Abominable
DreamWorks embarks on a Yeti-led road trip across China in Abominable
“Yeti are kind of a blank canvas,” laughs director Jill Culton, writer/director of dreamWorks animation’s latest, Abominable. “i read a bunch about the lore, and there really wasn’t anything – aside from the fact they’re fabled to live on Mount everest and you see footprints in the snow. that meant i got to invent the Yeti and his abilities, and that was exciting.”
When we first meet Abominable’s Yeti (known as everest), he’s outside of his natural Himalayan habitat. instead, he’s on the run in a Shanghai-inspired metropolis, trying to escape from villains who want to prove his existence to the world. However, he’s less abominable snowman than abominable snowdog, a beast-like visitor who can’t talk, yet wields magical control over nature.
“i didn’t want him to look like a man in a suit,” says Culton. “We really set out to make a creature that was recognisable as a Yeti, but not your typical Yeti. everybody thinks of them standing on two feet, but i wanted him to be much more of an animalistic character that could work on four legs as well as two, and kind of roll up in a snowball.”
the story, though, is focused more on Yi (voiced by Agents Of SHIELD’s Chloe bennet), a teenage girl who vows to take everest on the 2,000-mile journey back home. Having recently lost her father, she’s going through a tough time, so everest may have arrived at just the right moment.
“this movie is really about disconnection and reconnection,” Culton explains. “We have to discover what Yi’s issue is before she can reconnect with her family again, and everest is a vehicle for change. for me the central question of the movie is, ‘Why did this Yeti come to this girl’s roof?’ at the beginning i think you would say it’s so Yi can bring him home, but at the end, i think the answer would be so he can help her feel.
“He’s much bigger as a character at the end of the movie,” she continues. “first you think he’s a scared beast, then you realise he’s a thinking being, then you realise he can control nature, and then you realise that he’s led her to this place that she needs to heal. He almost takes on this guardian angel status.”
as journeys go, it’s an epic one, taking in real-life Chinese landmarks like the Gobi desert and the leshan buddha. “everybody fell in love with the locations,” Culton says. “and one of the things i learned back in my days at Pixar [she worked on Toy Story, A Bug’s Life and Monsters, Inc] was that if you make a travel movie, you have to drastically change your colour palette every location, otherwise you’ll feel like you’re in the same place. So the canola fields are yellow, the Gobi desert is heavy on the red, and the wisteria grove is fuchsia. i liken it to different flavours of ice cream – you get so much of a visual feast that way!”
Abominable is in cinemas from 11 October.