By "partially explains" I meant that if you spend money in this kind of thing, minor details that sometimes don't even end on the final cut, the costs can add up. I'm wondering to what extent the producers get good value for their money, or whether the Pareto principle applies here - is it possible to make something 80% as good for 20% of the cost, by focusing on the 20% that matters?

For an extreme example, think Transformers, where hundreds of millions and dollars can't save bad writing. Making things better at the screenplay level is probably much more cost-effective than spending millions in VFX (or, in this case, creating a full language where subtitled not-entirely-random gibberish would probably do)

> think Transformers, where hundreds of millions and dollars can't save bad writing

The box office result says otherwise.

(Note: I'm explicitly making an economical argument, not an artistic one, since that's what the thread focuses on.)

I'd say Transformers did a pretty good job of doing what it set out to do (make money) even if you and I don't care for it :-)

Certainly there are good "little" movies that get made on a relative shoestring. And even more shorts and arthouse fare. And modern video equipment makes it a lot easier to mostly use natural lighting and the like.

That said, mainstream TV and movies have made most of our standards pretty high. I'm always somewhat amazed by how much gear gets brought in by a video crew to shoot a few minutes of talking heads to use on a company web site.

Well, the language is extended as needed, so it's still making up foreign words as you go. They just have to fit into the language properly.