The dirty secret to making science fiction believable

Over the past decade, a plethora of science fiction and fantasy series have appeared on television and streaming. With peak Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, The Wheel of Time, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, The vastness, The witcher, Silo, Foundation, and more, keeping track of the deluge and discerning which ones are worth it is daunting. But there’s a very simple trick to determining whether any of these shows are good or not, and it’s all about the costumes.

Costumes seem like an obvious barometer, but the measurements may not be what you expect. Instead of looking for costumes with quality, attention to detail, or uniquely inspired designs, all you have to do is look at how dirty the costumes are.

Costume weathering, the process of adding details of wear such as dirt, cuts and scratches, is a lost art in most productions. The easiest place to see the gold standard is in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Those costumes are not only beautifully designed, they are also beautifully destroyed. The hobbits’ cloaks look fresh and beautiful The Company of the Ring, but by the time Sam and Frodo reach Mordor, they are torn and faded, with brilliant greens reduced to faded grays by mottled stains created deeply by weeks of sleeping on the ground and slogging through the mud walked. And the same goes for every other character’s clothing; Aragorn’s leathers are worn and tired from years of nomadic adventures, a stark contrast to the brightness of Legolas’ elven-made armor or Boromir’s quasi-royal Gondorian garb.

It’s striking and beautiful, the kind of detail that may not immediately catch your eye, but is an essential part of transporting viewers to Middle-earth. It’s also a big reason that Prime Video’s Middle-earth The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power feels so off. It’s less immersive and more immediately artificial, inescapably fake with the ever-present awareness that you’re watching actors on sets. This feeling comes from a few different aspects of that show’s production, but the most striking are the pristine costumes: dwarves who spend their lives in the depths of Moria are dressed in unsanded leather that looks like it only has some was made moments before they stepped. in frame. The cleanliness of the robes that adorn elves like Elrond and Gil-galad should provide striking contrasts to the dirty and dented armor of Galadriel the warrior, but instead her armor looks virtually unworn, even when she is in the middle of battle sit. Even the proudly unwashed Harfoots wear clothes that look as if they have never been patched. The clothes look rough, but they are certainly not the worn-out tunics you would expect from a people who happily spend their time with nature and are not afraid of dirt and mud. Rather than transporting us into a world, all this cleanliness simply draws attention to the artifice on screen; How can this version of Middle-earth be real if it doesn’t even have dirt in it?

This problem even varies from show to show in certain franchises. Take, for example, the recent Disney Plus series of Star Wars. A series like Ahsoka has its heroes fighting across dusty plains and ghostly forest planets, all without much noticeable grit on their cloaks to show for it. In the meantime, AndorThe film’s costumes are covered in dirt in almost every scene and the effects are excellent. Aside from the fact that it only brings us deeper into a more believable, more lived-in world, the wear and tear tells us something real about the characters and their opposition. Seeing the tears and stains in the rebels’ clothing, we get a sense of the desperation of the movement, perfectly paralleling the carefully bleached white clothing and pleated trousers of the Imperial officers who opposed them.

Indeed, the contrast between the two helps us understand the poignant gray area that Luthen Rael finds himself in: his beautiful flowing robes and general gut instincts are disarming to the empire he is secretly trying to undermine, but they also position him as opulent and privileged in the world. company of his fellow rebels. With this little bit of costume, we can clearly understand that Luthen finds himself uncomfortably between two conflicting worlds, destined never to fit neatly into either. It’s a wealth of characterization that comes from distressing a few items of clothing, and it’s communicated more elegantly and effectively than dialogue ever could.

Image: Lucasfilm

Prime Videos Fallout is the latest series to join the vaunted handful of shows with wonderfully gross costumes. Consisting mainly of carefully designed practical sets and impressive location shots, the series takes great care in putting together the characters’ outfits. And everyone’s costume tells a story in the Wasteland. The Ghoul (Walton Goggins) in particular is covered from head to toe in stolen items: a belt from one bounty, a shirt from another, a duster that looks like it came straight from one of Cooper Howard’s sets. Everything he has is cobbled together and shows its age nicely with bullet holes, stains and dirt ground deep into the fibers.

And he’s not alone in this filth: scammers wear patchy suits with yellowed white shirts to project an air of respect, people who want people to know they’re dangerous carry their spotless weapons in ratty holsters that are worn out through constant use, while those who wish To conceal their intentions wear coats and jackets in various states of disrepair, with their weapons carefully stowed away. All this gives Fallout a clear sense of place that helps everything else about the showland become more effective. Jokes from a lunatic who can’t quite figure out a water filter just land better when it’s crystal clear how long it’s been since this guy washed his pants.

While it’s easy to mistake these details purely for realism, they actually do something much more important than making the series look believable: they help build a more complete and coherent world. FalloutThe world is definitively different from ours, so we need everything we see on screen, from buildings and vaults to hats and shoes, to clue us in to the details. It’s also a nice little visual metaphor for one of the show’s overarching themes, about how the Wasteland changes the people who venture into it. Of course, there’s Lucy, whose bright blue jumpsuit fades into something earthier as she navigates deadly situations and learns her own capacity for violence. But even Supervisor Hank, the person who first teaches the lessons about how the Wasteland changes people, goes from prim and proper in the Vault to covered in dirt and grime when we meet him again and learn of his wretched deeds that he hides behind his pleasant deeds. facade.

Image: Primevideo

FalloutIt is a series that is impressively aware of how important all these facets are, and that wants you to be too. In fact, the show itself carefully draws attention to them in the opening minutes of the first season. When Vault 33’s new guests from Vault 32 arrive for Lucy’s wedding, characters begin to notice the subtle differences between their clean and well-maintained jumpsuits and the jumpsuits of their fellow “Vault Dwellers.” By the time they realize something is wrong, chaos ensues. It’s a delicate little storytelling trick that helps us understand the importance of details in the series, like the writers and director tipping their hats on what’s going to be important in the future.

Careful attention to the smallest details is what separates good shows from great ones. The salt-washed stiffness of the Iron Islands mantles Game of Thrones or the beautiful, precise uniforms of Empire in Foundation help us sink into their worlds and gather details that lesser shows either stuff into exposition dumps or omit altogether. Of course, there are other great and important things about a series, like the writing, the directing, or the performances, but nothing separates the chaff of science fiction and fantasy from the chaff faster than the little imperfections that big shows work into their smallest garments. The best shows always have a bit of smut.