Wednesday Season 1’s CG Hyde Monster Wasn’t Scary
Tim Burton Must Fix This 1 Problem In Wednesday Season 2 – And His Next Movie Shows How
Wednesday season 1 got the Netflix show off to a terrific start, but there’s one major villain problem that Tim Burton needs to fix in season 2.
Wednesday season 1 got the hit Netflix series off to a great start, but there was one major problem with its villain that needs to be fixed in season 2. Based on the beloved Addams Family character of the same name, Wednesday sees Jenna Ortega’s psychic teenager attending the Nevermore Academy with her similarly supernaturally gifted classmates. The first season was a whodunit revolving around the search for a “Hyde” monster terrorizing the campus. The Hyde made for a solid bad guy, but there was one production issue that held the character back.
When it premiered in late 2022, Wednesday quickly became one of Netflix’s biggest hits. Within a couple of months, the streamer had renewed the series for a second season with Ortega now serving as a producer. The ongoing strike action in Hollywood will have undoubtedly caused setbacks in the development of Wednesday season 2. This will give the producers plenty of time to figure out their strategy for the show’s future, and there’s one major issue from season 1 that needs to be fixed.
Wednesday Season 1’s CG Hyde Monster Wasn’t Scary
The early episodes of Wednesday season 1 built up a lot of dread and anticipation around the story’s main villain: the Hyde attacking people on the Nevermore campus. But when the Hyde was finally revealed, it was hugely underwhelming because it was created with CGI effects. This CG Hyde looked too glossy and manufactured to be terrifying. It doesn’t hit on a gut level, because it’s not real. Wednesday season 2 deserves a much scarier monster created with more realistic practical effects as opposed to CGI.
Rob Bottin’s practical effects in John Carpenter’s The Thing still hold up today as a terrifying vision of otherworldly horrors. The prequel, released nearly three decades later in 2011, forwent the classic practical effects that made Carpenter’s film a classic and instead created its alien monsters with CGI. The fear factor went down exponentially, because CGI never looks as good as the real thing. Practical effects have a visceral bite to them – they’re real things being captured on film – whereas CGI inherently looks fake.
Wednesday Season 2 Can Use Tim Burton’s Practical Effects
Tim Burton serves as an executive producer on Wednesday and directed the first half of the show’s first season. Burton is currently hard at work on the long-awaited Beetlejuice 2, starring Ortega as Lydia Deetz’s daughter, and he’s reportedly going back to the old-school practical effects that made the original movie so charming. After working with practical FX on the production of Beetlejuice 2, Burton should embrace those practical methods when he finishes the sequel and gets to work on Wednesday season 2.
