Directors: Don Hall, Qui Nguyen
Writer: Qui Nguyen
Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jaboukie Young-White, Gabrielle Union
With Disney's animated sci-fi adventure "Strange World" (opening in theaters November 23), the studio is leaning into its legacy just as it prepares to celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2023. In fact, the legacy is the theme of this film about a mestizo population. family of explorers venturing into unknown territory. The Clade clan centers around the legendary Jaeger patriarch (Dennis Quade); his farmer son Searcher (Jake Gyllenhaal); Searcher's wife, the expert pilot Meridian; and his restless teenage son, Ethan.
When director Don Hall (Oscar winner "Big Hero 6") presented a 30-minute sneak peek last week at Disney, he mentioned that "Strange World" was influenced by 1930s pulp magazines, authors Jules Verne and Edgar Rice. Burroughs and some of his favorite action-adventure movies. He even compared it to "Raiders of the Lost Ark", but with a crazy family that came out of "National Lampoon's Vacation". He acknowledged that “Strange World” looks both forward and backward with its core idea of saving the environment.
“It's nice to recognize that your film has to live up to [the classics],” Hall told IndieWire. “But you can't make it a priority. It can inhibit you. You have to have that restless spirit in terms of what's next. I think this movie does that. It wasn't like he walked in and said, 'Let's do this.' We want to push and go a little bit broader with our character designs and in terms of the physicality of the comedy. There was a Searcher audition that had a musicality to it. He evoked my love of 'Johnny Appleseed' and 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow' and those post-WWII Disney movies back to the '50s, when the studio was at its animation heyday."
At the same time, Hall wanted to explore uncharted animated territory, beginning with Avalonia, home of the Clade, a rural community turned metropolis with flying airships, surrounded by a Himalaya-like mountain range. Following an energy crisis, the Clades travel to the center of Avalonia, where they discover a retro-future world filled with magenta and yellow-orange landscapes and vegetation, along with a variety of faceless creatures reminiscent of dinosaurs and sea animals.
"The [setting] could have been a flat, hilly plain," Hall said. "No, [the art department] created these plateau levels that our characters will have to move up, down and over." Also, the group of trees that make up the plateaus can walk, and that meant the character team had to manipulate them specially. "For this movie, a lot of technology was built in to be able to bring any piece of the environment to an animator," production designer Mehrdad Isvandi told IndieWire.
The toughest animation challenge revolved around a creature the Clades befriend in this underground world: a mischievous 12-tentacled blob named Splat. Splat is like a cross between Mickey Mouse and definitely one of the most complex Disney characters to manipulate. The animators shaped and moved the blobby character in many ways. Hall's only directive was that they could not change form.
"Whatever we do, I always try to anticipate what's going to be great in animation because I know that's what they thought in the '40s and '50s," said Hall. “They were looking for potential for their stories and animations. I feel like that's one of my main jobs: being the shepherd of that idea. It's hard to make it to upgrade. You have to design it and it has to be part of the DNA of your way of thinking.”
From a narrative standpoint, Hall settled on Searcher as the lead, who has to face both his father and his son to help run the family legacy. “Searcher more clearly reflects where I am in my life right now,” said Hall. “My kids are in the teen zone and my dad is a little older than Jaeger. It was a point of view that I felt he was more relatable to.”
Co-director and writer Qui Nguyen told IndieWire that "Strange World" was personal to him as well. "This is a movie that reflects the world that I actually live in, like Los Angeles, where there are people who look different and are not just one thing," he said. “I like to write stories to make the world a better place. We are leaving a legacy that is not just a nice movie, but making someone remember what they love most in times of need, crisis or escape." Producer Roy Conli echoed the sentiment about the film's thematic relevance, saying that it is "about forgiveness, acceptance and kindness."
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