Cobra Kai creator to the end, Mr. Miyagi Ai and Future of Netflix Show

Spoiler alarm: The last five episodes of “Cobra Kai” are now streamed on Netflix.

Cobra Kai never dies, but the popular karate action series from Netflix is ​​unfortunately over.

After “Cobra Kai” in 2018 on YouTube Red, a streaming service that no longer exists, “Cobra Kai” closed its story after six seasons, 65 episodes -after surviving dual Hollywood strikes and leaving to Netflix has.

After years of raging, which first showed striking and without mercy, every “Cobra Kai” character at the end of the five last episode in season 6 part 3. The worldwide Sekai Taikai tournament, which was stopped after the accident death (Brandon H. Lee) is back, much to the delight of Daniel (Ralph Macchio), Johnny (William Zabka) and her students.

The championship games come to the Iron Dragons, which The Dirty Sensei Wolf (Lewis Tan) and Cobra Kai, who was now led by Johnny, after he and an redeemed kreese (Martin Kove) had an emotional heart-to-heart . Tory (Peyton List) beats Zara (Rayna Valladingham) to claim the girls’ championship, and the boy’s final leads to Axel (Patrick Luwis) and Miguel (Xolo Maridueña), who replaced an injured Robby (Tanner Buchanan). Miguel is victorious, but in a different turn, Cobra Kai and the iron dragon are bound in the last points, which means that their teachers have to fight to determine the winner. The last fight closes the circle when Johnny is over Wolf and eventually becomes a champion, more than 40 years after he had lost in “The Karate Kid” against Daniel.

In the end, Johnny climbs on the cover of Sports Illustrated and buys a house for his growing family. He and Daniel will finally be actually Friends and teaching the New Cobra Kai schoolchildren criminal offense and defense; Robby and Tory become karate spokesman; And Sam (Mary Mouser) goes to Okinawa with an exchange program, but not before Miguel moves to Palo Alto to travel with her for a few weeks.

Speak to diversityThe Creator Josh Hald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg break up the last episodes, their cameos and the next for the “Cobra Kai” -Vver Universe. They also discuss how they reproduced Pat Moritas Mr. Miyagi for the outstanding episode “Skelette”, in which Daniel, together with his late mentor skeletons, struggles from his past literally and metaphorical skeletons.

If you look back when you created the show for YouTube Red in 2018, was this always the end that you imagined?

Josh Hald: This is the end that we wanted to join. This does not mean that every word of dialogue and every character that for the last episode on the screen is the way Johnny ends up, as Daniel resolves, all these feelings, we had this plan in our heads. We didn’t want the plane to take off without knowing how we would land it. We could not have predicted the Sekai Taikai and all of his twists, but we are thrilled that we have the chance to deliver our goals what we could end.

What was the most emotional transmitter or the last episode of the film?

Hayden Schlossberg: There are so many because we are connected to these characters and the actors in six seasons. All of these large climatic scenes were emotional. The one who strikes me is the scene between Johnny and Kreese, in which they have this intensive conversation and Johnny exudes all his symptoms and apologizes. You see this student who wants to forgive and cannot forgive, but can at least accept the fact that Kreese gave him certain properties that he likes. This enables him to continue and take back Cobra Kai. This is such an intensive scene, and the fact that these are two actors who have been in the camera in this regard for 40 years included the intensity of the moment. It makes it a visceral scene for fans in which they see Johnny cry and the teenager comes out in him. It feels so real and only being there while we shoot it was emotionally for everyone.

Johnny still has his triple, non-PC sense for humor to the end-even a new Cobra Kai student calls four eyes. Did you always want him to go through this personal trip but keep his same sense of humor?

Jon Hurwitz: 100%. Johnny Lawrence is Johnny Lawrence to the end, but he is a further developed version. We wanted to go there. We didn’t want him to suddenly be Nice Guy and soft. He’s still a bad one. He will still say it as it is, but we now understand that it comes from a good place. When he calls him four eyes, it is part of the training in a sense that he does not become this child. It will make him stronger to become a better version of himself. This last scene was one of the moments when we got shaking frost on the set. As fans of the show itself, in these early episodes in which Johnny was in this dojo, there were so many great feelings that we had as spectators as he referred to such a class. But now we see a Johnny Lawrence who is finally the animal that is Cobra Kai, and has pushed these words on the wall as the best version of them – and he is now the best version of itself.

In the last episode, Johnny teaches a new definition of Cobra Kais Motto “Strike hard. Beat first. No mercy ”, which is about getting the best in his students and driving them. How did you land on this new meaning?

Hald: We had any kind of discussion that they could imagine about the Cobra Kai Credo. “Does it change? Is it there at all? Is it something new? Does it develop? “We ended up where we landed because it felt the most authentic. This show was not about Cobra Kai, and for themselves. It was about the person who teaches these lessons, their power Exercises and in this room what it means to interpret them for them. Words are words and you should inspire you.

We saw Mr. Miyagi returned in part 2, but now we see him fighting next to Daniel. How did you find the right body double to play Mr. Miyagi?

Hurwitz: That was actually Don Lee, our combat choreographer. It is built in a similar way to Pat Morita. He is a bit thinner than a patient, so he had to put a pillow in his shirt. Don was this amazing member of our team. They saw the combat choreography we have on this show, and it was Don’s great honor to be able to portray one of his greatest heroes. Before the season we talked to Ralph about things he wants to see in the last season. He knew that we told Daniel with his memories Miyagi and learned some new things about him. Ralph loved the idea that he and Pat have shared the screen time together with the new technologies we have. We liked the idea that Daniel needed his last lesson from Miyagi. Miyagi comes to him and they fight together and he gives some final wisdom words that help Daniel continue.

How did you create the face of Mr. Miyagi’s face so that it doesn’t have this scary Valley effect?

Schlossberg: You just stick to it. They see that every version develops and becomes less worrying and terrible every time. These first are very discouraging and you are like: “Oh my god, did we go on the wrong way here?” But they assure you that it will be terrible until it is not basically. We felt in mind that these are dream sequences and give ourselves a little scope to be super precise. We are in this way about visual effects and special special effects in general: You have the budget you have, you do the best job you can do and you hope that the audience will take out your unbelief. You know what we want here. We know it is the right step and you try to use the technology you have.

Did you use archive material or AI to create it again?

Hald: There is no archive material there. We practically shot Don, the fight and the entrance. So that gave in the camera. There is a VFX company that has a deep paw technology. They start producing it and we give many notes. “The forehead here – look at Pat, look at that.” We consider reference photos. “Here Mr. Miyagi is of ‘The Karate Kid’ at night, as his body moves, how the light and the moon are.” You really get microphone, right down to the way the head is shaped and the hair is on your head. We went through 50 iterations and then included a linguistic-sounding actor to deliver the lines and emotiate with Pat Morita Mighta, and how we remembered. Then apply a AI filter used by Pat Morita Archive -Audio to choose this voice as close as possible. At the end of the day they don’t really add one person. We are a tribute to a hero, and they try to get as close as possible while the audience knows that he is obviously not really there.

Josh and Jon, both of them appear in a scene in which they play producers who discuss that they make a TV show “Back to the Future”. How did you decide to sit on the show?

Hald: Jon and I wanted to do something on the show free of charge. Hayden threw himself awesome as a lawyer of Terry Silver. We have looked at a way to do something that the action has not affected in a large way or has thrown too much focus. Since we made this scene, in which we see a little bit of new life in the valley with these two best friends Johnny and Daniel -we go to the best friend restaurant and see how other friends talk. Since we are in LA, you can be a producer and talk about an inspired review of a property from the 80s. It was very meta for these two characters to conduct this kind of discussion in the context of this show.

The film “Karate Kid: Legends” comes to cinemas this summer and will lock Ralph Macchio as Daniel. But will that really be the end of the “Karate Kid” and “Cobra Kai “ureal?

Hald: We have plans to surpass our reception in this universe as much as you will leave us. There is still nothing official that we can talk about, but we never stopped talking about how we can develop stories in this universe with Sony and Netflix. We will continue to have these conversations until there is something to speak in the official property. Cobra Kai never dies, but the “Cobra Kai” series ends. This is the finale of the mother ship, but that doesn’t mean that we will never see these people again.

This interview was processed and compressed.