Millions of people have already watched Tatiana Maslany transform in the trailer for She-Hulk, an upcoming series from Marvel Studios that dropped its anticipated first preview yesterday.
Despite the hype — and soaring view count — She-Hulk's new teaser left fans unimpressed, as many criticized what they felt were noticeably sloppy visual effects.
For those who aren't familiar with the show's plot, She-Hulk centers on Tatiana's character Jennifer Walters, an attorney that originally debuted in Marvel Comics. She's the cousin of Bruce Banner — aka Hulk, played by Mark Ruffalo — and inherits his superpowers after a blood transfusion.
Visual effects in She-Hulk include computer-generated imagery, or CGI, which VFX artists use to give real actors inhuman physical qualities like green skin and gargantuan size. The trick works well in some scenes unveiled in the trailer. In others, not so much.
Folks online had a lot to say about this, and Twitter quickly erupted with memes and critiques of She-Hulk's digitally-altered appearance.
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For the most part, skeptical social media users pointed out that Tatiana's She-Hulk character looked unfinished.
she-hulk cgi lookin like
There were Shrek jokes...
she-hulk seeing people say her cgi looks like a live action background character from shrek
...and a resurgence of memes featuring Adele at the NBA All-Star game.
me pretending i don’t notice the bad cgi in she-hulk
"Please fix the CGI in She-Hulk," one Twitter user wrote, alongside a photo of a lime-green character from the '90s animated series ReBoot.
Please fix the CGI in She-Hulk.
"Reminder that each episode of She-Hulk has a budget of 25M," another said. "What the hell happened to the CGI?"
Reminder that each episode of She-Hulk has a budget of 25M. What the hell happened to the CGI?
Exactly how much each episode of She-Hulk cost to make is unclear, although we do know that Disney+ spent between $15 and $25 million on other Marvel projects like The Mandalorian, WandaVision, and Hawkeye. Reports published ahead of She-Hulk's production placed the budget somewhere between $10 and $15 million per episode, but suggested the number could ultimately be higher.
Negative reactions to the CGI in She-Hulk's trailer were accompanied by some positive ones, too. "The CGI for She-Hulk should not be that much of a concern considering it is three fucking months away," another user wrote on Twitter. "It will probably look fine by the time it comes out."
The CGI for she-hulk should not be that much of a concern considering it is 3 fucking months away it will probably look fine by the time it comes out
The type of visual effects required for films and shows like She-Hulk are notoriously time-intensive and difficult to create, since they task artists with tweaking live actors' physical traits while also splicing them with bodies that are entirely imagined. Films that reaped acclaim for these feats — Avatar and Avengers: Endgame are two prominent examples — took years to produce, and those were just a few hours long.
