THE SAITO IMPACT
We delved into so much of the Japanese arts
that we revere, but ended up returning again and
again to a 20th-century block-print artist named
Kiyoshi Saito. He was trained in traditional
Japanese block printing, but he was inspired
and highly inluenced by other European artists
including the French Impressionists. Saito’s use of
the natural grain of the wood texture in his
block-print art inspired us to use it as a signature
throughout the ilm. Not only did we think of
each frame as a wood-block print on its own, we
used the idea of the lovely wood-grain texture in
many applications: from ground plane in Kubo’s
cave, to the sides of his sharply angled mountain,
to textures we see on the village homes and roofs.
We used that same texture across every sequence
in the movie — it became Kubo’s visual signature.
THE OBLIGATORY
STAR WARS REFERENCE
It made sense to us to include an homage to
the magniicent Star Wars in the underwater
sequence when Kubo is beneath the surface
attempting to bring the armour up.
Kubo encounters a monstrous sea creature
with a hundred giant eyeballs that are hypnotising
our hero and attempting to drag him to the depths
below to devour him. It’s clearly our take on the
Sarlacc. It’s also a call back to Steven Spielberg,
whom I adore (along with the rest of the world),
and who is the reason I was introduced to
Akira Kurosawa.
THE HARRYHAUSEN EFFECT
Our young hero Kubo battles with colossal
creatures. We at Laika are huge fans of the great
Ray Harryhausen and his animated fantasy epics.
The opportunity to make the giant skeleton
practically [in-camera] inspired our crew to pay
tribute to the master stop-motion ilmmaker.
One of the key inluences for the Hall Of Bones
scene was the iconic skeleton ight from
Harryhausen’s Jason And The Argonauts. It’s our
attempt at one-upping our idol with a pitched
battle showcasing a skeleton puppet so immense
that it dwarfed the animator bringing it to life.
I think Uncle Ray would be proud of us!
KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS IS OUT NOW ON DVD,
BLU-RAY AND DOWNLOAD.
Kubo sets out on a quest
to locate a magical suit of
armour with a monkey
(Charlize Theron) and a
giant beetle (Matthew
McConaughey). A
beautifully animated tale
that balances story with
comedy and moments of
effective (if light) horror,
with undeniable emotion
at its heart.KUBO AND
THE TWO
STRINGS
★★★★★
RATED PGTHE
VERDICT
How did you come up with the concept
for Morgan?
As a child that grew up in the 1980s, AI was
defined almost entirely by the work of
Ridley Scott. In Alien, in Blade Runner. I
was really obsessed with Blade Runner. I
still am. Its one of my favorite films. So of
course the idea of the “replicant” and that
kind of Roy Batty existential dilemma has
always stayed with me, and I gave myself
ample license to steal from it on the little
pulp nightmare I was concocting. At that
time I had no idea it would end up at Scott
Free, with Ridley Scott’s son directing. That
crazy irony was never lost on me. I’m still
kind of in disbelief.Morgan is the modern day Frankenstein
— how closely do they overlap?
Well, Morgan’s hyper-intelligent, she’s
manipulative, she’s very mercurial.
Frankenstein’s a lunk. He’s a heavy footed
brute. But they’re both coming to terms
with what and why they are — how they are
basically byproducts of their creators’
unchecked egotism. And now have to face
the world, alone. Just like all of us!What films drew you to sci-fi?
Well, I’ve already mentioned some of them
— Blade Runner, Alien — Aliens, too, that
was a big one. All the usual suspects of
that magical time in popcorn cinema. Star
Wars, John Carpenter, Indiana Jones, the
Mike Hodges Flash Gordon. And for
whatever reason, as a little kid I was just
nuts for the old horror stuff from the 30s.
The Old Dark House. The Black Cat. Lugosi,
Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr. Abbot & Costello
Meet Frankenstein. But I’ve never been
narrowly fixated on sci-fi and horror. I just
like going to the movies. And growing up in
Toronto in the ’80s, that was a great time
and place to go the movies.Do you view artificial intelligence as a
potential threat?
Sure. I think AI — as overly used as a
“cautionary” horror trope as it is — is still
criminally under-thought-out in the real
world. People are pretty casual about it. A
lot of that feels like all the kids who saw T2
when it came out grew up and went to
work for Cyberdyne. Don’t forget about
Skynet, folks!MORGAN
★★★★★
FROM FEBRUARY 15 / RATED MA15+MORGAN (ANYA TAYLOR-JOY), is an
artificial human — developed in secret
and subtly enhanced to be faster,
stronger, better. But when she starts to
display troubling and violent emotional
outbursts, the corporation that owns
her sends a “risk management
consultant”, Lee (Kate Mara), and a
psychologist, Dr Shapiro (Paul Giamatti)
to determine whether she remains a
viable project. Which Morgan doesn’tlike at all. And so begins a cat-and-
mouse game of threat and
manipulation. Smart and tense, this film
inevitably plays second-fiddle to Ex
Machina, which covers much the same
ground but is simply smarter and
tenser — the Usain Bolt to Morgan’s
Tyson Gay. Director Luke Scott, son of
Ridley Scott, does a fair job of building
suspense, but the twists are not
entirely unexpected, and cramming
more characters into the secret lab
clutters up the main thrust of the story.
Worth it for “rogue AI” lovers.
EXTRAS TBC. RICH YEAGER...and The empire review
SETH OWEN ON... MORGAN
The writer of the sci-fi/horror AI movie on borrowing
from Blade Runner and remembering Skynet...