Post-apocalyptic ice age flick Wynter Dark, about how a reversal of Earth's magnetic polarity destroys the climate, stole my heart when I discovered it would contain wars involving polar bears — and not the wussy Golden Compass kind. In newly-released concept art (above) you can see how the tech-challenged future world has had to resort to carrier pigeons for communication, which is fantastic. Wynter Dark Creative Director Pete Ford talked to io9 about the warring kingdoms of our future, and indulged my many bear-centric inquiries.Here's a concept teaser that explains the Wynter Dark back story: Pete Ford, the Creative Director of Wynter Dark, was kind enough to answer some pressing polar bear questions I had that stemmed from the amazing bear war concept art. The polar bears, can you ride them? Pete Ford: No frickin' way. They are weapons of war called "Protectors" - the idea is that they are unleashed on the battlefield and EVERYONE stands back. Kind of like a white 500 kilogram furry grenade... with teeth. They are also trained to patrol the Kingdom's northern frontier. How does one train a polar bear? PF: Very carefully! Polars Bears are untrainable but we figure that there's been enough time to work out a system which is touched upon in the film. I won't give it away as it plays into a key scene in the movie and goes some way to explain why the furry guys are so pissed all the time. Do we fight the bears alone, or are they a part of someone's military tactics? PF: The bears are exclusively the weapons of The Kingdom of New York. In this future is the ocean frozen over so one could potentially walk across the water to London? PF: Yep - except for the two months of summer. Mind you it's lousy with ice bergs but still quicker to sail across rather than march the troops over when it's frozen solid. Will Wynter Dark be more of a survival story or a warring kingdom story? PF: Warring Kingdom. Society has had hundreds of years to rebuild, mind you there is a survival story (of sorts) at the center of the adventure - I don't want to give that away as it's the emotional core of the film and should stay under wraps for a bit. Can you explain to our readers the significance of the different Kingdoms? PF: The promotional video (which we use to sell the idea of the Kingdoms to the studio guys) goes into it better than I can here but basically the idea is that the magnetic polar reversal is catastrophic for just about everybody on the face of the planet, the few survivors get to the major cities. In the mythology of the story the cities become states and in time become Kingdoms. Why are they are war with each other? You'll have to watch the film to find that out. Do you have any idea when this will be released in theaters? PF: Stay tuned - we will be releasing some very cool news soon about the film that will start to put a time frame on release. Thanks to Quiet Earth for pointing out the teaser trailer.