With ‘Krypton’ coming to Syfy on March 21st, we are finally starting to see more from the prequel show about Superman’s grandfather, and learning what exactly this show is going to be about, namely, the story of Seg-El and his his fight against a threat from the future who travels to the past to try to prevent the line of El from producing Superman. EW was lucky enough to get some exclusive sketches of some of the sets from the new series, and speak to the production designer, Ondrej Nekvasil, about the specific ideas they had for the series.
According to Nekvasil:
“We were trying to create a world that was believable. The key thing is that on Krypton, all of the people on Krypton look like people on Earth. So, the scale of the set and the scale of the spaces has to be similar to what we know because the people live there…Because life on the planet is kind of tough, they don’t do designs. If they make something, it’s because they use it and they would like to use it for life. It’s not because they would like to design something. We were trying to stay away from the over-design, over-dressed rooms. We were trying to show that everything has some kind of practical reason for why it’s there.”
Nekvasil had a lot of thoughts on the original Fortress of Solitude featured in the series (above):
“What was important is that this place is not just a workshop or laboratory. It’s also some kind of spiritual place for the family. They also keep all the things they’ve invented. Not only the grandfather of our hero, but also his grandfather and his grandfather.”
And he was quick to point out that the figures on the stain-glass windows are actually Krypton’s language:
“What I like personally is that it almost looks like an abstract graphic, but that it’s actually letters and you can read it if you want. If somebody has time to find out the details, everything makes sense. ”
As for Fort Rozz on the series, Nekvasil says:
“The concept [of the design] is that it’s very utilitarian. Everything that’s there has to make sense for the people working there.”
Seg’s apartment Nekvasil seemed particularly proud of, especially the unique furniture and the way he and his team constructed it:
“Seg’s apartment is based in the poorest part of the city [of Kandor]. It’s actually the basic place, from our point of view…For us, it’s [the furniture] kind of a metallic mesh of Krypton. It’s very strong material. They can bend it. They can build chairs and tables. From our perspective, that was the cheapest way to build furniture…We actually used details from butterflies or details from leaves. We found these textures in nature. We just used them on a bigger scale.”
The bar itself was simple enough, though it sounds like Nekvasil and his team did do some, “research,” into some dive bars to figure out what type of decorations they might have:
“It’s a very basic bar. They don’t have money for design. We went to different types of real bars, and in one bar, we saw the concept that somebody just [hung used] bottles above the bar as kind of decoration. So, what about Kem is doing the same thing? He’s just hanging the old bottles from the ceiling.”
The last sketch/ photo is of the “guilded corridor,” which is mainly used by the upper class (literally as they live above most of the rest of the population of the city), and is full of a lots of natural light, which Nekvasil explains, was done on purpose due to the religion on Krypton:
“It’s a theocratic society, and they believe in the [god] Rao, and Rao is the sun.”
Did the photos give you any more insights into the new series? Is it making you more excited to see what exactly is going on in ‘Krypton?’ Or are you still skeptical about the idea about a ‘Superman’ prequel series? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
