A big part of watching sci-fi and fantasy TV is teaching yourself to overlook the sometimes shoddy special effects used to bring the impossible to life. Some shows, such as The Flash, lean into their VFX’s crappiness for camp, while others, such as Inhumans, seem to simply not care. But then there are shows such as Hulu’s Runaways that put other shows to shame with their impressive and creative use of a TV FX budget.
Image: Hulu
Out of all of Marvel’s TV shows, Runaways might be the most technically difficult to bring to the small screen when you take into account just how complicated the team is. You have a super strong kid sister, a hacker and a tech genius – all fairly easy to pull off – but then there’s also an iridescent alien made of light, a powerful witch, and a girl with a living dinosaur.
Nico’s Staff of One has had a flew flashy moments here and there, and Karolina’s Majesdanian form is passable (but not quite the visual spectacle it is in the comics.) But when it came to Old Lace, Gert’s (Ariela Barer) pet deinonychus with whom she has a psychic rapport, there was some very justified uncertainty as to how Runaways was going to manage creating a CGI dinosaur that read as believable. After making brief appearances in a couple of episodes as a rustling in the bushes or a flash of leathery, grey-green skin, Old Lace finally made her first full-on appearances over the course over the last two episodes. Against all odds, she looks phenomenal.
Because Old Lace is just as much a member of the Runaways team as any of the kids, it was crucial that the production team got her right, which doesn’t just mean that the dinosaur had to look realistic – the actors needed to be able to interact with her in a believable way. Runaways uses a clever blend of CGI and practical effects during Old Lace’s shots that blend seamlessly together. Wider, establishing shots of the animal are mostly (if not entirely) rendered with computers, while tighter shots (especially those involving live actors) use what appear to be very detailed puppets of Old Lace’s head and talons.
It’s in the moments where Runaways deftly blurs the line between puppetry and VFX that Old Lace comes alive. During her first encounter with Molly (Allegra Acosta) when the two fight inside of the Yorkes’ house, there are just enough little practical, physical details – strands of saliva, a bumped nose ring – that when the edit suddenly shifts to a CGI-heavy shot, your mind still accepts the dinosaur as a tangible thing. Runaways’ actors do a phenomenal job of selling their scenes involving Old Lace, which also plays a significant role in making the character work. All the nifty FX tricks in the world can’t compensate for actors who can’t quite get the hang of interacting with CGI characters, but for the cast here, thankfully that’s a non-issue.
So far, we’ve only really seen Old Lace in darker, more enclosed settings, and it will be interesting to see how Runaways handles her once the team is out and about in broad daylight. Until then, though, Old Lace is more than welcome to stay in the shadows, luxuriating in the fact that she’s running laps around Medusa’s terrible wig.