While animators and VFX supervisors often turn to scientists – zoologists, paleontologists, biologists and the like – for guidance, Luckham was afforded no such luxury on Mickey 17. “I would love to talk to scientists on every project, but it depends on the show and the budget.” On a sci-fi film like Mickey 17, the creatures in question are entirely fictional. “It’s a fantasy creature, so having a scientist there – they don’t really have a frame of reference,” Luckham remarks. “I could make the judgments myself.”
Instead of consulting with external academics, the crew employed its own team “of phenomenally trained Creeper supervisors” who were “experts in anatomy and muscle activation,” according to Luckham. These experts ultimately advised on movement – the jiggle of fat or the rippling of skin. “You have to build layer by layer,” he argues.
After rounds and rounds of animation tests and tweaks, the Creepers finally came into their own. Each creature has “a thick outer layer to protect it from all the elements,” Luckham states, “and it has a small mouth with hard ends that it uses to crunch rocks.”
It’s one thing for a creature to exist; it’s another for it to interact. Crucial to the story is the Creepers’ ability to communicate, not only with one another but also with the titular Mickey. “There’s that one little line of dialogue, which is, ‘How are you, Mickey?’ I had to work backwards,” Luckham admits. “All our speech comes from breath: breathe in, speak, breathe out. That goes through our larynx. That’s our logic.”
Occasionally, Luckham would ‘bend the rules’ at Bong Joon Ho’s instruction. “You have to make compromises,” he says, but achieving a sense of reality was his primary goal. “I want to get it as real as possible because every creature we see, we put our emotions into, and we can feel that emotion back. It’s our interpretation. It’s quite unique and quite a privilege to create a brand-new creature,” he adds. “We’re creating a language, creating a physiology from scratch. It was a real challenge, but that’s the work I enjoy.”