We got the idea of nature almost encroaching. It's incredibly lush, incredibly green, we really popped the colors, lots of deep reds and the greens. It really has a sense of color which is unsettling actually and people are like, "It's so colorful."
Miles MillarAnother thing we wanted to do, a lot of shows or movies that are in the future or the post-apocalyptic are very bleached, desaturated desert environments and we wanted to do the opposite of that. There's always talk about Chernobyl and the world that environment has recovered has become this idyllic, bizarrely refuge for wildlife.
Miles MillarPeople want to get immersed and lost in a world. They want to lean in and figure it out, and that's true of both of these shows. You don't know quite what it is, and that's great.
Miles MillarThere are a couple of specific things about the show [Into the Badlands]. We didn't want to do a contemporary show, which is always "Chinese cop comes to New York, teams up with racist cop, together they fight crime..."
Miles MillarWe knew Terry Brooks' work, but we hadn't read the Shannara books. So, they sent us the book to read and we just loved the story and the characters. We thought it would make a very compelling season of television. We were like, "Someone is going to make this. Why don't we do it?"
Miles MillarIt's [Into the Badlands] something that's very, very different and I think that's why it divided critics initially because they didn't understand it or get it. They didn't understand or have a knowledge of what we were trying to do. Bringing in the Asian martial arts aesthetic to American television. For us, these are the people who will make the show a hit or a failure in future seasons. So it's for us to respect them and interact and see what they have to say.
Miles Millar