The Walking Dead: Let’s Talk About That Awful CGI Backdrop

The newest episode of The Walking Dead featured a CGI backdrop that is probably the cheesiest thing ever shown on the hit AMC series.

Episode 710, “New Best Friends”, isn’t a terrible episode altogether. There were some very good moments to be found on the show. Daryl and Carol finally reuniting was interesting to see, and Rick’s fight with Winslow the walker is undeniably cool.

There was something in the episode, however, that is extremely cheesy. As a fan of the show, I never take pleasure in criticizing it. But to not talk about it would be ignoring the elephant in the room. As you already know, I’m talking about that CGI background behind Rick Grimes, depicting the entire junkyard.

Screenshots don’t quite do it justice, but if you haven’t seen it, here’s a photograph of the backdrop in question:

Rick Grimes on The Walking Dead (Courtesy of AMC)

I think the idea behind this shot is to give viewers an idea of how large the junkyard is. Unfortunately, the contrast between Rick and the background is so extreme. Never before on the show has a green screen been as obvious. When watching the scene, my girlfriend commented that it looked like Rick was in an 80s movie. I agreed, though what it reminded me of first was the rooftop scenes from The Room.

“Oh, hi Rick.”

What’s more baffling is that they actually use this green screen twice. It’s first shown before Rick falls into Winslow’s pit, and again after he climbs back out. Did nobody really notice how cheap it looks? Perhaps the director overlooked it, but it’s odd that it’d get past all of the producers and AMC heads as well.

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Those shots could have easily been cut, with no harm whatsoever done to the episode. Leaving it in had me chuckling at the scene, which I don’t think is what they were going for. I’ll keep watching — it’s really not a big enough deal to kill the series for me or anything. It was just worth pointing out, because surely I’m not the only one who noticed.