There's a feeling you get when you watch an epic adventure play out on the big screen.
It's a rollercoaster of emotions – from anticipation, to hope, to nervousness, to joy. It leaves you with the feeling that anything is possible and there's a little bit of magic in even the most ordinary of days.
Walt Disney Studios all-new animated adventure Strange World will make you feel exactly like that. Strange World takes you on a non-stop adventure into a weird and wonderful world, where three generations of the same family must put their differences aside to save the day.
This unexpected yet heartwarming adventure for the whole family stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Dennis Quaid, Gabrielle Union and Lucy Liu.
Watch the trailer for Disney's Strange World. Post continues below.
I can't wait to take my niece to see Strange World, so we can go on this epic, funny, and heartwarming adventure together. Strange World is the perfect movie for families to see together, as it's a big, fun adventure that also reminds you about the importance of family and looking out for the ones you love.
Here's everything you need to know about Disney's all-new animated adventure, Strange World.
"Strange World" is actually an allegory for Planet Earth.
Strange World is set in a vast, hidden, subterranean world filled with mysterious creatures and hidden dangers. While it couldn't look anymore different to Earth, Strange World is actually an allegory for the planet we currently call home.
Director Don Hall says he came up with the idea for the weird, wonderful and dangerous world when he was thinking about what kind of world we would be leaving behind for the next generations.
“What started everything was just thinking about my sons and the world they’re going to inherit,” Hall explained. “How is it different from what I inherited from my dad?”
At its heart, Strange World is a story about fathers and sons.
While Strange World takes the audience on an epic adventure, at its core it's really a story about families.
The movie follows three generations of the Clade family. There's Searcher Clade, a brilliant family man, who, as a teenager, discovered a plant-based power source that changed the world.
Jaeger Clade, Searcher's dad, who at a young age set out to become the kind of explorer legends are made of. While there's a statue of him in the middle of town, no one has seen him for decades.
And finally, there's Searcher’s 16-year-old son, Ethan, who helps his dad out on the farm but is unsure whether he wants to follow in his father's footsteps.
Hall says Searcher and Ethan's dynamic was inspired by his relationship with his own father.
“My dad and I have a great relationship,” he explained. “He is a farmer, and I grew up helping out."
"But when I was 14 years old, it all changed. Suddenly, I was planting and doing more high-level stuff that I just didn’t want to do. It wasn’t me. It all turned out fine, but I always remembered that and thought it would be interesting to explore father/son relationships and the kind of expectations we put on our kids — intentionally or unintentionally."
Co-director and writer Qui Nguyen says the father and son relationship is what drew him to the project in the first place.
"I am also a dad of two kids and I felt like that was exactly what I wanted to be doing. This is a story I needed and wanted to tell," he said.
“We could relate to Jaeger and Searcher when it comes to our kids,” continued Nguyen. “There’s a push and pull between ambition and just being a dad. It’s something almost every artist here at Disney — anyone who’s chasing a big dream — would understand. A big reason why we do it is for them — and, man, we don’t want to lose focus of that. This is the story that I'm going through, the story that Don is going through and the story our characters are going through.”
And a story about finding your own way in the world.
Through the three generations of the Clade family, Strange World explores what it means to be a part of a family but also find your own place in the world.
Searcher is the son of a famous explorer, but even at a young age he was able to forge his own path and make a groundbreaking discovery. He's a family man, while his father has been mostly absent from his life.
And Ethan, who loves his dad and helping out on the farm, is just realising that sometimes the life that's mapped out for you isn't actually the life you want, and that's okay.
But it's also an action-packed adventure.
While coming up with the concept of Strange World, Hall was inspired by the big adventure stories from the past.
“I always loved big adventure stories,” he explained. "The specific kind of adventure story where explorers find a hidden world that was heretofore unknown to them or anybody else."
"I wanted to evoke that in this movie."
The adventure kicks off for the Clades when the president of Avalonia turns up to Searcher's farm and tells him that pando — the revolutionary plant Searcher discovered years before — is in trouble, and they’re all in grave danger.
Searcher and Ethan set off into a world nobody knew existed, and encounter mysterious creatures and unseen dangers. There they're joined by a motley crew that includes a blue blobby creature known as Splat, a three-legged dog and a slew of ravenous creatures.
As Searcher and Ethan attempt to navigate the uncharted, treacherous land, they also take a journey into the heart of their relationship.
And their unexpected adventure leads them to Searcher's dad Jaeger, who's been missing for decades.
The star-studded cast includes Jake Gyllenhaal and Lucy Liu.
Strange World's stellar cast includes Jake Gyllenhaal as Searcher Clade, Dennis Quaid as Searcher’s larger-than-life explorer father, Jaeger, and Jaboukie Young-White as Ethan.
The film also stars Gabrielle Union as Searcher's wife Meridian Clade, and Lucy Liu as Callisto Mal, Avalonia’s fearless leader who spearheads the exploration into the strange world.
Strange World is an epic adventure for the whole family, and a celebration of family, belonging and finding your own way in the world.
Strange World will premiere 24 November, only in cinemas.
Feature Image: Disney.