JONATHAN: You're the answer, son.
You're the answer to "Are we alone in the universe?"
Hey, guys, I'm Dylan Sprayberry.
I had such a fun time playing young Clark Kent in Man of Steel.
And I got to do some really killer stunts.
But, you know, when you're in such a big action movie, you still have a lot of questions.
Like how fast does the Black Zero travel?
What exactly is the Phantom Zone?
Will I be back for the sequel?
Luckily, we have the visual effects supervisor with us today, the epic DJ.
-It's good to see you, man. -Good to see you too, Dylan.
SPRAYBERRY: So my first question is Krypton.
In this opening scene, you basically blow up everything.
There's an epic battle and then Krypton just pretty much self-destructs.
Did you have, like, some kind of blowup button you had to hit to make that happen?
- Yes, it's-- Don't hit that button. Heh. -Heh.
It seems like a blowup button, but it's actually a large team of people...
...down at Weta Digital in New Zealand.
It's a little different than the usual story of how Krypton blows up...
...which is basically Krypton's sun is a red giant star and it's eating up all the planets.
But in this version...
...it's the Kryptonians who are responsible for messing up the planet...
...trying to make a new energy source at the core.
We wanted it to blow up but have some kind of neat design after the blowup.
It's more about the aftermath and--
You see the planet starting to implode, corrugates when super heated...
...and then it blows up. But then everything stays right where it is.
SPRAYBERRY: Yeah. -And in the middle...
...there's a pulsating neutron star...
...that's just kind of glowing at the center. That's what gives it that ghostly light.
That's what Zod and his guys see when they come out of the Phantom Zone...
...and realize they are where Krypton was, but it's gone.
SPRAYBERRY: The Kryptonian ships, they're epic.
What I wanna know is the Scout Ship that Clark finds under the ice...
...in that Army sequence.
How did you come up with how it would look and function?
That's different from the other Kryptonian ships in that it was designed on Krypton...
...in the height of their space exploration days. It's a little more elegant, more ornamental.
It can almost look like a cathedral when you stare up at it in the ice cave.
It's very strange that way. Strange and beautiful that way, I think.
But still, all the Kryptonian ships are based on sea creatures or crustaceans.
SPRAYBERRY: Looks like a lobster, something like that, to me.
DESJARDIN: It does. Or a tennis shoe. Yeah. -Or a tennis shoe.
I've always thought that and I want one, but anyway--
It's cool. It's one of my favorite ships.
It's large. it's a really huge ship. it doubles as the Fortress of Solitude...
...and I think that's a good way to introduce the Fortress in the new story.
Okay, so my next question is, on Krypton, a lot of things are different.
They don't have, you know, computer screens, TV, cell phones.
Why is that? Like, what's the difference?
Well, on Krypton, the display technology is more tactile.
It's like iron filings.
You know, when you play with iron filings and a magnet, it moves them around.
It's the same kind of thing, only we figured they're suspended in a fluid.
And it's kind of like a metal fluid.
Zack called it liquid geo.
So the screens that the robots have had this magnetic field in them...
...that allows them to shape the metal fluid...
...you know, into whatever sculpted detail that needs to be in there.
- We can look at all the examples here. -Okay.
DESJARDIN: In the beginning of the movie, it's the baby in the womb.
Later on in the movie, in the Scout Ship...
...Jor-El's talking about the history of Krypton, telling Clark all about where he comes from.
That's a very stylized version of that, but it's a big version of that. Takes up the whole room.
And then later, there's an even bigger version of that...
...when Superman fights the World Engine in the Indian Ocean.
The defense technology on the World Engine comes from the liquid geo idea...
...and it forms tentacles and can try to grab him and, you know, do whatever it needs to do...
...to try to destroy him and keep working.
SPRAYBERRY: When you look at the armor, you can tell that it's kind of medieval.
Was that an inspiration for you guys? Like the medieval times of armor and things like that?
DESJARDIN: Yeah. On Krypton, the armor, it's made out of some kind of bone-like material.
You can tell by the markings. It's supposed to be really elegant stuff.
The idea was it's been in the families for years.
We always thought the armor was kind of like the medieval films...
...where the guys just live in it.
My other question is Zod's Earth armor.
It's a bit different than what he was wearing at Krypton. Why is that?
DESJARDIN: Let's take a look here.
The Earth armor is actually not from Earth.
It's from a Kryptonian outpost.
It's more metallic finish, you know, not the bone finish.
It's more environment suit.
It's kind of cobbled together from, you know, other existing outposts.
But that's what they're comfortable with and that's what they need to survive.
These Kryptonian weapons...
...my question is, it looks a lot like the armor...
...that they use for Jor-El and a lot of the Kryptonians.
Is that what you guys had in mind?
Yeah, that's exactly it.
You know, a lot of the Kryptonian technology comes from organic things...
...that you found on the planet. We wanted the guns to be similar to the armor.
A lot of the same materials that make up, say, the Scout Ship...
...the armor, anything like that, that's what goes into the gun.
And it shoots a ball of plasma.
So it's got kind of a projectile gel or something, you know.
When it hits you, it spreads out and kind of dissolves into you.
-It's pretty nasty, actually. -That's pretty gross.
So look here, we've got some tests that the Weta guys did...
...of the digital design of the weapons and also how they fire and what they fire.
First off, what is the Phantom Zone...
...and second, how does the Phantom Zone generator work?
DESJARDIN: The Phantom Zone in Superman lore is this, like, bleak, terrible dimension...
...that Zod and his guys get exiled to, right?
-It's not a nice place. -Yeah.
But I guess it's a place that exists alongside our own universe.
We just can't ever perceive it.
And the generator is the thing that opens up the doorway...
...that allows you to go into that.
What we see in the movie is after Zod gets sentenced...
...he goes up into this ship called the Black Zero...
...and then the Black Zero goes up...
...and you see this triangular arrangement of generation points that kind of breaks apart.
And that is kind of the doorway.
And as the Black Zero finishes going in, the generator closes.
Now, when the planet blows up...
...the generator itself gets damaged...
...and the doorway becomes open long enough for them to slip out.
They all wake up and they look out and they see all the debris.
And they're very sad about that, but at the same time they realize they're adrift.
They need to do something so they use the generator...
...to shunt themselves across the galaxy to find Earth.
- Thank you, DJ. Good to see you. -You bet.
- I gotta get out of here. -All right.
You might wanna step back.
Okay.
Maybe a little bit more.