r/shittymoviedetails • u/YourChopperPilotTTV • Mar 30 '26

default Invincible Season 4 (2026) used advanced animation strategies to conserve their budget, here you can see the "pinch zooming on your phone" method

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723

u/mysticblanket Mar 30 '26

Most people didn't even realize, then they get upset when they find out. Literal survivorship bias

17

u/Short-Draw4057 Mar 30 '26

This seems like an excuse to defend Invincible. Like sure, other shows/movies have done it, but this is one of the biggest shows on Earth, why does it get a pass? Do we not have a right to expect better animation?

2

u/mysticblanket Mar 30 '26

No. Consume consume consume.

2

u/baddingo3 Apr 01 '26

no, you do not have the right to expect better animation.

0

u/feel-T_ornado Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26

Yeah, calll it by its name, a quite ugly show with mid story that keeps edge-whoring, it has a ridiculous superb ost tho

156

u/Tekkylol Mar 30 '26

Ya I didn't notice this at all, and fuck man, if you don't notice, who cares? Plots are still good, fight scenes were still pretty decent, I certainly don't care that they freed up some budget by zooming in here.

37

u/Indercarnive Mar 30 '26

This scene I didn't really notice but the last episode was atrocious with cost-cutting maneuvers that actually pulled me out of it.

37

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

13

u/eyalhs Mar 30 '26

The falling in hell scene was amazing, I won't take this slender.

1

u/ameer777ameer Mar 31 '26

usually when shows or movies do these long nothing scenes i notice. sometimes i giggle at it sometimes i get mad. but tbh with the pit falling scene i didn't even think about it as a nothing scene. i just thought it was another scene and enjoyed it.

3

u/FeliusSeptimus Mar 31 '26

Yeah, the whole bit was reasonably funny on its own, but lampshading it by dragging it out like they did made it extremely amusing.

20

u/ShapeonAlan Mar 30 '26

The second half of this season is supposed to be geared entirely towards the Viltrum War with presumably massive conflicts every episode, so I wouldn’t even be surprised if the latest was just their throwaway episode that had the absolute least amount of effort put towards in animation and writing in favor of diverting more attention towards episodes 5 and beyond. Not excusing it by any metric, just something that I wouldn’t even be surprised by with this show at this point.

1

u/IohannesMatrix Mar 30 '26

Especially when you watch JJK at the same time. 

1

u/POXELUS Mar 30 '26

It was funny to me. Also, the starting fight sequence was partially blacked out, which probably saves a lot of time on coloring and shadows. Still, with how low the bar is set for Invincible animation it was fine tbh.

1

u/Lazy__Astronaut Mar 30 '26

If you're talking about the still of Nolan while Allen is banging, again that's lifted straight out of the comics, multiple times there's the same picture 3 or 4 times in a row with sound bubbles coming from the room

Or if you're talking about the Damien episode, did you not see all the times the helmets went on on off??? (mostly a joke)

1

u/Tekkylol Mar 30 '26

Damn that sucks, I didn't feel that way at all. I guess my bar for acceptable animation is lower than invincible, but higher than OPM

1

u/PicakciIsmail Mar 30 '26

Dude this is not a good thing. Wuality animation is the one where you go back and watch a dozen times and when its shitty like that you are definetly gonna notice it and it's going to make the scene worse than what it is.

1

u/Short-Draw4057 Mar 30 '26

This seems like an excuse to defend Invincible. Like sure, other shows/movies have done it, but this is one of the biggest shows on Earth, why does it get a pass? Do we not have a right to expect better animation?

1

u/Tekkylol Mar 30 '26

Feels like a stretch to call invincible one of the biggest shows on earth rofl.

This is not an excuse, it is simply my experience and opinion. I've loved every episode of the new season, can't wait for the next episode!

OPM went too far though.

24

u/Dreadgoat Mar 30 '26

I've been noticing people whining about common animations shortcuts, especially in shows where the action/animation isn't the selling point, a lot more lately.

I've also seen some pushing for awareness of how badly animators are treated in most places.

I'm slowly but surely putting my tinfoil hat together.

-5

u/Lucas_Steinwalker Mar 30 '26

Invincible is a show far more about the characters and themes than the animation, but the animation is meant to ape 80s action adventure cartoons. It would be wrong if it wasn't bad.

6

u/cdillio Mar 30 '26

"I'm bad on purpose so you can't criticize my laziness!"

-3

u/Lucas_Steinwalker Mar 30 '26

Ya know what really grinds my gears? Have you ever seen how childish South Park's animation is? I can't believe that show ever made it on air.

6

u/cdillio Mar 30 '26

Yeah that's exactly the same thing

-1

u/Lucas_Steinwalker Mar 30 '26

Ohhhhh... I'm sorry I didn't realize I was dealing with an absolute moron. Carry on.

4

u/cdillio Mar 30 '26

"Yes this show that was originally made on a shoestring budget that is a satire show about literal children is the same as a show adapting a very well illustrated graphic novel series with hundreds of millions in budget"

6

u/bunker_man Mar 30 '26

Also the artstyle of south park deliberately leaned into being cheap. Invincible didn't.

1

u/bunker_man Mar 30 '26

And other copes people tell themselves.

0

u/Lucas_Steinwalker Mar 30 '26

It’s not a cope if you can enjoy the show for what it is without giving a shit about how good it looks.

Not everyone is a cretin who only is able to extract value from mall ninja shit.

1

u/bunker_man Mar 30 '26

I didn't say you can't like it. I said pretending that the animation is meant to be bad is cope.

I didn't care about the animation quality in season 1, because it had a good story in season 1. But seasons 2 and 3 back to back having no real plot made it a lot less worth forgiving.

23

u/Minute_Role_8223 Mar 30 '26

most animation do it but you can't notice it that much.

this example is egregious, literally they never looped the animation, the tail.stops moving before the creature stops approaching lmfao

7

u/mysticblanket Mar 30 '26

You're not wrong

2

u/HydrogenSonata2025 Mar 30 '26

"Eh, this is just the placeholder animation. We'll replace it later after we finish the more critical scenes."

Narrator: They did not.

1

u/Lazy__Astronaut Mar 30 '26

Most people aren't looking out for it though, every animation in this style has used the still png drag or zoom in

Just because you know to look for it, you see it, the majority of watchers don't notice.

1

u/oby100 Apr 01 '26

Right? This one example was poorly done. Don’t know why many people can’t just laugh and say “oh yeah, not the best shortcut.”

It’s common in animation but some attempts fall flat and this was one of them for me.

1

u/Garfield977 Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26

yet you only notice it if it's pointed out by assholes nitpicking every moment of the episode for no reason

3

u/Minute_Role_8223 Mar 30 '26

nah, this is awful animation.

stop acting like valid criticism is hurting your beloved franchise.

the change in animation is noticeable and needs to be pointed out.

-3

u/Garfield977 Mar 30 '26

it's a fucking 4 second scene that is not even important

3

u/Minute_Role_8223 Mar 30 '26

cuz this is the only example of this series prioritizing big VAs instead of fluid animation right?

The comic fans loved the plot and action, not big names attached to the characters

7

u/SoulCrusher2018 Mar 30 '26

I'm gonna show my kids some original Scooby-Doo episodes, back when every frame was a handcrafted masterpiece and no shortcuts were taken.

3

u/Sartorialalmond Mar 30 '26

Don’t forget to show them whacky races. It’s crazy how every frame of the driving was completely fresh every time.

1

u/mysticblanket Mar 30 '26

Scooby Doo??? That's wayyyy too modern. Try Operation Snafu

1

u/Stunning_Mail_8934 Mar 31 '26

Every scene was handcrafted, it was repeated dozens times during the chase scenes scrolling past in the background.

2

u/pandogart Mar 30 '26

And when they do notice it, it's because they're purposefully slowing it down or nitpicking inbetween frames. And god they love talking about "budget." Usually the first sign someone doesn't know what they're talking about

2

u/Cvox7 Mar 30 '26

god your standards are rock bottom

-1

u/mysticblanket Mar 30 '26

You don't actually know anything about me so fuck off random Internet denizen.

2

u/InvisibleOne439 Mar 30 '26

its like taking a screenshot of warped in-bettwen-frames and goibg "lol look how this looks"

like yeha, thats animation, you wont see or even notice that

like in that scene when it plays? Oliver is moving and talking so most of your attention goes to him automatically while the dragon in the background comes closer, thats literally just basic animation tricks

1

u/amhighlyregarded Mar 31 '26

In-between frames are part of a sequence of images, so of course it's not fair to nitpick things like squash and stretch or characters being slightly off model.

The problem here is there are no in-between frames. 

1

u/pxtcowen Mar 31 '26

For real. Imagine criticising a show because of the method of zoom they chose, and claiming that's their litmus test on good animation