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Best visual representation of R'lyeh I've seen

posted 14 years ago by legmogler_2005
3 replies | jump to latest

Hi peeps (with no defacto main Lovecraft board, I've posted this on a few different forums here on IMDB)
The city of R'lyeh (The ancient underwater city from the climax of the ledgendary book of Call of Cthulu) has always remained somewhat of an Enigma in terms of what it actually looks like.
It's been a while since I read the book, but I remember Lovecraft goes to good detail to stress just how chaotic, indescribable and totally alien the design and look of the city is. Also how it is totally incomparable to any form of structure comprehendable to us mere humans :). A city of madness which drives men to insane fear and even suicidal tendancies.
Needless to say R'lyeh is no doubt immense ^^

However in all the artwork I have seen on the Cthulu Mythos... R'lyeh had always seemed so... Conventional, bland and un-threatening. Way too normal and cliche.
I guess the highly ambiguous and difficult description given by Lovecraft must be hell for any Artist hoping to capture the grandeous terror aesthetic of R'lyeh. One might even say it is impossible to ever capture the essense of R'lyeh in a picture or visual piece.

However I just today saw a couple of videos on Youtube of what is called '3D Fractal Art'... A Fractal being a mathematically calculated visual representation based on numeric formulas of infinite scope (i.e you could keep on zooming into the picture for infinity and still would see more and more... The Fractal never ends). In this particular case, a fully 3 dimensional Fractal shape had been created, and the camera endlessly pans through the crevices and decor of this 3D Fractal.
Watching this video, it all of a sudden struck me... The chaotic, random and non-conventional aesthetic of the 3D Fractal environment is a PERFECT look for R'yleh!
Literally comprised of infinite complexity and detail, and when you imagine this Fractal environment as a sort of structure one may walk around in, it certainly seems like a chilling and terrifying place to be. Oozing with unconventional shapes and wierd layouts, I know I would be scared to be in such a place ^^

So here are the links. Check them out and tell me what you think ^^

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO9ugnn8DbE&feature=related
This one is quite 'Earthy' and 'Natural' looking.
Check out 2.08 for what I consider a good part... 2.08 almost seems like we are viewing one long corridor, at the end of which is the entrance to the chamber of Cthulu himself ^^

Here's the other one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgdN5yO39UI
This one is perhaps a little more stereotypically evil and 'bad loking'. Much more stone like and industrial? But still very un-natural and chilling.

SO thats it ^^. Tell me what you guys think?
Personally I consider this to be the closest thing in my mind to capturing what I believe R'lyeh to be, both in terms of physical appearence and the general 'wierdness' it exudes.

[–] heghofo 13 years ago

Impressive, but I feel like I've seen it before.

The fact is, R'lyeh cannot be faithfully recreated in the visual medium because it has no visuals worth recreating - the important thing is that it's INCOMPREHENSIBLE. Only one thing can strive to recreate that feeling - the human imagination. The most proper way to show it in a movie would be to show perhaps glimpses, and focus mostly on the character's reaction to it.

As far as fractal art goes, these videos are the best I've seen, but it's still something that 3D modelling has been using for years. Videogames and CGI in movies have given us some quite fascinating "impossible architecture" designs already: Moria in LotR, the Citadel in Mass Effect, the Forbidden Land in Shadow of the Colossus, Temen-ni-gru in DMC3, High Charity in Halo 2, the Deep Roads in Dragon Age. They all use 3D art to show us unreasonably vast and structurally impossible architecture, but still giving it a palpable 3D look.

However, all of these things are visually obvious. They aren't mind-bending. Movies like Inception and Matrix capture more of the "illogical" spirit of what R'lyeh must feel like.

[–] abraxas1122 13 years ago

I know what you mean!
Just the fact that you could dwell and go deeper infinitely, already talks about impossible, overwhelming and incomprehensible; two of the major traits of Lovecraftian environmental descriptions.

Sure... the colors and textures might look too familiar, but I totally know what you mean.

Thanks for sharing!

[–] peteranderson975 13 years ago

It is impressively weird but at most it would be a three dimensional shadow of a an n-dimensional entity where n is not a real number.
I think that is that best thing at about Lovecraft, his writing hints at concepts in his head the he genuinely could not put onto paper. And that has plagued all attempts at conventional film adaptation of all but his most mundane work.