ND Stevenson, Creator Of 'Nimona', Talks About His Inspirations For The Movie
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As Netflix prepares to release Nimona this weekend, Entertainment Weekly sat down with movie creator ND Stevenson to talk about his inspirations for the film. The creator had a long list of films to credit for his experiences. When he was a homeschooled youth, he recalled seeing Pooh’s Grand Adventure: The Search For Christopher Robin and cited how this existential crisis of the characters ignited fears about his own life.
Stevenson explains, “It made me think about things that I wasn't ready to think about yet, or I didn't even really know the ways in which it was going to help me process things and come to terms with things as an adult.” The next inspiration came much later while Stevenson was working on She-Ra and the Princess of Power. He joined a Dungeons & Dragons campaign to get into the mind of a teenage outcast character and made great use of the game’s teleportation spell, which inspired the character Glimmer.
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A shapeshifter assassin sent to kill Padme in the Star Wars prequels inspired the shape-shifting titular character in Nimona. Stevenson was inspired by sci-fi and fantasy alike, considering them as connected. He pointed to the rules of the Force in Star Wars and laws around the magic in The Lord of the Rings. Stevenson recalled, “There was a lot of running around in the woods with stick swords and arrows. I've always loved genre [sic]. Finding the fantasy in the sci-fi and the sci-fi in the fantasy has always been a particular interest of mine.”
Stevenson also remembered feeling a connection with the male designers on Project Runway, which was among the first LBGTQ representation he was exposed to on TV. Stevenson cited an unexpected film as his final source of inspiration. The Prince of Egypt, an animated musical retelling of the Book Of Exodus, opened with a scene of infanticide. The Nimona creator related to Moses’ story of being different than what he grew up thinking he was and being scared by the intense scenes in the film. This led to Stevenson developing a philosophy around children’s entertainment, “Things like death and fear and divorce and the terror of just being alive are things that kids do think about and are affected by. I think they need their own media that doesn't shy away from that stuff, but that also takes into account their point of view.” Nimona was released on Netflix on June 30, 2023.
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