Disney premieres on November 24 “A Strange World”, the film that presents a legendary family of explorers, the Clades, as they try to explore an unknown and dangerous region with a varied group that includes a mischievous amorphous creature, a three-legged dog and a number of starving creatures. Filo.news participated in a press conference with the filmmakers of the film, where director Don Hall (“Hero Greats”, “Ray and the Last Dragon”), screenwriter Qui Nguyen (“Tangled”), producer Roy Conli and Mehrdad Isvandi, animation directors Justin Sklar and Amy Smeed and environment director Sean Jenkins were present.
“I wanted to get a kind of good contrast in these three generations. So, we started with Jaeger. A larger-than-life type of explorer. A kind of Michael Jordan of exploration. Famous, fearless, brave, bold. Someone who is not rooted in terms of their desire to travel. And to think about that character’s son, who might not share those same attributes,” the director said. The creation of Abylonia always follows history and the clues we can take from history. It’s surrounded by mountains, so we wanted to see mountains on every plane. At every angle you look at, there is a huge mountain. On the farm side, one of the big references was actually a bunch of images he sent us of his family farm in Iowa,” the producers said.
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“We always seek truth in emotion. And we’re always looking for what’s at the heart of these characters,” the animators said and continued, “Every time we shoot a new movie, it’s completely new, we want to build it around who those characters are; How do they fit into the world? We try to conceive of all the ways we think about things and all the little internal rules we have about how to cheer. And how can we change them a little bit to be a kind of new set of rules that looks like something you may have seen before, but in a way that you haven’t seen.” As an animator, those are the funniest scenes I have to animate, it’s where you really see that thought process. And then, of course, you have the humor side too. But I love that we’re telling a legacy story, and what we’re passing on to future generations. And that’s what attracted me. And for me, it’s always bittersweet, finishing a movie,” Smeed confessed.
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The director confessed that to carry out the film he did an investigation that led him to Jules Verne, King Kong, The Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars, and Disney adventure films. “I feel very lucky, because I’m constantly looking back to my childhood. I guess I haven’t grown or matured in any way,” he said. The voice cast of the original English version features Jake Gyllenhaal as Searcher Clade; Dennis Quaid as Searcher’s legendary father explorer, Jaeger; Jaboukie Young-White as Searcher’s 16-year-old son, Ethan, a boy with a deep thirst for adventure; Gabrielle Union as Meridian Clade, an accomplished pilot and Searcher’s partner in everything; and Lucy Liu as Callisto Mal, the leader of Avalonia who is the driving force of the expedition to the strange world.
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“Jake brought a lot to Searcher. There’s a charm and a sympathy to him as a human being that, you know, he was able to bring to Searcher. And we loved collaborating with him,” the director said and continued: “The first recording session I remember was in New York, and we did the whole script, you know, the whole movie a couple of times. And then we get to really discuss it, because he loves to come in and talk about history and options.” We love letting actors play and encouraging improvisation, because it brings wonderful spontaneity to the performances. And I think all the actors did it,” the writers said. Dennis said: “He’s a celebrity, he made some of the films that Don is inspired by. He made a really funny character that we all fell in love with.”
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About Gabrielle they said: “She really brought a lot of herself to the character; He came up with an idea for the character. And as directors, I think we love it because it’s an extension of the day-to-day collaboration that happens in our building in every department. It’s wonderful to have a cast of actors who, you know, have been as involved as all of them in this film, and they contributed so much of themselves.” “There’s a level of maturity to Searcher as an adult and a maturity, you know, for Ethan as a young man in figuring out what his path is going to be. There’s an age of majority even for grandpa in this movie, because, you know, he has to take responsibility for things, the decisions he made in the past. And it’s one of those things that it’s like you see this wonderful story and realize, like, what’s the value? What is the value of your legacy? What are the decisions you are making to make a better world, to make a better tomorrow for everyone?” Then they finished: “But also, know that your growth does not stop at a certain age. That it doesn’t just exist at 16 or 40 or 60, which are the ages of our three main characters throughout the film. It is something continuous. How do we evolve and make a better world, not only for ourselves, but also for others? How do we improve each other’s families and become better people?”
