{"id":5524,"date":"2026-08-18T18:35:44","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T18:35:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uspropertymoves.com\/?p=5524"},"modified":"2026-08-18T18:35:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T18:35:44","slug":"no-vecna-wasnt-on-ozempic-how-the-stranger-things-vfx-team-rebuilt-its-villain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uspropertymoves.com\/?p=5524","title":{"rendered":"No, Vecna Wasn\u2019t on Ozempic: How the \u2018Stranger Things\u2019 VFX Team Rebuilt Its Villain"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<!-- do not apply CSS styles to this element! --><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>\n\tWhen <em>Stranger Things <\/em>creators Matt and Ross Duffer said they wanted the fifth and final season of the Netflix sci-fi drama to be a \u201cmega movie,\u201d the VFX team knew they would have their work cut out for them.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/uspropertymoves.com\/?p=5522\">Major Theater Chain Cinemark Also Signals It Wants California to Settle With Paramount<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe coming-of-age series requires \u201cway more shots than are normally done on a two-hour feature,\u201d VFX supervisor Betsy Paterson tells <em>THR<\/em>, noting that the show\u2019s overall budget was expanded for the final season. This allowed the crew to execute an epic conclusion to the series\u2019 decade-long run that saw the beloved Hawkins gang unite for a final showdown to take down Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n\tHowever, before the VFX team could tackle the monsters, they had to make the otherworldly dimensions that the series is known for seem realistic. The team relied heavily on practical effects, which were later punched up with visual effects. Paterson notes it\u2019s important to the Duffer brothers to have sets that feel as tactile as possible, so \u201cno matter how crazy this stuff gets, you are really seeing it from the perspective of these kids who are in the real world,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019re always building things for the actors to interact with.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\tTwo examples are the wall in the interdimensional wormhole known as the Upside Down that serves as a portal between Earth and the alternate realm of the Abyss, and the liquefying room inside the Hawkins National Lab where Nancy (Natalia Dyer) and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) are trapped.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\u201cWe built a big chunk of that membrane wall for Hopper [David Harbour] and Eleven [Millie Bobby Brown] to climb on,\u201d Paterson explains. \u201cThe goo in the melting room was real goo wherever it touches anything or the actors.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n\tWhen it came to the Upside Down, the VFX team fortunately already had an established look from the previous four seasons to build upon. They couldn\u2019t say the same about the Abyss, aka Dimension X, however, which was introduced in the final season and had to be designed from scratch.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\u201cThere was some talk about possibly filming it in the real desert,\u201d Paterson says of the new alternate world. \u201cIn the end, the production logistics were too much, but that gave us a base of a look for it. We scanned and took as many reference photos as we could so that the rocks and the geography looked like a real place and not just a kind of mystery CG world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\tAs fans know, no world in <em>Stranger Things<\/em> is ever void, as there are always monsters lurking nearby, namely Vecna. While the resident villain\u2019s appearance in season five led to social media jokes about him being on Ozempic, Paterson clarifies that Vecna\u2019s slimmer physique has to do with how he rebuilt himself after almost being destroyed by Eleven in season four.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tUnlike previous seasons in which Bower wore full practical prosthetics, this time around the team relied more heavily on digital effects to accomplish his new look. \u201cHe is now much more monster than human, and he has caused that to happen. He created himself, really. So that\u2019s what we\u2019re seeing with all the vines and the way they move \u2014 you can see the blood going through them,\u201d Paterson explains. \u201cIt\u2019s an immediate signifier of how much more powerful he is now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/uspropertymoves.com\/?p=5520\">Yes, Sasha Calle Really Got to Drive the Chevy Corvette in \u2018Sugar\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n\tThat power was fully shown when it was revealed that Vecna was working as one entity with another massive monster, the Mind Flayer, whose scale was fully witnessed in the final battle against Eleven and the Hawkins gang.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\u201cThey wanted him as big as we could possibly get, but at a certain point you can\u2019t film it. And it\u2019s just so ridiculous that he would even notice the kids, much less get defeated by them,\u201d Paterson notes of the cosmic CGI creature. \u201cWe went back and forth on that quite a bit and, after lots of motion tests and animation tests by Weta FX, we ended up where we landed with the size.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\tLooking at the season as a whole, it\u2019s easy to assume all the monsters and alternate worlds would be the most difficult to pull off. But for Paterson, the most challenging scene was the opening sequence with a young Will Byers, played by Noah Schnapp, who was only 11 years old when <em>Stranger Things <\/em>debuted in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\u201cI felt so much pressure in that scene because we all know what he looked like,\u201d Paterson admits. \u201cHe\u2019s not in season one that much because he gets kidnapped, so we didn\u2019t have a huge library of footage of him at that age. Weta was able to take every bit that we could find: outtakes, every press photograph, walking on the red carpet. They used all of it to build a young Will that looked like Noah.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n\tWith the help of Schnapp<br \/>and Luke Kokotek, a young stand-in actor, the VFX team was able to replace Kokotek\u2019s face so he would appear as season one Will.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe scene serves as an emblem of the show\u2019s 10-year journey. And with everything coming to a literal end in season five as the Upside Down \u2014 which has been a central part of the show throughout its run \u2014 gets destroyed behind Eleven in the finale, the VFX team had to leave audiences with a memorable last impression.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\u201cWhen you see Hawkins High being destroyed and the Wheeler house, normally we try not to put too much detail into shots that are only going to be seen once, but it was worth it for that scene,\u201d Paterson says. \u201cIt was a lot of fun going frame by frame and spotting all the little stuff that they built just to have it be destroyed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n<em>This story first appeared in an August stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/uspropertymoves.com\/?p=5518\">Laurie May Stepping Down From Elevation Pictures<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The \u2018Stranger Things\u2019 VFX team explains Vecna\u2019s slimmer look in season five and how they pulled off the finale\u2019s massive destruction scenes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5523,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[245,826,827,1388],"class_list":["post-5524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting","tag-awards","tag-emmy-awards","tag-emmys-2026","tag-stranger-things"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>No, Vecna Wasn\u2019t on Ozempic: How the \u2018Stranger Things\u2019 VFX Team Rebuilt Its Villain - US Property Moves<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/uspropertymoves.com\/?p=5524\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"No, Vecna Wasn\u2019t on Ozempic: How the \u2018Stranger Things\u2019 VFX Team Rebuilt Its Villain - US Property Moves\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The \u2018Stranger Things\u2019 VFX team explains Vecna\u2019s slimmer look in season five and how they pulled off the finale\u2019s massive destruction scenes.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/uspropertymoves.com\/?p=5524\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"US Property Moves\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-08-18T18:35:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uspropertymoves.com\\\/?p=5524#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uspropertymoves.com\\\/?p=5524\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uspropertymoves.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/f6dcb1ef8e64fe67b72b772b81aa822c\"},\"headline\":\"No, Vecna Wasn\u2019t on Ozempic: How the \u2018Stranger Things\u2019 VFX Team Rebuilt Its Villain\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-08-18T18:35:44+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uspropertymoves.com\\\/?p=5524\"},\"wordCount\":1032,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uspropertymoves.com\\\/?p=5524#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uspropertymoves.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/c7e057b02ee294ce0df110322c9f8362.webp\",\"keywords\":[\"Awards\",\"Emmy Awards\",\"Emmys 2026\",\"stranger things\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Interesting\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/uspropertymoves.com\\\/?p=5524#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uspropertymoves.com\\\/?p=5524\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uspropertymoves.com\\\/?p=5524\",\"name\":\"No, Vecna Wasn\u2019t on Ozempic: How the \u2018Stranger Things\u2019 VFX Team Rebuilt Its Villain - 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