Doctor Strange: How Marvel Made The Time Reversal Scene

Screen Rant

By Cooper Hood

Published Feb 20, 2017

One of the visual effects supervisors on Doctor Strange breaks down the complexities behind the time bending final fight.

Doctor Strange challenged viewers to open their minds to experience something unlike anything Marvel had presented before. This was not just an indication that magic was in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but a promise that the visuals would be something completely unique. The earliest marketing drew comparisons to Christopher Nolan's Inception thanks to buildings folding in on themselves, but Doctor Strange took this to a completely new level.

As if the exploration of multiple dimensions was not trippy enough, the film's more revolutionary visual scene came in the third act. As Dormammu is making his way to Earth, the power of the Eye of Agamotto was realized. The result was Strange, Mordo, Kaecilius, and his minions engaging in a battle that saw them moving forward, but everything else around them going in reverse.

The battle was visually impressive, and has been one of the film's standout scenes. Thanks to Mark Bakowski, a VFX Supervisor on the film, fans can now find out just how difficult it was to be made. Bakowski sat down with BBC Click to discuss the final fight and give a behind-the-scenes look at how the VFX department made the scene possible.

In a day in age where superhero movies and blockbusters in general are all dissected to find what makes them special, this fight scene will continue to stand out as a highlight from Doctor Strange. As the video shows, there were multiple steps taken to make the fight scene a reality, many of which may have gone unnoticed initially. However, it clearly took a ton of planning, as the supervisor states, to make sure they didn't have people running through other objects when they layered shots on top of each other.

With the bar set extremely high for how creative Marvel can get with fight scenes involving the eventual Sorcerer Supreme, it should be interesting to see where they go from here. Clearly, once Avengers: Infinity War rolls around and Thanos takes the Time Stone out of the Eye of Agamotto, Strange won't be able to repair things on the fly. Finding new abilities and spells for him to use will be fun to see explored when he's with a handful of other superheroes, but also once he goes solo again for an officially unannounced Doctor Strange 2. However, with the character poised for a bright future in the MCU, Marvel could have a difficult time topping this scene.