Ever had poor set design ruin a movie?
 

Last night i saw a bit of The Searchers... the sky was so obviously fake. It's supposed to be out west, but you can see the huge background and sky painted so blatantly it looked stupid and distracting. I'll probably watch the full thing tonight, if i can, but it just looked so damn shitty.

I can't say i've ever had a whole movie ruined because of poor set design or any technical aspect, there's been some that are somewhat distracting though but i can't think of any examples.

Why are you looking for flaws in the set design when you should be watching the action on the screen?

And I'm fairly certain they shot most of the exteriors of that on location. Are you referring to a matte painting or something?

The Wizard of Oz looks pretty fake now when I watch it. But it doesn't bother me as nearly as much as bad CGI.

I don't think it was even supposed to look realistic then. It's very obviously fantastic.

I understand its supposed to be fantastic but the sky is still blue and clouds are still white, the things that are supposed to look real don't really do a good job. You shouldn't watch a movie and be able to tell it was shot on soundstages in every scene regardless where the movie is supposed to take place. Just my opinion, the movie is still great.

I didn't start watching it thinking "gee i wonder if i can find flaws in the set design", it just popped out instantly. The movie is probably great and i'd forget about these distractions, but i only saw about 20 seconds of it.

What about a movie like The Life Aquatic where the director deliberately draws attention to the artificial sets?

I don't think the fantasy world of Wizard of Oz was ever intended to look realistic. Even in your "sky blue, clouds white" comparison, the sky is too blue. The grass is too green, the road too yellow. Every color is artificially hightened. The Lion, Scarcrow, and Tinman are obviously people in outfits. The movie revels in artifice instead of realism. It plays out very much like a stage musical, which it pretty much is.

Compare Wizard of Oz to Return to Oz. Now in Return, everything is played for realism, even though it takes place in the same fantastic realm of Oz. I think it's a bit much to look back at Wizard and think that they were actually thinking their sets would fool anyone.