EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — It's not just a Walmart commercial. It's a mini-film paying homage to some of our favorite cinematic fantasy characters.

"Famous Visitors" premiered during last year’s Super Bowl and the spot just picked up the Visual Effects Society award for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Commercial at this year’s awards ceremony which was conducted virtually.

What You Need To Know

  • The Visual Effects Society (VES) was founded in 1997, an organization representing visual effects practitioners around the world

  • The 19th VES Awards streamed globally on April 6 and honored outstanding achievements in 25 awards categories

  • This year’s award for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Commercial was given to Walmart's "Famous Visitors" which premiered during the Super Bowl

  • Produced by The Mill under creative director Chris “Badger” Knight, "Famous Visitors" pays homage to world famous movies including "Flash Gordon", "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure", "Blade Runner", "Star Wars" and Men in Black

Fan favorites such as "Blade Runner", "Star Trek", "Men in Black", "Flash Gordon" and the "Looney Tunes" were all recreated in loving detail by The Mill’s visual effects wizards.  Produced by The Mill, creative director Chris “Badger” Knight said it was a bit daunting working with some of the most beloved characters in movie history, so, he and his team at The Mill worked hard to get the details right, using a wide variety of practical and digital techniques to bring the characters to life.

“There was a love for the project because of the characters and the ships and what was going on,” said Knight.

The visual effects team tried to capture the essence and feel of each of the films they referenced, and even brought in a few surprise guests like Sam J. Jones as Flash Gordon and Alex Winter reprising his character from "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure."

“[Winter] playing that character was so crucial,” said Knight. “So, I thought, we should de-age him.”

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The visual effects team shaved thirty years off Winter’s appearance and composited him together with his older self. Sci-fi fans might also recognize the Spinner police car from Ridley Scott’s "Blade Runner" (1982). The original Spinner was created using full-size props and models in the original film, but for "Famous Visitors" it was recreated via CG.

But the team used practical smoke and lights on location to get the right interaction with the rainy environment.

“It's just the cage of the car with the smoke coming down and the lights on top,” explained Knight. “We knew that those shots were going to look really good once we'd [composited] our CG spinner.”

"Famous Visitors" is a painstakingly-crafted love letter to the movies and engages viewers in a way that they might almost forget it's a commercial.

Added Knight, “You know, these are just characters that people love and have grown up on so being able to work on something like that is amazing for a lot of artists.”