Man Of Steel: The creation and destruction of Krypton (exclusive)

We’ve got hold of an exclusive behind-the-scenes featurette from Zack Snyder’s ‘Man Of Steel’, out on home release 2 December 2013, showing just how those folks in the visual effects team created Superman’s dying homeworld of Krypton.

Watch it above, exclusive to Yahoo Movies UK.

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“A lot of [Krypton] is very heavy metal inspired,” Visual Effects Supervisor John “DJ” DesJardin tells us. “I think that’s what I always saw when I was looking at the concepts and trying to flesh out the world.”

“Some of the sketches were a little greenish. But Zack said we wanted to stay away from the idea that the land itself was Kryptonite,” he says.”

“So we realised very quickly, ‘Why don’t we take away the super alien look – that made it almost like The Christmas Planet with the reds and greens – and make it look a little a little more normal, and Earth-like.’ You’ve still got these weird cities, and you’ve got this real organic building design, but we needed to have some familiar colour pallette to anchor all the weirdness into.”

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DJ, whose credits include ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’, ‘X-Men: The Last Stand’, and ‘The Matrix’ series, admits ‘Man Of Steel’s’ Kryptonian vision owes its heritage to John Byrne’s original comic: “I remember reading that in the 80s and thinking ‘This is kind of cool. This is a dystopian society,’” he says. “Before that, Krypton was always portrayed as this enlightened society. It really influenced what we did with the film.”

Still, having such a solid vision of Krypton didn’t make the task of bringing it to life any easier, as DJ revealed to us, the whole prologue sequence took from April 2011 to early 2013 to finish. One thing the special effects guru is proud of though, is that the team ‘put every dollar on screen’.

So, what does he make of some of the comments on ‘Man Of Steel’s’ truly epic, city-smashing finale. Did they really use too much CGI bang?

“Is it too much, given the story you’re trying to tell? That’s what I’d always say with Zack,” he hits back. “This is kind of the opposite of Batman. Batman is a man, and Superman is more than human. So we didn’t want to get into some elaborate practical gag to show Superman’s power because it’s not going to look right.”

“Too much CGI? I don’t know man, we have gods warring with each other!”

‘Man Of Steel’ is out on 3D™, Blu-ray™, DVD and Digital Download from 2 December 2013.