The Mummy Returns has always been the subject of ridicule for the infamous appearance of Dwayne Johnson as a CGI nightmare called the Scorpion King. The incredulity that the movie was made in the same year that Peter Jackson released his first Lord of the Rings movie and showed what could be done with CGI, has not lessened over time. However, the film’s lead star, Brendan Fraser, recently requested a little kindness for the CG misstep, and said that the film really wouldn’t be the same without the charm of the less than slick rendering of the character.
Brendan Fraser’s second movie in The Mummy franchise heralded the movie debut of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who appeared as The Scorpion King. Johnson would go on to not only appear in a spin-off movie as the character, but somehow also become one of the biggest movie stars in the world over the following two decades. However, when it comes to that first appearance, the really bad CGI could have easily derailed the movie and Johnson’s future career. That didn’t happen though, and when it comes to CGI, Fraser thinks that it deserves a bit of a break too. He told GQ:
“I know, I know, be kind. The guys who did the CGI of the Scorpion King, at the premiere, they were like, ‘hey, how are you, good job. You know, we did the CG for the Scorpion King.’ And they kind of went, ‘yeah, we needed a little more time [Laughs] before we…’ But it was very last minute, I don’t know. But some of the charm of it is that when you watch it now, like it could get remastered I guess, but it kinda wouldn’t be as fun if you didn’t see this sort of janky video character of Dwayne going ‘rawwwh.’ [Laughs] And somehow, it’s just perfect, how things work out.”
Why Was The Scorpion King Such A Bad Piece of CGI?
Universal Pictures
The ability of movies to now not only create amazing characters with computer graphics, but also to put on screen believable digital replicas of actors who have passed away, has led many to look at movies like The Mummy Returns in an even worse light. Of course, VFX in movies have not changed in some respects, as it is still possible to make a movie that has worse special effects than say Star Wars, or other decades-old movies that did not have the luxury of drag-and-drop effects. However, The Mummy Returns’ visual effects supervisor, John Berton Jr. recently addressed the bad look of the Scorpion King, and said there was a reason for it. He said:
“The biggest thing about the Scorpion King in this movie is that we didn’t have the reference that we needed. This isn’t really an excuse, but it’s an explanation of the way things work in movies sometimes. We asked for that of course, we needed a day with Dwayne Johnson to photograph his face and eye detail and all the stuff you would do. Because he was busy with his incredible WWE career that was not possible. We had him for like 3 days maybe in Morocco to shoot his scenes…
I think if you had all that stuff, the animation would work better because it’s meant to be a little cartoony here and I think that informed our decisions about whether or not the shots were done and ready for the movie was that there was an expectation at the time of this needing to reach a certain level.”
