We put a lot of time and a lot of work into the world of Krypton...
...because the kind of deep history, the culture of the planet itself...
...has a real impact on the story.
And it also helps build out a lot of the context...
...for really the deepest dive that we've ever done and filmed into Krypton.
You'll see that the surface of the planet...
...almost appears to be abandoned and desolate.
Our thought was maybe the first time you see the planet...
...you'd just see these few towers sticking up, and it looks just like it's sparsely populated.
And then you dive down inside the planet...
...and you realize that these markings on the surface...
...are actually deep caves or kind of mine shafts.
So the cities have moved underground.
They've moved into these caves...
...that they've created as they've stripped out the core of the planet.
And it sets the scene for-- Really for the planet's destruction.
- Can you see the Codex? KELEX: It's just beneath the central hub.
But I'm compelled to warn you.
Breaching the genesis chamber is a Class-B crime--
Nobody cares anymore, Kelex. The world is about to come to an end.
MAN: Roll, please. We're rolling.
CROWE: I really enjoyed the tank work actually.
I mean, I worked quite a bit with understanding sort of deep breathing methods...
...and trying to sort of expand my lung capacity and stuff...
...because some of those shots were pretty hairy, you know.
You have to sort of submerge yourself 15 feet...
...and then kick off from a certain point, and then travel 60, 70 feet underwater...
...sometimes going through specific motions, and then return up to the top...
...so it's a big breath required, you know.
ROMANO: The underwater portion that I shot with Russell ties into Krypton.
Everything we did was somewhat abstract, because we were going off of a previs...
...which is an animated cartoon of what the shots are...
...and how the sequence plays out.
So all we had was that against a green background to shoot the scenes.
We sort of had to use our imagination and think about how it worked...
...and look at the composition and how that all fell into place.
ZACK: You can come up, you can take your time...
...you can see the Codex, you know...
...and he'll bring it in for you to take it.
[HIGH-PITCHED HUMMING]
This is a good time maybe to talk about the way that the Krypton culture...
...and indeed the entire look of the planet has evolved.
You know, we imagined looking back at 200,000 years of culture...
...that this was a place where the science of Krypton developed...
...with a completely biological lens.
So everything that they were looking at...
...was based on plant forms and organic forms.
So the very shapes of buildings, the shapes of architecture of the planet...
...comes from that investment that they made...
...in the biological and in manipulating at the molecular level.
So perhaps buildings were grown, spaceships were grown.
And in fact the straight line-- One of the rules of Krypton...
...is there are no straight lines.
Straights lines didn't exist in Krypton.
And that comes out of the idea that plant forms and organic forms...
...are the basis of everything they think about in terms of architecture.
[H'RAKA GROANS]