You may think you know Laika, the stop-motion filmmakers who gave the world Coraline, ParaNorman and The Boxtrolls. Quirky and creepy, yet weirdly lovable…that’s how you might describe their output overall, even as, to them, each one is very different in its own way. And while Kubo and the Two Strings appears to have those elements as well (we’ve seen giant floating eyeballs and a huge skeleton, plus Matthew McConaughey as a beetle samurai), at its core, this one is different. Laika’s Travis Knight, the company CEO turned director for this outing, is tackling the epic fantasy genre this time–one stop-motion has traditionally avoided because the technology to do vast landscapes and crowd scenes just didn’t exist on a feasible scale before.
In the featurette above, Knight and company give us a sense of the scope of the thing. And be forewarned–if you’ve already made up your mind to see the movie, there are potential spoilers of some great scenes. If you haven’t yet decided, however, it will likely sway you, with a taste of full-on martial-arts fights, sweeping landscapes, and a sense of just how huge some of the monsters are. And yet at heart it is still a story about family; one that Knight has dedicated to his children, but in its subplot about Kubo living up to his legendary warrior dad, may also reflect the legacy of fathers and sons too.
Did you blink? It’s safe now. Are you ready for the adventures of Kubo? Tell us in comments.
Featured image: Laika/Focus
