‘She-Hulk’ Director, Writer And Star Defend Her Body, Sympathize With ‘Rushed’ VFX Artists

Games ‘She-Hulk’ Director, Writer And Star Defend Her Body, Sympathize With ‘Rushed’ VFX Artists Paul Tassi Senior Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. News and opinion about video games, television, movies and the internet. New! Follow this author to improve your content experience.

Got it! Aug 4, 2022, 10:30am EDT | New! Click on the conversation bubble to join the conversation Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin She-Hulk Disney We are just two weeks away from the debut of She-Hulk, which will arrive on Thursdays, a non-standard Disney Plus time. The show has been the subject of some measure of controversy for its almost entirely CG-lead, She-Hulk herself, as some have questioned both the onscreen realization of the character and the quality of the FX work seen in the trailers. Now, the director of the show, its showrunner and its star have all chimed in about all these issues, and have made some pretty forceful defenses of both the character and those tasked with bringing her to life.

First, director Kat Coiro spoke at the TCA press tour (via THR ) about the pushback that She-Hulk should have been more muscular than she appears to be in this version: “In terms of the CGI being critiqued, I think that has to do with our culture’s belief in its ownership of women’s bodies,” Coiro said. “I think a lot of the critique comes from feeling like they’re able to tear apart the CGI woman. There’s a lot of talk about her body type and we based it on Olympian athletes and not bodybuilders.

But I think if we had gone the other way, we would be facing the same critique. I think it’s very hard to win when you make women’s bodies. ” I think she’s right in that if they had gone the other direction, and had made She-Hulk more bulky and more akin to Hulk himself, as she’s been seen in some comic versions, they probably would have faced just as much, if not more criticism for going in that direction, given the nature of these debates, and who tends to be having them.

MORE FOR YOU ‘Demon Slayer’ Season 2 Finally Has An Actual 2021 Release Date Netflix’s ‘Squid Game’ Season 2 Not A Sure Thing, Says Director ‘Genshin Impact’ Still Refuses To Increase Anniversary Rewards, Despite Fan Outcry She-Hulk Disney Plus The quality of the CGI is an adjacent issue, and it’s not just about her body type, but her movements and expressions, bringing Tatiana Maslany’s performance to life. Writer/showrunner Jessica Gao talked about how hard it is to have a CGI lead, and how hard VFX artists have to work to make that happen: “This is a massive undertaking to have a show where the main character is CG. It’s terrible that a lot of artists feel rushed and and feel that the workload is too massive.

I think everybody on this panel stands in solidarity with all workers. ” Maslany chimed in as well: “I feel incredibly deferential to how talented these artists are and how quickly they have to work. Obviously, much quicker than probably should be given to them in terms of like churning these things out.

We have to like be super conscious of the work conditions which aren’t always optimal. ” This reflects recent reports about the overall crunch happening to the VFX industry in Hollywood right now where there’s a massive backlog of work, shortage of talent and Marvel in particular has been brought up as needing tons and tons of support, often on very short notice, often redoing old work, and so on. It is certainly noteworthy that She-Hulk’s showrunner, director and star all spoke up very publicly in solidarity with those workers, which makes this the most prominent spotlight I’ve seen on the problem from Marvel talent itself.

These issues have seeped their way into actual productions (see some of Thor’s recent wonky effects), and there does not seem to be a real solution in sight. She-Hulk, for its part, has looked better with each new still or teaser that’s dropped, but again, nine episodes of a show starring a fully CG lead may be tough to get done to perfection. We’ll see how it goes in two weeks.

Follow me on Twitter , YouTube , Facebook and Instagram . Subscribe to my free weekly content round-up newsletter, God Rolls . Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy .

Paul Tassi Editorial Standards Print Reprints & Permissions.