Streamliner
At your service.
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
(More precise numbers remain, for now, elusive.
The fact that this comes out on a streaming platform gives us that option.
But now Indian people are calling Hulu Hulu-lu-lu-lu for doing this, which I think is so cool.
The film has been in development for a few years.
Can you talk about joining as a producer?
This film has Comanche content, so he reached out to me, and then I met Dan.
But this one was like 100 percent.
When Dan interviewed me, he asked me all kinds of questions about my background.
I am an enrolled member of the Comanche Nation.
I was born in Lawton, Oklahoma, which is the seat of the Comanche Nation.
To this day, thats where the majority of our tribe lives.
Were like 16,000 Comanches, and probably 14,000 of them live in that area in Oklahoma.
Im Comanche and Blackfeet, and he talked to me about my upbringing.
I was raised by my grandparents, and they taught me our Comanche ways and our heritage fromtheirgrandparents.
I was raised with knowledge four generations away from myself, which is really unusual in todays society.
After I joined, Dan, Patrick, and I started working with the script.
Naru means fight in Comanche, but originally her name was Kee, and kee means no.
When we get our names, its for something that you do rather than a command.
We tried to create a backstory for her.
It was great that we were able to change those things.
And it was pitched in Comanche?Originally, we pitched it to the studio in all Comanche.
And when we had the actors audition, they auditioned in English and Comanche.
He came from Nashville.
I said, This is the same thing.
Thats a scary thought!
You just have to find that medium for someone so that get them to click.
So the script began with All dialogue in Comanche written across the top.
What was the process of actually making that happen?
Im curious how you tackled both.We initially started infusing some Comanche words and some phrases into the regular script.
They were like, The Comanche plays really well, thats really good!
That was a suggestion from the studio?Yes, in March 2022.
Lets just try it.
Lets do a whole Comanche dub.
And Dan and I were like, Yes!
And you know, when you say yes, you realize,I have to do it!
Ive never done this before.
How am I going to pull this off?
The Comanche Nation has a really good language program: theComanche Nation Language Department.
You want me to translate our language into a movie?
Its kind of unbelievable, right?
We also have really good linguists.
I reached out toGuy Narcomeyand said, Guy, I need your help!
And hes younger than me, so Im his elder, so I played that elder card.
1conversationalist,plus he also wrote the Comanche dictionary.
So then he jumped on it and started helping me with the conversation.
When we took the film back in April 2022, we had a rough cut.
The CG takes a while, and they were still working on all of the VFX and everything.
But they were blown away.
Well take the help.
We were translating from the final, whats going to show up.
Theres not a template to say, This is how you do it: stepsA,B,C.
They were like, So how are you going to do this?
And I was kind of making things up because I personally didnt know.
It was going to get done, but I didnt have a formula.
Now I have a formula.
But its like, I fought for this for so long, and now here it is.
I cannot fail.
I cannot fail Dan.
I cannot fail this beautiful movie.
Can you walk me through the process a bit?
What did translating the rough-cut film for the dub entail?Dan and I went to Canada.
Then we started post, and we worked on the dub from April through July 2022.
We got hooked up with Pixelogic, who works with Disney and does all these languages.
We had a very short timeline.
I told Pixelogic, I just want to tell you one thing.
We would do several takes maybe five to six takes so Dan had the right things to choose from.
Even the French characters, like Raphael Bennett Taylor wanted to do his part in Comanche.
Hes an amazing actor, and he did phenomenal speaking Comanche.
In the movie, he is supposed to be speaking Comanche because hes a translator.
But now with Hulu, were able to click and see how many people watched this in Comanche.
Did they watch it all the way through?
Did they watch it partially?
The world has access to hear what the Comanche language sounds like, and thats never been done.
Im the one who did that component.
When you look back over the film, were there any scenes that were particularly challenging to translate?
Guy lived out in California for three weeks at one time because we had to get it done.
I know now what the timeline would look like.
Andon set, we would say, Youre smarter than a Beavers.
Predatorhas a huge fan base.
And in that fan base, you have people who are looking for those Easter eggs.
So we gave that good line to Dakota: If it bleeds, we can kill it.
I already knew the history.
When we showed it at Comic-Con, people were clapping their hands when they heard Dakota.
That thought never went through my head.How cool would it be if Natives were in this position?
Let the Lakota speak their language.
Let the Iowa speak their language.
That language component is now going to be a real possibility.
To me, its history-making.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
