In an interview with Cult Spy Director Alex Proyas (The Crow / Dark City / I, Robot / Knowing) has divulged a little more information about his upcoming feature film, The Tripods.
He says he and writer Stuart Hazeldine have “just done” the script to ‘The White Mountains’, the first film in the proposed trilogy. The script stays very faithful to the book and since there’s no guarantee that a second and third film will be made until the first proves itself successful, the script is a self contained piece.
Despite remaining faithful to the original novel, Proyas admits that they have made one significant change to the screenplay – they have changed one of the leading male characters into a girl.
Alex Proyas to Cult Spy:
“Well, we’ve erm, I’m giving you all my secrets, but we’ve actually changed Beanpole to a girl. That was a pretty significant change, because I really just didn’t get the notion that there’d be these three boys travelling around the countryside and they just really wanted to have a girl in the mix.
Eloise is still there, the red tower is still there, all the beats from the book are still there, but I hope we’ve added a layer of character development that the books don’t. In all honesty, as big a fan as I am, the characters are pretty sketchy in the books. So we’ve tried to give them a level of depth that will hopefully sustain three movies.”
Whilst promoting his new sci-fi film Knowing, Alex Proyas (Dark City / I, Robot) has shed some more light on whats in store with the first film in his planned Tripods trilogy.
The Tripods is based upon the novels of the same name written by John Christopher and fans will be pleased to know that Proyas has no intention of changing the location the film is set in from the original books.
“Absolutely it’s set in Europe,” he said in an interview with SFX. “We’re basically concentrating on the first book in the trilogy at the moment, The White Mountain, and we’ve kept the exact flow of geography that’s in the book. Which is that basically they start off in England and then go across the channel to France. So that’s all been preserved from the book.”
Additionally, many people who grew up with the books are now adults and refreshingly Proyas admits he has no intention of making a childish film.
“Well, you know, I’ve never made a kids’ film so I don’t really know what that is. Look, it’s not going to be R-rated that’s for sure. But I wouldn’t be making a light and frothy entertainment. I think there are some pretty powerful concepts and it will certainly have an adult quality to it even though the protagonists are 12 year-old children.”
Concerns that The Tripods is just another War of the Worlds are also laid to rest as whilst comparing his vision to Steven Spielberg’s film, Proyas says his Tripods will be much lower, much faster, and more crab like in their movement. Basically they’ll chase you down really scary like, just as they do in the book.
“Our Tripods are going to be very different. Their centre of gravity is going to be much lower. Spielberg’s ones were very octopus-like; tall and gangly. Ours are going to be low to the ground, more crab-like, for want of a better description. They’ll be much faster. They can actually climb stuff. There’s actually a bit in the script where the kids are pursued up the Eiffel Tower by one of the Tripods, which is kinda like scrambling over the tower essentially.”
A live-action adaptation of The Tripods ran as a television series from 1984 to 1985. The series was immensely popular and has earned an average 7.6 on the IMDB, which is pretty impressive considering it is heavily dated and was subject to immense budget constraints.
When I heard Proyas mention the Eiffel Tower scene I was reminded of this clip on YouTube, which features various scenes from seasons 1 and 2 of the television series accompanied by Bear McCreary’s music from Battlestar Galactica. I’m sure this will wet your appetite for the movie:
The Tripods (Season 1 & 2 Trailer to Battlestar Galactica music):
No cast members are attached to the feature film version at this time.
No release date has been announced although expectations are that it will hit theatres some time in 2012.
When it comes to highly anticipated movies, The Tripods surely has to rank up there. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that besides James Cameron’s Avatar, I’m looking forward to this movie more than any other.
The Tripods is based upon John Christopher’s science fiction series of the same name, and it tells the story of a post-apocalyptic world ruled by three-legged alien machines who have enslaved humanity. The Tripods control human minds by capping the minds of children when they near the age of 14.
The story is being scripted by Alex Proyas (director of Dark City, I, Robot and The Crow). Proyas recently told Sci Fi Wire that he envisions The Tripods to unfold as a trilogy.
“We’ve done a draft; we’re basically at the first-draft stage of The Tripods, and we’re about to go into our second draft,” Proyas said.
“Pretty happy with the script; I think it’s come a long way. We’re only doing the first book, ‘The White Mountains’, and the notion is, obviously, that it will hopefully be a trilogy. But we’ll probably just be shooting the first movie independently.”
Shooting the first film to stand on its own two feet is common. A movie generally has to prove itself at the box office before officially getting a green-lit sequel let alone trilogy. The Matrix is the perfect example, where the trilogy had been planned from the beginning but the first movie was made to fare in its own right.
I grew up loving The Tripods and yes, I admit, it’s a series aimed at a younger audience. But don’t let that dissuade you from what is an enjoyable and cerebral storyline. It seems Proyas feels the same way.
“That’s something that I read when I was exactly the right age, which was about 11 or 12,” he told Sci Fi Wire: “It’s virtually a coming-of-age story with alien invaders. So that really struck a nerve with me as a kid, and it’s haunted me: the notion of these creatures sort of capping us and putting these kind of mind-control probes on us to kind of indoctrinate us into the world of adults. I always found that a really powerful notion, so that’s always been something that I’ve wanted to explore in those stories.”
The Tripods has been made once before in the form of a children’s television series that ran from 1984 to 1985. The series was quite popular for its time and even now enjoys a relatively high 7.6 on the IMDB.
No cast members are attached to the feature film version at this time.
If you’re also keen to see this movie know that there’s going to be a long wait for its release – about three years to be precise.
