We previously gushed about how good this show looks when footage screened at a special Netflix Animation event, and it is in no small part due to its art style. Xilam Animation, the French studio behind the Oscar-nominated film “I Lost My Body,” produces the animation, and it manageed to create a really cool contrast between the fantastical and almost delicate look of the series’ world and characters and the utterly bloody and violent action that permeates throughout the show.
The second clip shown to audiences at Annecy gave us an even better look at the action in the series. We saw Leif and his group fight a massive dragon, the movements looking fluid while the camera glides around to give a sense of place. More than anything, the use of Snyderisms like slow motion, saturated colors, and slick character movements work wonderfully here; they really feel at home in a medium where a good keyframe can sometimes speak better than entire sequences — a medium where, often due to limited resources, productions have to rely on a single still image having striking iconography to be memorable. And say what you will about Snyder, but the man knows how to craft memorable iconography.
During the presentation, Snyder talked about animation being the purest form of filmmaking, seeing as the creators’ very first images and ideas can make it to the screen unfiltered rather than being reinterpreted over and over by every department throughout the many stages of development. He also talked about the move from live-action to animation not being that difficult for him since he always heavily storyboards his movies (and storyboarding is a crucial part of animation). With his years of collaboration with Oliva on projects like “Man of Steel” and “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” it wasn’t much of a leap to make an animated show look and feel like a Zack Snyder joint.
“Twilight of the Gods” arrives on Netflix on September 19, 2024.