Inside Apple TV+’s Chief of War

Our cowl story preview takes you inside Chief of Conflict, Jason Momoa’s most private venture but. Shot on sacred land and spoken in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, this Apple TV+ sequence tells the story of a kingdom on the sting, a warrior named Kaʻiana, and the revival of an Indigenous legacy that has waited centuries to be heard.

Created by Jason Momoa and Thomas Paʻa Sibbett, Chief of War is a sweeping, Hawaiian-led epic that reclaims historical past, language, and cultural reminiscence with a scope and soul in contrast to something on tv. We spoke with Momoa and Sibbett at size in regards to the journey behind the sequence, and traveled to Hawaiʻi for the junket, the place the forged, crew, and the land itself revealed simply how private this story actually is.

Filmed on sacred land, written in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, and anchored within the real-life journey of warrior Kaʻiana, Chief of Conflict tells the story of a kingdom getting ready to unification and collapse. However greater than that, it marks a return to identification, ancestral energy, and a imaginative and prescient lengthy denied the display. That is the untold story behind the sequence. That is the way it all got here house.

The Delivery of Chief of Conflict

How Jason Momoa and Apple TV+ Introduced Chief of Conflict to Life

Jason Momoa’s journey to deliver Chief of Conflict to life started greater than a decade in the past. The story had lived with him for years, launched to him by his associate and developed alongside longtime collaborator Thomas Paʻa Sibbett. However even then, the timing wasn’t proper. “Jason had the wherewithal to know that his star energy wasn’t sufficiently big but to offer the eye a narrative like this wants,” Sibbett explains. “The reality is that I, as a storyteller and a producer on the time, wasn’t prepared both.”

Reasonably than drive it right into a untimely pitch, the pair waited. They constructed their staff, Jason, Sibbett, and director-producer Brian Mendoza, and methodically raised their profiles. “Our staff… simply labored at getting ourselves right into a place the place we may go to a spot with confidence,” Sibbett says. “We additionally knew there was no precedent for a Hawaiian story.”

For Momoa, the second got here after his breakout roles in Sport of Thrones and Aquaman gave him the clout to pitch ardour initiatives. “I feel once I was doing the primary Dune, I pitched this to Apple,” Momoa remembers. “They trusted me, so Thomas and I acquired to construct the 9 episodes. Having it’s Hawaiian-written, doing all of the analysis… it is f–king superior, dude.”

The belief was effectively positioned. Chief of Conflict, Apple TV+’s most bold sequence rooted in Pacific historical past, grew to become a multi-year dedication and a cultural first. “There was no precedent,” Sibbett reiterates.

“We did not know if the Hawaiian language goes to be one thing that individuals will sit via. We did not know if the illustration of our tradition, in a means that’s extra correct to our historical past, was one thing that individuals will absorb.”

Momoa provides: “That is most likely going to be essentially the most impactful factor that is ever f–king occurred to me. I can not wait to deliver it house and present my individuals.”

And with that, the gates opened. Not only for Chief of Conflict, however for a whole wave of Pacific storytelling.

That wave was felt throughout the Pacific. For veteran actors like Cliff Curtis (Keoua) and Temuera Morrison (King Kahekili) who we spoke with when visiting Hawaiʻi’ for the premiere and junket, Chief of Conflict represented a historic milestone. “Hawaiʻi’s by no means been proven this manner,” Curtis mentioned. “Jason and Paʻa are telling their story. We’ve been introduced in as Māori to help that, to assist deliver our ancestral bloodlines collectively via Chief of Conflict.”

“We’re simply in a wonderful place now,” Morrison added. “Polynesia will have fun tonight. We’ve by no means seen something fairly prefer it.”

The ensemble forged options a variety of Indigenous actors from throughout the Pacific, from seasoned icons to first-time performers, all telling the story from inside.

Kaʻiana: Insurgent, Warrior, Icon

Who Is Kaʻiana? The Actual Warrior Behind Chief of Conflict

Each epic wants a compelling determine at its core. For Chief of Conflict, that determine is Kaʻiana, a historic warrior who walked a path between royalty, riot, and tragedy. Jason Momoa describes him as “one of many first Hawaiians to see the world,” a voyager who traveled so far as China, the Philippines, and Alaska earlier than returning house with information and warning indicators of what was coming.

“He comes again going like, ‘They’re coming,’” Momoa explains. “He additionally will get to see individuals enslaved, and he was a struggle basic, so he understood what was at stake.” However Kaʻiana’s knowledge and expertise made him an outsider. His worldview was formed by publicity to illness, struggling, and colonial methods, and when he returned to Hawaiʻi, he not noticed it the identical means. “He is suffering from the skin world,” Momoa says. “Nobody actually sees it the way in which he does, apart from this one lady.”

“He’s poisoned by the skin world,” Momoa mentioned after we spoke to him once more in Hawaiʻi. “He desires to guard everybody right here, however he can by no means return to what he was. So if he needs to be the most cancers that forces individuals to behave, then so be it”

His story, wealthy with romance, ambition, and betrayal, carries echoes of classical delusion. “It’s that Lancelot, Guinevere, King Arthur type of story,” Momoa says, referencing the love triangle that pits Kaʻiana’s coronary heart towards his loyalties. “It was the proper factor,” he provides. “I can inform our king’s story and honor all of the completely different kings and queens.”

However taking part in Kaʻiana was not a matter of self-insertion. If something, Momoa felt distanced from the character in key methods. “There are issues that I do not like about him,” he admits. “I disagree with him most likely greater than any character I’ve performed.” Nonetheless, the act of embodying Kaʻiana held a deeper objective.

“That is the fantastic thing about it. I get to create the story, and nobody’s getting in our means. That is extra necessary to me than simply taking part in the character.”

Sibbett provides that Kaʻiana’s story aligned completely with Momoa’s personal identification. “Jason’s Hawaiian, however he is such a cosmopolitan individual. He’s traveled, and he actually absorbs all the things,” he says. “Kaʻiana was precisely that type of individual.”

Telling the Story the Hawaiian Method

Cultural Authenticity in Chief of Conflict: Hawaiian Voices and Traditions

From the beginning, Momoa and Sibbett knew Chief of Conflict needed to be made on their phrases. That meant embracing Indigenous authorship, embedding cultural authenticity at each degree, and guaranteeing Hawaiian voices had been a part of each dialog behind the digicam. “We needed issues to be rooted in our tradition,” Sibbett explains. “Main a manufacturing with tradition just isn’t solely an thought, however it may be carried out.”

This wasn’t a backdrop, it was a blueprint. Manufacturing enlisted grasp carvers to create actual picket tikis. Canoes had been crafted from felled timber, hauled and lashed collectively within the conventional means. “All these tikis you see had been hand-carved out of wooden,” Sibbett says. “They needed to be devoted and blessed.”

Momoa echoes the sense of accountability. “We employed everybody. If we do not get it proper, we’re not coming house. That is the reality of it,” he says. “Every thing from the instruments to the homes and the canoes, all the things was finished proper.”

That cultural precision extends to the narrative itself. “Even individuals who know Hawaii so effectively do not know this facet,” Momoa says. “I imply, we had been a f–king kingdom.” For each creators, Chief of Conflict is as a lot a historic correction as it’s an epic drama. “We’re lastly opening the gates,” Momoa says. “And I’m trying ahead to the subsequent era simply kicking these f–kers down.”

Language as Legacy

How Chief of Conflict Revives the Hawaiian Language on Display

For Momoa and Sibbett, telling this story in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi was by no means a query of if, however how. The Hawaiian language had by no means been represented on this scale earlier than. “It was an enormous ask,” Sibbett admits. “The actors do not communicate Hawaiian. The administrators do not communicate Hawaiian. The producers do not communicate Hawaiian. The heads of the studios do not communicate Hawaiian.”

And but, they moved ahead. With the help of language specialists from Awaiaulu and the total dedication of forged and crew, the manufacturing constructed an unprecedented course of for linguistic constancy. “The language was so necessary to the truth of the present,” Sibbett says. “If the language wasn’t there, then we’ve eliminated the truth, and all people understood the load of that.”

The end result was one thing uncommon in Hollywood: a forged prepared to redo total scenes to make sure the Hawaiian dialogue was correct. “They had been totally dedicated,” Sibbett says. “They didn’t enable language to interrupt their talents to behave.”

For most of the forged, the expertise went past efficiency. “At any time when I used to be talking the language, that’s once I felt nearer to Kaʻahumanu,” Luciane Buchanan, who performs Ka’ahumanu in Chief of Conflict, tells us. “Even once I didn’t perceive the phrases, I may really feel the connection.” Temuera Morrison echoed that sentiment. “The language was how I discovered my means into the character,” he mentioned. “It gave me the historical past.”

Momoa discovered studying the language unexpectedly tough. “I believed it was going to be loads simpler for me. It was loads simpler for everyone else,” he laughs. “Nevertheless it was a wonderful factor. My coach lived with me, so it was full-on. We actually needed to do it proper.”

The work paid off. For each creators, listening to the cadence and weight of ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi on display is not only a triumph, however a therapeutic act of restoration.

Epic Battles and Actual Volcanoes in Chief of Conflict

How Chief of Conflict Filmed Its Most Highly effective Scenes

Filming Chief of Conflict meant staging large-scale battles throughout rugged, sacred terrain. Jason Momoa directed the explosive finale, shot over eight days on a lava area utilizing 4 separate models. “I needed to make one of many greatest battle scenes that I’ve ever finished in my life,” he says. “It was huge, man.”

Principal pictures spanned throughout Hawaiʻi and New Zealand, with areas chosen to replicate each pure historical past and sacred resonance.

The scene attracts from actual historical past, a volcanic eruption that worn out Kaʻiana’s rival’s forces and helped flip the tide of struggle. In a surreal twist, when the crew arrived to shoot, the volcano erupted in actual time. “Our ancestors had been stirring up some stuff,” Momoa says.

“The f–king volcano went off the evening earlier than we shot. Then the second day, one other volcano went off. By no means in written historical past have two gone off on the identical time. And the day we ended, on the eighth day, they f–king stopped.”

Sibbett remembers that week vividly. “We’re retelling a narrative of this particular eruption, and we’re not over there performing some Hollywood mumbo jumbo. It is a true story,” he says. “The land reacted.” Each evening, they watched the lava glow from their motels. “The skies are crimson… and the evening we wrapped, the eruptions stopped.”

The load of that second, for Sibbett, confirmed one thing deeper. “As Kanaka, we consider that the land is alive. And on this case, it was proof that the island has reminiscence. As we honor this second, we at the moment are being honored in return.”

The Island Has Reminiscence

The Non secular Energy of Place in Chief of Conflict

For the creators of Chief of Conflict, the manufacturing was greater than a technical problem or cultural milestone. It was a non secular alignment. The land itself appeared to acknowledge the story being informed. “We name that Hōʻailona in Hawaiʻi,” Thomas Paʻa Sibbett explains. “An omen or an indication that means that you can really feel comfy that you’re in alignment with what you are doing.”

That alignment manifested repeatedly all through the shoot. The dual volcanic eruptions in the course of the finale. The crimson glow within the skies. The sacred websites made sacred once more via storytelling. “We didn’t need all the things to be pretend,” Sibbett says. “We needed issues to be rooted in our tradition, and we had the kind of crew that allowed us to try this.”

“We had so many Hōʻailona,” Sibbett added in a followup dialog after we sat down with him and Momoa. “Indicators, manifestations. It felt just like the land was responding to us.”

Each canoe, each tiki, each line of dialogue was carved from the identical impulse: honor. “Whether or not or not audiences settle for this,” Sibbett says, “we did it in a culturally related means with cultural security and consciousness. We had been repaid in ways in which had been culturally related.”

The ultimate message, echoed in lava and reminiscence, is obvious. The land is alive. And it remembers.

Chief of Conflict premieres Friday, August 1 on Apple TV+.