Struggling With Budgets, Marvel? Doctor Who Can Teach a Lesson
Dumping a ton of money into flashy CGI is not always a great solution.
With the recent release of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, another chapter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a certain problem with modern sci-fi movies becomes even more apparent.
Audiences appear to be tired of the endless parade of dazzling visual effects as a computer-generated hero defeats a computer-generated villain on a computer-generated battlefield. Big Hollywood studios invest ridiculous amounts of money in a desperate attempt to hide the lack of substance behind a shiny facade. But of course it is a flawed solution, as the reviews make it clearer.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania scored only 48% on Rotten Tomatoes, 48 out of 100 on Metacritic, and received fairly mediocre reviews from audiences and critics.
A great example of the opposite situation is Doctor Who, a British sci-fi television series from the BBC that has been alive and well for an amazingly long time, having debuted in 1963. So what's the secret?
It is really quite simple. According to fans, it's about how the creators invest most of their time in developing the characters and the story, which keeps the fans glued to their seats. The effects are secondary to this show, which makes it look cheap, but that doesn't seem to bother the viewers.
As many fans point out, "cheap" does not automatically mean "bad".
"'Dr who looks cheap' [...] Yes, and water is wet. Dr Who has always struggled with budget, and even Disney money won't save it from looking a bit cheap every now and then. Comparing it to Marvel is hilarious, when Marvel has dodgy effects all the time too!" Twitter user josh_snares said.
A clever use of practical effects in this show can easily give a multi-million dollar CGI flop a run for its money. The setting of the Doctor Who universe is largely influenced by this, giving it a unique vintage look.
The show was created in the sixties, so it was virtually impossible for the creators to use computer effects due to the limitations of their time. This forced them to improvise, using face paint, tinfoil and other simple and cheap materials to turn actors into aliens with just a touch of imagination. The Daleks, one of the show's most iconic villains, literally look like sentient metal boxes.
The later iterations of the show tried to preserve the signature aesthetic, using CGI only where it was really needed. And it has only served the show well, attracting new fans with each season to this day. Finally, of course, cheaper effects were a lot easier to produce.
Perhaps, the long-lasting success of lower-budget shows will make the big producers rethink their attitude toward the use of practical effects. Take a hint, Marvel.