Warg From 'The Rings of Power' Grilled Over "Worst CGI of the Year"
Yep, you read that right.
One thing about 'The Rings of Power ' that had everyone, from fans to haters, in agreement, was the fact that the show's visual design is impeccable. With an astronomical budget, the show appeared to have not restrained itself when it came to CGI… until episode 3.
Already accustomed to astonishing landscapes and meticulously thought-through costumes, fans were absolutely stunned when they saw Warg – a vicious creature released by orcs in order to tame the rebellious elves.
For some people, Warg looked like an unsuccessful attempt to animate a dog toy into a terrifying beast, and others simply wished they could unsee it. A lot of fans immediately deemed it "the worst CGI of the year" – even though the year is far from being over.
Other fans decided that what seems to be the worst CGI moment for 'The Rings of Power' is in fact the best moment for some memes.
But not everyone is ready to criticize the animal's extravagant design.
"Not so bad! It really looks like an inbred abomination kept in the absolute worst conditions, and gone mad with lack of proper care," Twitter user cmkosemen argued.
Another Twitter fan bammaxgaming noted that "many people don't realize that—in addition to that the warg is intentionally designed as an ugly mix of a wolf and a hyena, and done so with incredible precision—there are approximately 3000 years of evolution to be had between Rings of Power and the Fellowship trilogy".
Wargs are the creatures who came into the world of Middle-earth from Norse mythology. They were thought to be the vicious animals that chase the Sun and Moon. In old English mythology, the word "wearh" was used to describe wolves ridden by orcs and known for being large and evil.
Both in 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of the Rings ' movie trilogy, wargs were present and actively used by orcs, but looked very different from what we saw in 'The Rings of Power'.
The whole warg-as-failed-CGI controversy comes as a surprise, considering fairly gigantic budget that went into 'The Rings of Power' production. It was reported that Amazon spend a whopping $250 million on getting the rights for Tolkien's fantasy world. In total, the series ended up costing a reported $465 million for the eight episodes of the season, meaning that every episode's budget is close to a budget of an actual Hollywood movie with star-studded cast.