Who’s fault is it when movies with money seem low budget?

[Paul Farquhar]

I don't remember Doom being great, but I don't remember it being that bad, either. It's been awhile since I've seen it, though.

I can think of two major reasons why this film might have struggled with budget. First, the First Person Shooter sequence was probably really expensive (even if it didn't look like it).

Second, in 2005 Hollywood was still really struggling with how to handle video game movies. Take a look at this list and what came before it: List of films based on video games - Wikipedia Definitely some movies that were "entertaining", but nothing that was classically "good". Trying to find the right mix of video game aesthetic, realism, fan service, and sci-fi stuff was probably a big problem that no one knew how to handle. The result is what you saw.

Doom may be a seminal video game, but it doesn’t offer much for film makers. Minimal plot and a generic-looking world. On those few occasions when games have good adaptions, there is either a strong plot (Last of Us) or a distinctive world (Fallout, Mario).

 

[Ryujin]

It's the production, and whoever is in charge.

For a small hometown example:

Another teacher and myself are putting on two plays. Both fantasy plays with/for teens. We both have the same budget.

Him: "It's just a dumb play. Whatever". He slaps together whatever is the fastest easiest way to do things. He does not care about how anything looks. He goes to the over priced craft store once to buy supplies and spends his budget. His castle is just gray paper. If you even look his way he will endless whine and complain about the low budget and only if they would give him more money then he would make something amazing.

Me: I'm making an awesome immersive experience by default. I want everything to look great. I spend money lots of places and I'm thrifty. My castle is flat lunch trays(free from the cafatera) covered in clay and dirt, with bits of gray paint: so it looks like stone. I found plenty of 'props' at thrift stores. A lot of the students also found items we could use from their homes. We used real (dead) trees with green paper leaves. Our wizard had a 'party popper' (100% against the rules, but I'm not a rule follower anyway) in his wand to shoot out the glitter when he 'cast the spell.

You could see the huge difference.

The same happens in movies.

Whoever gets obsessed with having a chase or explosions or some such effect....but they can't really do it without it looking cheap and dumb. You would think they would re write it, but no....they just do it. If you can't do it right, then just don't show it.

Of course, this also does not address corruption...where sure the movie had a huge budget.....but most of that went into peoples pockets.

There's also the producer's hairdresser's mistress as the female lead factor to consider. Not quite corruption, but also not quite not corruption.

 

[Parmandur]

its an interesting question. Take the Wheel of Time show for example. The first season, so I was mostly enjoying the first season....until I read up on what its budget was. It was so high I was floored. The show just looked so...cheap, that I had assumed it was a lower budget fantasy show, which I was fine with. But my friend joked about where could they possibly be spending all this cash, because it clearly wasn't on the props or the costumes.

The 2nd season though does look better overall, but I'm not fully sure myself what they changed.

Now, see, I thought the opposite: I hated the Wheel of Time show, but it definitely looked like they spent a ton of money on it.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I would assume Director, Editor and Cinematographer would be most directly to blame for that. I suppose sound design could also be a factor

 

[MarkB]

Now, see, I thought the opposite: I hated the Wheel of Time show, but it definitely looked like they spent a ton of money on it.

Reminds me of the description of the decor in The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe: "Very little expense had been spared to give the impression that no expense had been spared."

 

[Older Beholder]

Without knowing anything about it, I'm going to say the Rock was to blame.

 

[Bohandas]

So I happened to watch the first Doom movie last night, with The Rock, may or may have not seen before, it’s not memorable, so hard to tell. But from the very first scene, it screamed low budget sci-fi, was surprised, thought they would have tried on this one, looked it up, and they did, at least $60MM in 2005. Real money, but it looks and sounds like no budget.

Not talking about acting, or sfx, which are not great, and don’t help, but those are secondary to the the sound, the lighting, the set dressing, the make up, the costuming, the everything making every scene look and sound low production value.

But it wasn’t. They had money. And yet everything is failing here, not only for content, but for feel and appearance.

Everything looks and sounds like it’s taking place on a set. Like we got together all the people who make General Hospital and asked them to make a Doom movie.

This is a huge fail on lots of levels, but the seems fake one seems the signature, and is a hallmark of low budget sci-fi and fantasy, so what are the key things to focus on when you have a low budget to not look as bad as this movie with a budget?

And the 2019 remake was exactly the opposite. It looks like a full budget movie and it only cost ~5 million

 

[Bohandas]

Doom may be a seminal video game, but it doesn’t offer much for film makers. Minimal plot and a generic-looking world. On those few occasions when games have good adaptions, there is either a strong plot (Last of Us) or a distinctive world (Fallout, Mario).

It has almost exactly the same plot as Event Horizon and Event Horizon was a decent movie

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It has almost exactly the same plot as Event Horizon and Event Horizon was a decent movie

Even Horizon uses the same theme but isn’t recognisably the video game. There is no running around an shooting, the “monsters” are inside, and the ship has its own distinct look.

If Event Horizon had had running and shooting monsters it would have been a much worse movie, but a much better video game.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Even Horizon uses the same theme but isn’t recognisably the video game. There is no running around an shooting, the “monsters” are inside, and the ship has its own distinct look.

If Event Horizon had had running and shooting monsters it would have been a much worse movie, but a much better video game.

I like the movie but it is an interesting example because it came in an early CGI era and there is some wonky CGI in that film on occasion (most of it is fine but there are scenes like the floating personal items in the ship that look kind of odd).