Scavengers Reign still has so much more to say

polygon.com:

In the media landscape of 2024, Scavengers Reign feels like nothing short of a wonder. Initially conceived as a 20-minute short film by co-creators Joseph Bennett and Charles Huettner, the series was greenlit for a 12-episode season for Max (then called HBO Max) and slowly gestated in production for several years before premiering in fall of last year. With its emphasis on visual storytelling, phantasmagorical imagery, and heady themes of survival and symbiosis, the most obvious question is simple: How did the creators of Scavengers Reign go about nailing the approach to its peculiar sci-fi universe?

“The main principle [of the original short] was that we were following these characters [as they] do a process through nature, and you’re kind of seeing this Rube Goldberg-style process of cause and effect, trial and error throughout,” Bennett tells Polygon. “It had no dialogue, so it was all visual narrative. [...] Gradually, we started leaning into planet Vesta’s nature and what that could be.”

What grew from that fledgling seed of an idea was a densely imagined world of exotic fauna, inscrutable native life forms, and a vast, interconnected ecology of creatures existing in concert with one another. “[The idea was] if every character is utilizing these organisms as some sort of functionality, have that be a thing throughout the show that’s consistent,” Bennett said. “It’s never just that the characters are the central focus. [...] These characters are struggling through so much inner turmoil and psychological stress, and seeing that against the backdrop of this planet that in a lot of ways is unforgiving — that dichotomy was always important to keep in mind.”

Pulling from influences as far afield as the comics of Jean “Mœbius” Giraud and the animation of René Laloux to the Primitive Technology YouTube Channel, Scavengers Reign was unique by design and from the jump. “One of the things I always heard from Joe and Charles was that you wanted this thing to breathe,”