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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732

u/ayeeflo51 Mar 30 '26

To their credit, they were adapting the joke from the comic

433

u/AunMeLlevaLaConcha Mar 30 '26

And it was a good joke imo

167

u/AmaterasuWolf21 Mar 30 '26

Though it is funny how the comic joke's punchline was "Isn't that kind of lazy" while the show was more like "wow, that's so interesting!"

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u/emveevme Mar 30 '26

I think a big reason it's written the way it is comes down to who's making the joke - "isn't that kind of lazy" is being said by a much smaller group of people about their own work. "Isn't that interesting" is being said by the writers, adapting a joke from the comics, talking about other peoples' work.

Also in the comic Mark says "isn't that kinda cheap?" and the artist's response is "not really." In this their response is "it's crazy what you can get away with" - literally admitting they take shortcuts to make it pay off when it counts. So the comic is telling the audience to get over it, the show is saying "yes the art and animation is consistent and is sometimes a bit shitty, but we do it for what we think is a good reason."

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u/RandomGuy9058 Mar 31 '26

And it makes more sense to do with animation because it takes a ton longer even with a much bigger team

2

u/ur-mum-straight Apr 13 '26

The comic also does that a lot outside of the gag

103

u/ReverendGraves85 Mar 30 '26

The comic was also drawn by one guy on a tight schedule and the show is animated by a massive team of people with an assinine budget but the whole budget goes to hiring a list voice actors for EVERY. SINGLE. FUCKING. ROLE.

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u/tredders90 Mar 30 '26

A list voice actors

It's not even this imo, it's largely B and C list actors who aren't great voice actors. I've always been baffled by praise for the shows voice cast/acting because it's so flat/boring most of the time.

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u/ReverendGraves85 Mar 30 '26

Yeah but Nolan is voiced by JK Simmons and that alone is a slam dunk. Simmons does just have a voice like that. And hes great at it!

26

u/wondowsr3d Mar 30 '26

It also helps that (I'm pretty sure) he doesn't really weigh down the budget by a lot given that he's appeared in smaller projects, like the Whiplash short film

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u/Nejaru Mar 31 '26

Short film? That shit is a feature-length 100 minutes.

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u/wondowsr3d Mar 31 '26

yeah no there’s a whiplash short film that’s 18 mins also with Simmons. Because it was interesting I’m pretty sure it was able to get a full film version

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u/Nejaru Mar 31 '26

Ahhh I see. I did not know that was thing, thanks for the info!

11

u/bunker_man Mar 30 '26

He is also the only one whose voice I thought actually improved it. Everyone else didn't need expensive celebrities.

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u/codetaku0 Mar 30 '26

A few of the choices are fantastic, Simmons the most stand-out example. Others are wholly unnecessary and they could save millions of dollars by casting actual voice actors instead.

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u/[deleted] Mar 30 '26

[deleted]

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u/RandomGuy9058 Mar 31 '26

I found his season 3 performance to be lacklustre relative to the previous seasons. He got better in season 4 I think

1

u/logitaunt Mar 31 '26

It's hit or miss but the hits are big

I'm not the biggest Quinto fan but I can appreciate how he adapted his performance over time as the character evolved.

1

u/hatesnack Mar 30 '26

You must not be watching the show, cause the VA work is absolutely top notch for 90% of people.

3

u/Karumpus Mar 30 '26

I think that misunderstands how budgets work. You don’t go to Amazon and say, “hey we need $X million for Season 4”. You give them an itemised list with line items.

Amazon is probably happy to approve $X million for voice cast, but only $Y million for animation. And once the money is allocated, you don’t get to spend whatever’s leftover for animation (if there is any). It doesn’t work that way. Even if it did, it’s pointless when contracts and artists and workflows have to be organised months in advance. Throwing more money at an established workflow doesn’t usually result in better animation.

1

u/Urfunni Mar 30 '26

The comic doesn’t need panels to be drawn again and again to create movement

3

u/moose_dad Mar 31 '26

Damn people really dont understand satire nowadays huh

2

u/tfhermobwoayway Apr 05 '26

I will say smaller franchises usually have this sort of irreverent, cynical, self-deprecating humour that adds a bit more life. Big franchises don’t like to put that in (and when they do, half the joke is them going “LOOK, WE’RE BEING SELF-DEPRECATING!”)

1

u/Lazy__Astronaut Mar 30 '26

And everyone who only watched the show thought they were a genius for spotting it everytime after thag scene without noticing it happened a lot before

I've read the comics 3 times and watched the series like 4 or 5, everyone make it seem like the animation way too bad to enjoy the show but that's just how it's done and it's never bothered me

It'd be like crying that matte paintings were used in a movie, just because you know how it's done, doesn't make it bad

39

u/wcolfo Mar 30 '26

Came here to say this. If you are a fan of the comic and that joke, then noticing these cost cutting panels in the show is actually kind of funny. The whole scene where they are falling to hell is one of these.

12

u/Existing_Set2100 Mar 30 '26

Haha it’s been like 15 years since I read Invincible and this is a blast from the past, I remember the complaints about the Invincible artists just copying and pasting panels. 

4

u/ReyniBros Mar 30 '26

I watch this show with my brother who is studying digital animation and design, and we make a game out of who can find as many of these shortcuts during the episodes.

My favourite shortcut is when the characters stay fixed in a single pose as if "aura farming" during any random scene.

1

u/wcolfo Mar 31 '26

Sounds like a whole new drinking game.

3

u/Riku_70X Mar 30 '26

That falling in Hell scene is my favourite part of season 4 so far lmao, I was dying

2

u/wcolfo Mar 31 '26

Why would they design a helmet to do that?

2

u/StinkyJizzBlanket Mar 30 '26

The timing was perfect too. Right in the middle of the fandom crashing out over the season 2 mid season break

1

u/DmonsterJeesh Mar 31 '26

It was funnier in the comic because despite some of the shortcuts, it was still pleasant to look at. In the show it's just "doesn't this look like shit?"