A futuristic, midcentury movie set for 'Speed Racer'

"We were trying to make the film quite timeless, retro and midcentury, but set sometime in the future," says Owen Paterson, the production designer, who had worked with Andy and Larry Wachowski on their groundbreaking "Matrix" trilogy. Adds set decorator Peter Walpole: "You never quite know where you are or what time you're in."

However, the eye-popping race scenes that make up much of the movie, which opens Friday, could happen only in the distant future -- or in a video game.

"The intention was to make a live-action version of the original cartoon," Paterson says, referencing the Japanese anime series that achieved a huge following in the U.S. in the late 1960s and veritable cult status later. "Speed's world is a parallel world, an exaggeration of color and action and images."

Paterson's goal was to create a universe like ours, but a lot more fun.

For the Racer family home, he chose bold colors for the walls -- red, blue and orange -- then had them further ramped up digitally in post-production. Other surfaces were lined with vibrant, patterned wallpaper. With these choices made, it was Walpole's job to select furnishings.

"There was an amazing amount of colors on the walls," Walpole says. "It would have been easy to lose balance and have it not work."

He brought in a sofa and armchairs covered in a mauve-purple fabric that works surprisingly well with the blue linoleum floors and orange accents.

"The set needs to be comfortable with the viewer. You don't want it to jump out," he says. "You want it to be about the acting, not the set."

Throughout the house, shiny racing trophies grace shelves, hundreds of tiny Hot Wheels cars line the sills, racing posters decorate the walls, and Speed's pristine Mach 5 sits in the middle of the living room.