Delving deeper into the design department that is usually most active during preproduction, we catch up with Doug Chiang, a familiar face to anyone who's watched the DVD features of the first two Star Wars Prequels but who left to do his own thing by the time the third one went into production. On Bob Zemeckis' version of Beowulf, Chiang was in charge of the art department and here he gets to explain some of what went into the development of the various creatures seen in this film that shows us the end of the age of monsters.
Starting off with the most famous one of all, this latest version of Grendel is more sympathetic than before but no less gruesome. He's also a bit of a mama's boy according to the thespian behind the part, Crispin Glover. Director Bobby Z, having worked with Glover on the original Back To The Future but then found his demands to steep for Part Two, knew Crispin was the ideal choice for the part, as CG loves to play characters that are deformed both mentally and physically. Dougie C. explains how they created a creature that looks like the embodiment of pain, trapped in grotesque positions. This Grendel is so deformed that every movement he makes hurts him. He also mentions that since Crispin centered a lot of his performance in his forehead, the boils and stuff that they originally put on there had to be removed in order to make his movements shine through.
By pure contrast, the film makers decided to turn Grendel's mother, who by all accounts should be an even more hideous beast, into a shape-shifter who in the film mainly appears as this decade's embodiment of a seductive siren: Angelina Jolie. In this case they did their best to make the CGI character look as much like the actress providing the voice and body movements as possible, but still added a tail-like braid with a mind of it's own and some creepy, reptilian claws that resemble high heels. In between shots from the film there are the usual fascinating glimpses at the production artwork done by Doug's department which can be seen much better in the Chronicles book "The Art of Beowulf" by Mark Cotta Vaz & Steve Starkey. Notice that this is the only place on the two disc set to get a better look at the 'real', reptilian version of Grendel's mom, that is unless you own the McFarlane Toy that came out at the same time as the film.
Moving on to the third great enemy that faces Beowulf in the original poem: the dragon. Co-writer Neil Gaiman knew from the start that the actor who played the dragon had to be the same as the one who played Beowulf, and indeed, we get another brief look at Ray Winstone giving his all playing the dragon. Doug C. then talks about incorporating Winstones's features, most notably his eyes into the dragon (personaly I haven't found any resemblance yet) and we see several fabulous concepts for the beast go past at breakneck speed. Based upon such opposing elements as a flying squirrel and a dolphin like tail, the original script also had the dragon speaking dialog. But Zemeckis stepped in here and offered the idea of making the dragon another shifter of shapes, like his mom and turn him into a perfect golden boy for whenever he had to talk.
Winding up, Doug also touches on the imposing sea-monsters seen during an early flashback sequence. Here the inspiration came from lamprey eels with a cyclops eye and a cobra hood that measured twice the size of 747. The final creature talked about is the mermaid that is glimpsed very briefly at the end of the same underwater flashback. Chiang explains that this was supposed to be an introduction to Grendel's mother and she is supposed to look like Angelina, though she looks more like Robin Wright Penn to me.
8 out of 10
Starting off with the most famous one of all, this latest version of Grendel is more sympathetic than before but no less gruesome. He's also a bit of a mama's boy according to the thespian behind the part, Crispin Glover. Director Bobby Z, having worked with Glover on the original Back To The Future but then found his demands to steep for Part Two, knew Crispin was the ideal choice for the part, as CG loves to play characters that are deformed both mentally and physically. Dougie C. explains how they created a creature that looks like the embodiment of pain, trapped in grotesque positions. This Grendel is so deformed that every movement he makes hurts him. He also mentions that since Crispin centered a lot of his performance in his forehead, the boils and stuff that they originally put on there had to be removed in order to make his movements shine through.
By pure contrast, the film makers decided to turn Grendel's mother, who by all accounts should be an even more hideous beast, into a shape-shifter who in the film mainly appears as this decade's embodiment of a seductive siren: Angelina Jolie. In this case they did their best to make the CGI character look as much like the actress providing the voice and body movements as possible, but still added a tail-like braid with a mind of it's own and some creepy, reptilian claws that resemble high heels. In between shots from the film there are the usual fascinating glimpses at the production artwork done by Doug's department which can be seen much better in the Chronicles book "The Art of Beowulf" by Mark Cotta Vaz & Steve Starkey. Notice that this is the only place on the two disc set to get a better look at the 'real', reptilian version of Grendel's mom, that is unless you own the McFarlane Toy that came out at the same time as the film.
Moving on to the third great enemy that faces Beowulf in the original poem: the dragon. Co-writer Neil Gaiman knew from the start that the actor who played the dragon had to be the same as the one who played Beowulf, and indeed, we get another brief look at Ray Winstone giving his all playing the dragon. Doug C. then talks about incorporating Winstones's features, most notably his eyes into the dragon (personaly I haven't found any resemblance yet) and we see several fabulous concepts for the beast go past at breakneck speed. Based upon such opposing elements as a flying squirrel and a dolphin like tail, the original script also had the dragon speaking dialog. But Zemeckis stepped in here and offered the idea of making the dragon another shifter of shapes, like his mom and turn him into a perfect golden boy for whenever he had to talk.
Winding up, Doug also touches on the imposing sea-monsters seen during an early flashback sequence. Here the inspiration came from lamprey eels with a cyclops eye and a cobra hood that measured twice the size of 747. The final creature talked about is the mermaid that is glimpsed very briefly at the end of the same underwater flashback. Chiang explains that this was supposed to be an introduction to Grendel's mother and she is supposed to look like Angelina, though she looks more like Robin Wright Penn to me.
8 out of 10
