Meine Kraft (2003)

Meine Kraft (Gothic: My strength) is a 2003 Calderan science fiction action film directed by Breuce Junger. Starring Stefan Steiner and Adelaide Johanson, the film is the most widely acclaimed film ever produced in Austro-Caldera, and was admitted into the Austro-Calderan cultural archive.

Meine Kraft premiered in Neu Maessen, Austro-Caldera, on June 30th, 2003, and was released on July 2nd, 2003, by Kino der Todrein in Austro-Caldera and Caldera Pictures International in worldwide territories. It received generally positive reviews and earned $563.4 million worldwide, finishing its theatrical run as the fifth-highest-grossing film of 2003. Two sequels, Meine Kraft Nach, released in 2007, and Meine Kraft Nach 2, released in 2009. One spin-off, Meine Kraft Crona, released in 2012, while two video games, Meine Kraft Verlies, and Meine Kraft Lengenden, released in 2013 and 2016 respectively.

Plot
The protagonist, named Stiff, played by Stefan Steiner, is a lowly plumber in 20th century Caldera, struggling to make ends meet by taking up the worst of possible jobs in his neighborhood. One day, he accepts the job of fixing an old man's toilet outside the city. After driving for half an hour, Stiff discovers that the man's house is old and abandoned, with crumbling infrastructure. Thinking that the job might be harder than it sounded, he reluctantly enters the building. While entering, he finds a makeshift portal structure of sorts and approaches it out of curiosity. Immediately after touching it, he finds himself in a parallel universe, one that looks pixelated like a computer.

He wakes up on a beach, dazed and confused. When he looks around, he sees no signs of human life, but instead, a vast wilderness. He examines himself, only to find that he had been converted into the pixelated imagery of that around him. After taking a moment to straighten himself, he begins his trek to search for human life.

He encounters the first man-made structures and approach them eagerly, but what he finds are not humans, but rather a humanoid species developed similarly to humans but with stark contrasts, such as oversized heads, noses, large green eyes, and abnormally long torsos. Stiff attempts to speak to these humanoids, but they speak in a different language, characterized by a variety of incomprehensible hums. Deciding that he'd take what he could, he enters one of the humanoid homes and discovers a bed, where he tries to sleep, before being kicked out by an angry humanoid who lives there. Nightfall is coming, and not a single humanoid is outside. Confused, Stiff explores the town to see if any houses were unoccupied, until he sees the first actual human. Composed of rotting flesh and red eyes, it shuffles towards him with evil intent, Stiff is frightened by this, and realizes that this infection must have made every human extinct in this universe. Taking a rock, he bashes the zombie's skull in, and runs as a group of zombies begin following him. While trying to hide, he finds an abandoned shed made of rock, and hides inside, and sleeps cautiously until morning.

In the morning, he feels a renewed sense of motivation, and gathers some sticks and stones to make an axe, which he uses to cut down a tree. He then uses the wood to make a statue of the Prime Leader of Austro-Caldera to remind himself of home. Then, to keep the zombies out, he constructs a makeshift wood wall around the statue, and goes out to the humanoid village to see what they have to offer. He notices that they have established farms, so he steals some seeds, and he takes a bucket of water. He continues to search for an abandoned house, of which he doesn't find, but he finds a religious chapel that appears to not be used. He takes a chair from it, and brings all of his newfound goods to his statue where he plants crops, waters them, and takes a sip for himself. The final things he needs, are a ceiling, and a bed. He takes his axe and chops down another tree, than uses the logs to start a ceiling over his walls, and he continues to do this for hours, cutting down trees and placing their logs on his walls. While pulling up the final log, he notices something miraculous, a cow and a sheep had begin to watch him work. Taking his axe, he kills both the cow and sheep, and starts up a campfire to cook their meat. After eating them, he notices that the leather from the cow would make a good blanket, while the wool from the sheep could be a mattress. With these, he constructs a bed and almost finishes his house. He had been working all day, and was forced to retire to bed, however, during the night, zombies began to dig their way through his dirt floor, penetrating his house and trying to attack. Using his axe, he defends himself from the zombies and clears his house, realizing that he needs a floor, he stays up the remainder of the night cutting down trees, fighting zombies, and laying down wood under his house to act as a floor.

In the morning, his axe has broken, and he realizes that he needs to start gathering stronger materials as well as a place to construct items easier. Taking some wood, he fashions a workbench for himself, and constructs a door to his house. Then, he makes a pickaxe, and goes outside to start a mine alongside his house.

Some time goes by, and he's doing well for himself, now he had constructed a new house out of stone, a furnace, and he removed the wood walls, ceiling, and floor from around his statue, then he upgrades the statue with stone to signify his leap up. Making a sword for himself, he prepares for the night, when he realizes that he hasn't ate, so he takes his crops that have been growing and eat some, while expanding the fields with their seeds. Humanoids from the nearby settlement are beginning to show interest in this stranger, and sometimes come to watch.

Some more time passes, and Stiff begins to start a kingdom, laying down roads to connect the humanoid settlement, and building walls around. Stiff encounters iron ore, and smelts it to create armor for himself. Taking coal and the iron he found, he experiments until he's ground gunpowder, and he makes a musket for himself. In perfect time, his Kingdom is attacked by a tribe of humanoids with crossbows and a gray banner behind them. Stiff sets out to protect his kingdom, killing the attacking humanoids, but not before they kidnapped a citizen of his kingdom. Stiff tries to rally humanoids to fight back, but they refuse, making Stiff set out to find the evil humanoid settlement and save his city.

Along the way, Stiff passes by an abandoned kingdom that was once nice than his. Deciding it must have been a human kingdom before the infection started, he pays respects to the fallen kingdom and discovers a guard dog still roaming the streets, excited to see a human in armor, it runs to Stiff and Stiff adopts the dog as a companion before he sets out further.

Finding a large tower with gray banners on it, Stiff believes he found the evil humanoids, and wastes no time destroying the wall to assault the base. The film shows an action scene of Stiff performing various stunts to wipe out the tower of enemies, until they find the basement and many caged humanoids. As Stiff begins freeing them, he notices a human in a red robe, wearing a crown, also locked in a cage. Stiff asks the human questions in Gothic, but the human shakes his head, and begins speaking Aenglish. Because of the language barrier, Stiff frees the former king and they go separate ways.

After having freed the humanoids from captivity, Stiff is greeted back at his city as a hero, and everyone praises him. Everyone is more motivated, and they begin trying to communicate with Stiff so they can trade. Stiff builds an expansive market, and expands his city in all conceivable ways. It seems that the kingdom is perfect, and Stiff just wanders the kingdom with his heavy armor, looking for any threats.

One day, a human woman (played by Adelaide Johanson) washes on the shore. Stiff greets her and introduces her to the kingdom. The movie ends here on this cliffhanger.

Conception
The idea for Meine Kraft came to Michel Wilson when he was working as a plumber himself, and he daydreamed about the pipes leading to different universes, he decided that in a different universe it would look absolutely nothing like the real world, as the universe would have developed quite differently, having an entirely different basis for creation. He decided to model this universe off of a 64 bit computer, as he described computers being equally foreign to the natural universe.

Development
By the end of 1995, Michel Wilson had been proposing his idea to different production crews, but they wouldn't take it because they considered it to be an expensive movie that would perform poorly. After an extensive showing of screenplay and script in 1996, Breuce Junger announced that he would take the project, but it would be a few years before development would start, because Junger was busy directing Titeunik for Caldera Pictures International. In 1997, Michel Wilson began negotiating production costs with Kino der Todrein, and Kino der Todrein originally promised a budget of 95 million for the movie, but Wilson insisted that the computer effects used would require a higher budget. Wilson asked for 200 million, but was granted 120 million as the final budget.

Pre-Production
Breuce Junger began working on the film in March of 1998, but while Junger and Wilson were working on finding financiers for the film, they were forced to delay development for the film for a year in 1999. While production was planned for 2000, it was delayed again in anticipation for a writer's strike, which did not occur. In March of 2001, Joseph Lieberman joined as a producer, and the film became fully in development. Some discussions were held where to shoot the film, and it was originally decided to film in both Neu Maessen and Little Caldera, but the development team decided to trim 2 million from the budget by not relocating to a different city, and in February 2002, it was announced the film would only shoot in Neu Maessen.

Casting
Stefan Steiner, a relatively unknown actor at the time, signed onto the project in early 2000 after reading Michel Wilson's story. Adelaide Johanson later signed on in December of 2001, expecting a large role which she did not get.

Filming
On August 15th, 2001, filming began in Neu Maessen. The movie used live-action shots and the beginning to show Stiff in the real world, but once he enters the portal, every scene afterwards was either done with stop-motion and paper blocks, or it was digitally created.

Effects
The film features over 800 special effects, the more challenging of which being the cutting down of block trees, which took the special effects team 6 months to produce a program that would adequately show the trees falling and the leaves reacting. The battle scene against the evil humanoids was described as "a tremendous amount of effort" to create according to Lieberman, and he commented that much of the film was much more complicated than the audience realizes, as much of the actual action was completely computer generated.

Marketing
A teaser trailer for Meine Kraft released on July 16th, 2002, and the official trailer released 4 days later. A parade was also held for the film in Little Caldera.

Theatrical
Meine Kraft has its premiere at Kino Todrein in Neu Maessen, Austro-Caldera, on June 30th, 2003. In the rest of Austro-Caldera, the film was released on July 2nd, 2003. Press screenings of the film were completely banned prior to its release in Neu Maessen.

Home media
Meine Kraft was released on DVD and VHS on November 11, 2003, and on Blu-ray on February 26, 2008. A digital version was also made available on November 18th, 2011.

Box office
Meine Kraft made 563.4 million worldwide and was the fifth-highest-grossing film of 2003.

Critical response
The film received generally positive responses at the time, but overtime, responses became overwhelmingly positive as it was seen as one of the best films ever released in Caldera according to the Calderan Institute of Art in 2014.

Sequels
Plans for sequels were made immediately after the success of the film, and came in the form of Meine Kraft Nach (2007) and that film's sequel, Meine Kraft Nach 2 (2009). Both films were successful, and a spin-off, Meine Kraft Crona, released in 2012, but critics complained that Meine Kraft Crona was too much of cash grab, and didn't feature any of the excitement of the first film, romance of the second, or the political turmoil of the third. After it's failure, Kino der Todrein announced it would not make any more films, but sold two video games based off of the films; Meine Kraft Verlies (2013) and Meine Kraft Lengenden (2016), both of which reached heights of popularity and were acclaimed for survival and combat. Since the last release two decades ago, a third game has been discussed to be in development.