LogInNeither the asset's Modeler nor Rigger were mentioned in the credits.
As many predicted weeks before its release – based on early reviews, Lionsgate's casting decisions, and something called "common sense" – Eli Roth's Borderlands movie turned out to be a cinematic fiasco, failing to impress the audiences and currently sitting at a meager 52% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
The first reviews began pouring shortly after the film hit the screens, describing the experience as "borderline unwatchable," "utterly forgettable," "one of the worst films of the year," "cliché," "unfunny," "visually repulsive dud," "cheap," and many other colorful adjectives, creating a convincing message for audiences to avoid spending their time or money on this film, even if they are die-hard fans of the original game series.
Things took a turn for the worse, however, when it was discovered that the movie failed to credit the team responsible for one of the few things Borderlands got right: the CG model of Claptrap. Senior Rigging TD Robbie Reid, who rigged Claptrap and first noticed the oversight, revealed on Twitter that neither he nor the Modeling Artist who created the Claptrap asset were properly credited, despite both working on the model for five consecutive months.
"Up until this point I've been exceptionally lucky to have received a credit for every film I've worked on," commented the artist. "It just stings that the one to finally break the streak was the last film I worked on at a studio. And for such a significant character too.
To those saying I dodged a bullet, artists should still get credit for work done no matter the quality of the film. It's not a high bar to cross. I'm proud of the work our team did, and I thought the final product looked great.
In the end, I'm fine. I have plenty of credits on other films, and I'll still use the work in my reel. But it's harder for juniors and artists breaking into the industry to be left off the credits. It's disheartening, and it also makes it harder to verify the work you did."
Over in the comments, Reid suggested that he and Claptrap's modeler were excluded because they both left the studio all the way back in 2021, and it took a long time for the movie to be released. He also noted that the issue of Hollywood blockbusters ignoring the contributions of CG and VFX Artists and failing to mention them in the end credits is unfortunately not new and is a common problem in the industry.
And Reid is definitely correct here, as almost exactly one year ago, it was reported that over 80% of the VFX crew behind Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer were not included in the end credits. The film credited only 26 VFX Artists along with VFX Supervisor Andrew Jackson, totaling just 27 credited VFX creators. In contrast, DNEG's website listed over 160 individuals who contributed to Oppenheimer, revealing that more than 130 people were unjustly left out by Universal and Nolan.
What do you think about Hollywood studios not including VFX Artists in the credits? Is it all just a series of coincidences or is there something behind it? Tell us in the comments!
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