I was watching the latest big screen adaptation of Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy and I remember thinking it had a very British scifi look to it(yes yes I realize there are British characters involved) despite being a big budget production.
For what I’m thinking of look at the revived Doctor Who, its the best example I can think of.
Does anyone notice this besides me?
Yes… yes. It is almost like everyone moves 4% faster or something. 
Importantly it was directed by Garth Jennings, who is a Brit.
I suspect it’s that we’re culturally attuned to crappy special effects due to low-budget Dr Who-style TV sci fi from the 60s to the 80s.
Even when someone has a vast budget, they would still want it to have that semi-retro ‘feel’. In the case of HHGtG, it might even have been the director’s and art director’s choice to make it look that way, to reflect the very British atmosphere of the books/radio/original TV series, which would take those expectations into account.
Or they still didn’t have the money.
Low production value.
One of the strangest things about any Brit film is silence, you become immediately aware of how much sound is in every second of an American movie.
Yeah, I was about to say British Science Fiction productions have a certain look, because they lack a certain budget.
I love BriSciFi all the more for it though.
Unless they’re really bad, penny-pinching special effects leave more to the imagination.
This.
Also, most of them are contractually obliged to feature scrubby Welsh stone quarries as backdrops for outdoor scenes (as opposed to the ubiquitous chaparral from Trek/Cali SF and the BC rainforests from every Vancouver-made series)
I honestly feel there is a specific look to the majority of British drama. I use a separate home cinema audio setup and sometimes I end up browsing channels with it off or connected to something else (for example the PS3). Very often I watch a show and just decide it looks British, put the sound on and lo behold, British it is. Confirmation bias maybe, but it is what it is.
There’s a greyness and a certain washed-out nature.
I wonder if it has something to do with the grading of the picture. British TV also uses PAL whereas American TV is NTSC (never the same colour) so it does just look different.
Crazy isn’t it, a film without a full orchestra escorting the script through every scene.
btw, I think you mean ‘more normal’ production values, as in what the rest of the world generally has available.
I think part of it also has to do with a lot of British SF being shot on video instead of film; it has a different depth-of-field.
A hijack, but is NTSC vs PAL still a thing now that almost everyone is going HD? Are there separate NTSC and PAL (and Secam, I suppose) versions of HD? Or is 1920 x 1080 the standard everywhere. (Yeah, I know, 50hz vs 60hz is in there too.)
It’s the teeth.
Kidding.
I’m not sure, but a lot of people are still watching in non-HD formats (like DVD), so it’s not like the problem is entirely gone either way.
So why do I love Quatermas And The Pit as much as Star Wars ?
Which are also contractually obliged.