Concepts of Nomak’s fight with the security guards by Mike Mignola.
Caliban Industries autopsy doctor concept by Mike Mignola.
Storyboards by del Toro.
Wesley Snipes as Blade in a publicity photo for the movie.
NOTEBOOK3, PAGE 24A
–When Nyssa enters the lair in Blade, her temperature is -30° and she avoids UV damage to her eyes thanks to the fact that she wears special goggles with mechanical irises that close shut to keep it from reaching her retinas. Blade turns on a UV reflector strong enough to light up an entire stadium and the camera receives the “flow” full on. They’re silhouettes fighting with 100% backlight.
Sometimes life offers us “tragedies” so that we might learn from them. God sends us the message hut never the dictionary.
Long, narrow teeth
“Scud” gives Whistler a set of false teeth, with two silver and two gold teeth. After this kind gesture, the old man develops a certain affection for the young man. The film depicts Blade’s enlightenment
• GDT: When I went into Blade II, I was very afraid. I was very afraid because I’m not a hip guy. I’m not a guy that is aware of the latest MTV music or whatever. The way that I find I’m very current is in manga, anime, and video games. I went to Mike De Luca and I said, “You realize I’m the most unhip motherfucker you can hire?” And he said, “That’s fine.” He said, “We want you to bring other stuff, not that.”
I started to think I needed to make this movie different than the rest, because the movies I’ve done, they can either be movies that look like they’re signed by an eight-year-old director or by an eighty-year-old director. I think Cronos is my oldest guy movie. It’s the point of view of a very old guy. Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth, sort of in the same way. They have that sense. Hellboy is like an eight-year-old movie, and Hellboy II is the same thing. It’s me at a very young age.
On Blade II, I said, “I need to be a teenager, so this needs to be a six-pack-and-a-pizza kind of movie.” Like the kind of thing I would have loved to see when I was that age—almost like a musical of violence. I started ciphering some stuff that comes from manga and saying, “Well, I want the iris glasses,” which will eventually also find their way into Abe Sapien, and a really fetishistic rubber suit. For example, when you see the design of the suit on the right [opposite], it has a center that is rolled silk with a center medallion that is very Japanese.
TyRuben Ellingson refined the concept.
Del Toro envisioned iris glasses as central components of the lightproof outfits Nyssa and Asad wear during their initial confrontation with Blade.
Del Toro played with the idea of basing some of the Bloodpack costumes on samurai armor but abandoned many of the details for Blade II,
Eventually applying them to the design of Prince Nuada in Hellboy II.
In the end, I couldn’t do it in this movie, but this exact color and pattern are found on Prince Nuada in Hellboy II. I like very much the fact that you can have a look that is very armored, but the true design of a really good warrior is to have a very, very exposed area. Now, what a lot of the Japanese samurai did is they layered the silk so dense that it would take longer to cut through the silk than it would take to cut through the armor. It’s a very curious notion.
But as I started investigating this for Blade II, the teeth of Chupa on the left came to me. He has two golden teeth. He was going to be a Mexican vampire. Eventually, we cast a nice guy called Matt Schulze, who is as Mexican as a hot dog, y’know?
And you can see the idea of the row of lights on the right, next to Nyssa.
And there [opposite], next to the armored figure, is the corroded concrete wall that ended up in the church.
The little eye is more or less the beginning of how we started playing with the contact lenses of the Reapers.
NOTEBOOK 3, PAGE 24B
–It hides in your spinal cord and then it migrates along your nerves.
–Speed Bumps by cuts to give “speed”
–Bite and then run away FAST.
–We’ve been training in the abstract, but as of tomorrow things get real. You wanna know just how real? I’ll tell ya… It’s my guess that a lot of us won’t make it through the day.
–“Stray dogs growl at Chupa in alley
Wall in HOP.
–Everybody wears goggles for daylight.
–Low [?] for sunlight.
–Light [?] frame.
–Reinhardt CORNERS HIMSELF by punching light holes in the ceiling.
Make the iris smaller or much bigger.
Long and thin teeth.
My eyes without your eyes aren’t eyes at all. They’re two lonely holes—.
NOTEBOOK 3, PAGE25A
–There are things in life which are beautiful. To enjoy them is heaven. Not being capable of it, that’s Hell
–It is impossible to outwit a stupid person. They never realize that they’ve been outwitted.
–You need space? Well, asshole, look out the window, see all that space? Well, so, go get the fuck outta here.
–Even I’ve been infected by time.
–You can choose a destiny. I was born into one.
–I’ve known you a long time, watch you become a man over the years I thought I knew who you were. So did I. But there’s something inside.
–Scud watches I. CH. Talk ’bout it.
–When the sword stops, the air “blows” his/ her hair.
–The fight, use their leg to break beams
To stand up. Blood pack.
• GDT: Here [above] you can see a lot of stuff that made it, and a lot of stuff that didn’t. On the left, I really wanted speakers that were four stories high in the party place, but we couldn’t afford them.
And you can see me insisting on a Gothic architecture door! [laughs]
That shot of the sliding feet that is described there is in the movie. It’s in the fight on the scaffolding.
And the gold artificial spinal cord is in the movie in the House of Pain.