Why does Netflix’s ‘The Sandman’ look distorted and skewed on-screen?

Excited fans of Neil Gaiman’s epic graphic novel series The Sandman were in for a treat when the highly-anticipated first season premiered on Netflix this summer after several years of pre- and post-production. However, within minutes of the first episode they noticed something looked… off. 

The graphic novel — which was published by DC comics in 1989 — has fought an uphill battle to get to where it is today on one of the biggest streaming platforms on the planet. First conversations of a movie-adaptation began in the early ’90s, but after a variety of creative differences between various players on the field halted the project, the adaptation has essentially lived in development hell for over 30 years and became widely considered “unfilmable.” 

However, that all changed in 2019 when Netflix signed a deal with Warner Bros. — now known as Warner Bros. Discovery — to produce the series. Gaiman has been unapologetically critical of past attempts to adapt his masterpiece, however, it appears the code has finally been cracked, no doubt due to the technological advances that assist the necessary visual effects to achieve the story’s desired outcome, and, of course, the good writing. 

All that being said, eager viewers were met with a strange predicament when the first few minutes displayed what appeared to be overly-elongated and somewhat stretched visuals. The curious affair led some viewers to believe their own TV’s aspect ratio was to blame, and naturally wanted to know what was going on. Here’s what we know about the situation, and no, you’re not going crazy. 

Why does The Sandman look distorted and skewed? Was it an accident?

First conversations about The Sandman’s unique appearance cropped up after the trailer exhibited similarly stretched and distorted visuals. However, the skewed visuals weren’t resolved upon its release on Netflix. As it turns out, that’s because there wasn’t anything to be fixed. 

The show follows Dream (Tom Sturridge) as he works to right the wrongs that occurred during his 70 years of accidental imprisonment. During those years, humanity suffered from the Dreams and Nightmares that preyed on them in the Waking World. Dream goes on a mission to not only return those Dreams and Nightmares from whence they came but also rebuild his kingdom that fell in his absence and restore the balance of humanity.

A spokesperson for Netflix confirmed that due to the surreal quality of dreams — among which many scenes take place — the creative minds behind the show decided to lean into that idea and adopt a distorted and surreal quality to the show.  

“As you’ll note many of the environments are surreal in the series and we often say it’s quite what a dream would feel like,” said the spokesperson for Netflix, as reported by Variety.

There’s no need to adjust your aspect ratio, then. Any distortions and elongated images are the result of a deliberate creative decision made by the show’s team. Whether that was achieved by using vintage lenses or “old-school” wide-angle lenses is yet to be known, as the cinematographers of the show (Will Baldy, Sam Heasman, and George Steel) have yet to comment on the decision.