CGI-rendered crowd scenes of Hunchback (1996) but where one is a showcase of neat tech, the other is a showcase of what masters of the craft can do

Thank you for pointing this out because it's fascinating and beautiful to watch. Incredible that an animator created that!

Patrick Willems in a recent video about Muppet Cinema presented a statement that I feel really encapsulates cinephiles' love of more traditional special effects like puppets, stop-motion, or hand-drawn animation: CGI is animation, puppets are theatre

I cannot even begin to fathom how you coordinate and choreograph that. It all flows like water, swirling back on itself

This also has the advantage of *depth* due to the investment of real creative work. It’s not just “a crowd”, it’s a confluence of *individuals* that, collectively, become a crowd.