When Travis Knight first brought Wildwood to long-time Laikan Chris Butler some 14 years ago, he came with a doozy of a pitch: “Let’s make the stop-motion Lord Of The Rings.” But just how big is Wildwood really?
“I always think about how Coraline takes place in a house, ParaNorman takes place in a town, The Boxtrolls in a city, Kubo And The Two Strings in a continent, Missing Link across the whole world,” reflects Butler, drawing a direct line between Laika’s progression as a studio and the ever-expanding scope and scale of its movies. “And then it’s like, ‘Well, where do you go next?’ Where you go is a world within a world.” Spanning a colossal 132 locations, Wildwood is home to all creatures great and small. From imperious golden eagle the General (recognised by Ollie Jones, head of character and practical FX, as “the most technically advanced puppet” Laika has ever created) to Curtis’ inch-high comic-relief rat sidekick Septima, it’s an ecosystem teeming with life… and secrets.
Prue encounters Brendan, the Bandit King.
The birds may have their heads in the clouds. But as Prue discovers, right in the heart of the woods at the site of the Ancients’ Grove, a battle has already begun. The resting place of a civilisation destroyed when the forest’s ivy last came to life, the Grove is the ancestral home of the bandits, an oath-sworn, somewhat misunderstood band of thieves led by Brendan, the Bandit King. When Wildwood’s antagonist Alexandra and her beastly coyotes take a special interest in the Grove, Brendan finds himself in a fight for his people’s lives.
“Brendan is Alexandra’s true foil in the story,” says Butler of the stoic Bandit King. “He’s the one who’s holding back Alexandra’s aggressive expansion in the woods. He is the thorn in her side. She has plans for the entire woods, and it’s constantly Brendan and his bandits who are getting in her way.”
Far from the hustle and bustle of South Wood, up the Long Road and past the Ancients’ Grove, Prue’s quest will bring her to the secretive Mystics of North Wood. On the one hand, Knight describes North Wood and its farming folk as an agrarian idyll, “a bit like the Shire in Lord Of The Rings”. On the other, with their rigid belief system and “druidic rituals”, he also sees the commune as “a symbol of the rot of religion”. In other words, even Wildwood’s hippies can’t peace and love their way out of conflict forever.
So, bandits to the left of her, coyotes to the right (and a bunch of hippies and birds north and south), here we are, stuck in the middle with Prue. And the greatest peril of all remains hidden... at least for now.
“It’s a world that’s essentially fractured,” explains Knight. “A world that’s starting to tear apart at the seams through eternal strife, politics, disagreements.” And if Prue is to successfully bring her brother home, she must explore this mystery-filled landscape and learn to understand its exotic citizens. Down in South Wood, ruled over by Governor Lars Svik (“a villain, but also sort of criminally inept,” Knight says), humans and woodland creatures co-exist in a metropolitan district where not all is as it seems. “In South Wood, it’s all about the bureaucracy,” says Butler. “This is about a group of men trying to impose order and civilisation on a world that’s essentially full of animals.”
High up in the trees above South Wood sits the monarchical Avian Principality. Inspired by Portland’s own Bird Alliance of Oregon and home to the General, an invaluable ally in Prue’s search for her baby brother, the Avians tend to take the high ground on woodland affairs. “Birds live in the trees, they’re flying, so I leant into the idea that they are always watching and they’re quite distanced from everyone else,” says Butler of Wildwood’s feathered faction. “They’re quite aloof, literally always looking down on the rest of the wood, and they’ve tried to distance themselves from the others’ politics.”
Words: Jordan King
WILDWOOD TEEMS WITH LIFE. SOME FRIENDLY, SOME... NOT SO MUCH
Roger Swindon with a busily ruling Governor Lars Svik.
A Mystic of North Wood.
Hitching a lift on the General.
Diminutive sidekick Septima.
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