It’s no exaggeration to say the stunning fantasy epic “Wildwood” is one of the most impressive stop-motion films ever made. The movie, which is directed by “Kubo and the Two Strings” director and Laika CEO Travis Knight, is based on a book, but was heavily inspired by Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, and you can feel that influence the most in the movie’s climactic final battle. (You can catch a glimpse of that scene in the trailer.) Like Jackson before him, Knight knows that even the most impressively staged cinematic battles can become boring if the audience isn’t given a reason to care about its combatants, so he wisely mimics the “LOTR” editing approach of highlighting individual clashes within the larger conflict while occasionally showcasing the sheer magnitude of what’s happening.
“Wildwood” marks the first time a Laika picture has received a PG-13 rating, with the MPA citing “strong fantasy violence/bloody images, thematic material, suicide-related material, brief partial nudity and language” as its reasoning behind the decision. It’s the “strong fantasy violence/bloody images” element that stands out the most; the film presents one moment of violence that genuinely shocked me.
“There is violence in the movie, and there are battles in the movie, and there’s war in the movie, and the intention was to show the cost of these things,” director Travis Knight told me in a recent interview. “The intention was not to try to fetishize violence. The intention was to actually show that violence is terrible and violence is traumatic. And if that’s part of the story that you’re telling, you have to show it.”
Wildwood’s director refused to water the movie down to secure a certain rating
I won’t spoil which character I’m talking about, but there’s a moment when someone in “Wildwood” commits an act of violence. Solely through body language and facial expressions, you see the impact that violence has on the character — as if they’ve been fundamentally changed as a person. In a film that’s occasionally clunky on a script level, that moment lands exactly the way the filmmakers intended, even as massive fantasy action happens all around it.
“But I think it’s appropriately rated, actually,” Travis Knight explained. “I think the film is — PG-13, to me, seems to say that this is a film that is for families, but you just have to be mindful, if you’re a parent, that there is some intensity, and if your child is ready for intensity at that level.”
Given the extraordinary amount of work that goes into making a stop-motion film like this, Knight half-joked with me that even if the ratings board had asked he and his team to change something, they couldn’t have done it anyway. But they ultimately stuck to their vision for the story, regardless of what the ratings board handed down from on high:
“In my mind, there was never a version where we were going to water this movie down in any way because I wanted us to tell this story sincerely. That meant embracing what the story was asking of us, which is, in times, it is dark, it is intense. But I would also say that the cumulative experience is that it is a life-affirming one. There is great light and joy in this movie, but we earn that light and joy honestly by going to some dark places.”
“Wildwood” is in theaters now.
