Hell, it barely even looks like something that belongs on a network like ABC.
The Inhumans Marvel/IMAX
- Thread starter Turtletrekker
- Start date
A new pic reveals another Inhuman for the show, a character named Auran from the recently ended Inhumans comic by Charles Soule
http://screenrant.com/marvel-inhumans-tv-show-images-auran-maximus/
In the comics Auran is noticeably not human, with giant rabbit-ish ears and yellow fur (or maybe skin). In the TV show...she's a completely normal looking human, because of course she is
Even if it ends up being her disguising her appearance for some reason, this show either hates the more fantastic parts of the Inhumans (and since its being made by the guy who hated Iron Fist being anything but as grounded as Marvel would let him do, its likely he does hate the super powered part of the Inhumans) or it has budget smaller then shows like Flash. Honestly, its probably a bit of both (he was probably forced to use Lockjaw, kind of like he was probably forced to give Danny the Iron Fist). Its such a trainwreck that it would be funny if I wasn't a big enough fan of the inhumans that it mostly just pisses me off.
Every piece of news or new reveal just makes Inhumans look worse. It will be interesting to see the first complete failure of an MCU property. Well, ok, the third failure after Agent Carter and Iron Fist, but the first one that will probably kill a whole part of the MCU (using inhumans as anything but side characters on AoS) along with it.
http://screenrant.com/marvel-inhumans-tv-show-images-auran-maximus/
In the comics Auran is noticeably not human, with giant rabbit-ish ears and yellow fur (or maybe skin). In the TV show...she's a completely normal looking human, because of course she is
Even if it ends up being her disguising her appearance for some reason, this show either hates the more fantastic parts of the Inhumans (and since its being made by the guy who hated Iron Fist being anything but as grounded as Marvel would let him do, its likely he does hate the super powered part of the Inhumans) or it has budget smaller then shows like Flash. Honestly, its probably a bit of both (he was probably forced to use Lockjaw, kind of like he was probably forced to give Danny the Iron Fist). Its such a trainwreck that it would be funny if I wasn't a big enough fan of the inhumans that it mostly just pisses me off.Every piece of news or new reveal just makes Inhumans look worse. It will be interesting to see the first complete failure of an MCU property. Well, ok, the third failure after Agent Carter and Iron Fist, but the first one that will probably kill a whole part of the MCU (using inhumans as anything but side characters on AoS) along with it.
SDCC trailer. Finally! Medusa's hair!
And it looks terrible. Honestly, even the obviously CGI animation of Julie Mao's hair in free fall in The Expanse was more convincing than this.
I think they should've gone for a practical effect instead of CGI. Built an elaborate articulated "wig" prosthetic with a number of distinct tentacle-like tresses that are individually puppeteered with wires and rods, then digitally erase the wires, rods, and puppeteers from the frame. Have her hair always be in motion, like the way it seems to be in the comics.
I'm underwhelmed by the hair.
That sounds Hella expensive, complicated and probably not good for the actress.
They wouldn't pull on her hair, it's a wig either way.
It could be more dangerous to the rest of the crew though if one of the puppeteers accidentally yanks it off and slaps someone in the face with it.
Not really. Computer wire and rod removal has been a routine digital effect for over two decades. (It was first used to remove the pipe holding up Marty's hoverboard in some shots in Back to the Future Part II.) Puppeteering and animatronic effects have been in use for generations and there are still plenty of skilled artists in the field, even if Hollywood has become overly enamored with CGI. (The prequel to The Thing from a few years ago had really sophisticated, realistic animatronic effects that took months of work and reportedly looked great, but the producers cut them out and replaced them with much more fake-looking CGI at the last minute, because of the industry prejudice that CGI is "superior" rather than just a different tool in the kit.) It would basically be a "tentacle" effect, and that's a pretty straightforward thing to puppeteer. Yes, the wig would be heavy for Serinda Swan, but if there were wires and rods supporting the "tentacles" of hair, that would ease a lot of the weight. See, I'm imagining it the way it looks in the comics, always spread out and flowing, never just hanging straight down like in the show.
Besides, all the things Medusa does with her hair would require a lot of strength in her neck and back muscles anyway to handle the strain. So it's more convincing if the actress really is carrying some weight around and it shows in her body language.
Exactly, this looks like something made in the 90s that would air alongside Sliders or Time Trax.
Yeah, it has that 90s sci-fi syndication look. I was thinking Space Precinct myself.
There's literally nothing in the trailer that hooks me. Not even Lockjaw. It looks cheap, the story (one brother usurping his other brother, plus fish-out-of-water stuff) looks derivative. If it weren't for the Marvel logo up front, would anyone care?
I realized what my problem is, I want this to look great, but it really, really doesn't. I've loved pretty much everything Marvel has done up to this point, so I just find it hard to believe this really is going to be as meh as it looks.
The CGI hair in the trailer is cheesy, but I really think it's a creative rather than technical problem. You already mentioned The Expanse, which I actually thought did a pretty good job with the zero g hair, I honestly didn't even realize it was CGI until I saw a BTS video. So it is possible to decent CGI hair, which makes me think this was simply a creative choice to portray it this way, which does look rather disappointing.
Sure it is technically possible, but it just seems insanely impractical when you consider the fact that this something Serinda Swan would have to wear. It might work if her whole character was a stationary puppet, but I just can't really see her being able to actually move around and act with this thing on her head.
The CGI hair in the trailer is cheesy, but I really think it's a creative rather than technical problem. You already mentioned The Expanse, which I actually thought did a pretty good job with the zero g hair, I honestly didn't even realize it was CGI until I saw a BTS video. So it is possible to decent CGI hair, which makes me think this was simply a creative choice to portray it this way, which does look rather disappointing.
All of those technical problems are soluble with the application of skill. There are plenty of talented experts who have been solving problems of exactly this magnitude for generations -- and doing it so invisibly that you don't even realize they were there.
Consider the Dinosaurs sitcom from the '90s. Every performer in that show was constantly walking around in a heavy rubber suit topped in a massive animatronic head with radio-controlled servos moving the eyes, lips, and facial expressions and being operated in real time by one or two puppeteers. And they managed to do this on a regular basis for 65 episodes. What I'm proposing would be a much simpler and lighter rig, since I'm thinking it'd be mostly rod-puppeted or cable-controlled so there'd be less need for servos and power packs. Although today's servos and power packs are probably a lot lighter than what they had in the '90s, so a radio-controlled rig might work too. People don't realize it because of the obsession with CGI, but the state of the art in animatronic and puppet FX has been improving steadily right alongside CGI. Have you seen the behind-the-scenes video from The Last Jedi showing all the practical creature effects they're doing? The skill is there.
As for the rod and wire work involved, it wouldn't be that much more difficult than the wire work they do every week on Supergirl to make Melissa Benoist fly. She's strapped into a tight, uncomfortable harness, there are a bunch of stagehands pulling on ropes to lift and maneuver her through the air, sometimes there are even people puppeteering her cape so that it moves the way they want it to. Again, this is something they pull of on a weekly basis, and it doesn't impair Benoist's ability to perform, because actors are not fragile and are capable of rising to challenges.
It's downright easy for her since she's made of steel.
Not so easy for the guys pulling the ropes though.
Yeah, having her hair constantly on the move by way of an animatronic wig just isn't practical. For one or two shots: not so bad. All the time: an unworkable nightmare. It would require the actress to wear a ridiculously heavy rig on her person (hello back injury!) trail a thick bundle of control and power cables everywhere she goes (goodbye going more than three steps in any direction!)
Even for a movie, CG is the only truly practical solution and the quality of the effect is entirely dependent on how much time and money one is willing to spend on this *single* element that's going to have to be rendered in every single shot the character is in. Further complicating matters is that if you want it to look anything like natural hair and not shiny plasticine, then you're going to have to simulate it, which means *much* longer render times and the need for multiple passes since more often than not, the physics engine is going to do something weird of spaz out, rendering an unusable shot.
Basically it looks pants because pants is all they can afford. Just going by the other production value on display, even if they haven't spent most of their effects budget on Lockjaw (which I suspect they have) I still don't think they'd be able to get it much past "almost but not quite passable".
Even for a movie, CG is the only truly practical solution and the quality of the effect is entirely dependent on how much time and money one is willing to spend on this *single* element that's going to have to be rendered in every single shot the character is in. Further complicating matters is that if you want it to look anything like natural hair and not shiny plasticine, then you're going to have to simulate it, which means *much* longer render times and the need for multiple passes since more often than not, the physics engine is going to do something weird of spaz out, rendering an unusable shot.
Basically it looks pants because pants is all they can afford. Just going by the other production value on display, even if they haven't spent most of their effects budget on Lockjaw (which I suspect they have) I still don't think they'd be able to get it much past "almost but not quite passable".
Outsiders to a field look at a challenge and declare it impossible. People who actually do it for a living look at a challenge and get to work solving it. Which is why the first group is not working in that field. And the challenges involved here are ones that visual effects artists already solved a quarter-century ago.
Again: Dinosaurs. The puppet heads and costumes they wore were far heavier and more constricting than a modern, lightweight "wig rig" would be. And they didn't need "control and power cables" -- the technology for completely cable-free, radio-controlled rigs has existed since the first Ninja Turtles movie in 1990. Plus I'm talking about something that would mainly be rod- or wire-puppeted anyway. I've made that abundantly clear.
The problem is that today's audiences and filmmakers have become so addicted to CGI that they've forgotten how much animatronics can already do, how much it was doing 20 or 30 years ago that rivaled all but the best CGI today. It's like the people who assume the pyramids had to be built by aliens because the ancients couldn't have had the modern technology "needed" to build them. The fact is, you don't need modern technology; it's just that modern people have become so dependent on that technology that they've forgotten how much people were able to achieve without it.
Exactly where I'm coming from. The limitation of CGI is that it only looks good if you have the time and money to get it right. On a lower budget, if you want to create something that looks physically real, you'd have more luck with something that actually is physically real. That's the mistake people make when they assume CGI is the only way to do effects anymore. Different techniques are better for different things, and CGI should be saved for the things that can't be done practically. And there are a ton of things that can be done practically that are being done by CGI instead and look worse as a result.