They Just Didn't Care/Sandbox



""So, again, we see that the creative team has thrown up its hands and declared 'Screw it, I don't care.'""

- Linkara during his Countdown to Final Crisis review (part 2)

The lighting is so bad you can see the shadow of the boom-mike on the wall. The zippers and seams are visible on the People in Rubber Suits. The editing looks like someone playing with the wipe feature on Windows Movie Maker. There are times when you really start to wonder what is going wrong with a movie, in theory they should be trying to make the best product they can.

But that's not what happens. A strange combination of the lack of money, time, expertise, enthusiasm and simple talent sabotages the production. This is when the production values of a work are just so far below what should be expected that you can't help but figure that "They Just Didn't Care."

However, even a work that has little quality control at all isn't universally bad. For example, several of the movies featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 are enjoyed by many fans even without the riffing, simply because the poor production values have given them a certain charm.

The trope name can be used as a Stock Phrases, something that can be applied to a wide variety of issues. Examples for this trope are all about the production values. It is possible to "Just Not Care" in regards to other aspects of making a story, but we have another set of tropes for that. Some of the things a producer can fail to care about in a production are:


 * Did Not Do the Research: A prop, background or other item ends up not being true-to-life when it should be.
 * Digital Destruction: Digital editing reduces the quality of a print when the intention was to improve it.
 * Edited for Syndication: Edits for time, content and advertising may end up ruining the flow of a film.
 * Off-Model: Animation mistakes and lack of consistency.
 * Special Effect Failure: Special effects that are meant to look impressive, don't.

Work-specific subtropes include:
 * The Problem with Licensed Games (Film to Video Game adaptations)
 * Video Game Movies Suck (the exact converse: Video Game to Film adaptations)
 * Trading Card Lame (Film or Franchise to Trading Card Game adaptations)
 * Macekre (They Just Didn't Care meets Cut and Paste Translation)

The Trope Namer is a repeated phrase during the segment of Mystery Science Theater 3000 Episode 418 - Attack of the The Eye Creatures (sic) (as seen in the the Trope Image), where Joel and the Bots give a point-by-point presentation to prove that the makers of the movie had little concern for the quality of the film. This includes forgetting to adjust the camera to properly shoot day for night, giant zippers running up the back of the costumes for the People in Rubber Suits, and after running out of monster suits and monster boots, using the excess actors stomping around in their monster masks, black wool sweaters and sneakers. And the fact that it's called Attack of The The Eye Creatures.

Contrast Shown Their Work and Doing It for the Art.