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Spielberg's alien tale is 'Taken' to cable
cleveland.com ^ | 12/02/02 | Clint O'Connor

Posted on 12/02/2002 11:04:08 PM PST by vikingchick

If you were assigned to make a fantastical 20-hour, 10-part series about alien encounters, you'd think you'd concoct the freakiest, funkiest extraterrestrials ever conceived.

Not so.

Not if you're making "Taken," the alien-abduction saga that premieres at 9 tonight on cable's Sci Fi Channel.

"Steven said we had to respect the lore," says Jim Lima, the project's visual-effects supervisor. "We had to be faithful to what was said the most by people who had encounters."

Steven is Steven Spielberg. He is not only one of the most powerful people in entertainment, but also the man who gave the world "E.T." and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." The man who can green-light so many projects gave birth to this one four years ago. It's on cable because no network could commit such a massive chunk of its prime-time schedule.

Because of Spielberg's decree, the aliens in "Taken" are rather standard issue: gray, about 4 feet tall, long fingers, skinny bodies, oversized heads with huge black, almond-shaped eyes. Spielberg scored with the acclaimed World War II miniseries "Band of Brothers" on HBO, and now he's out to see if an audience will stay with 10 two-hour, movielike episodes over two weeks.

The series follows three American families - the Clarkes, Keys and Crawfords - over four generations, from 1945 to the present day and slightly beyond.

It pays homage to major alien encounters reported in America's postwar history, including the most pivotal event: the supposed crash of a spaceship near Roswell, N.M., in July 1947.

"It's the coolest thing that I've ever seen," says Tobe Hooper of the series. Hooper directed the pivotal first episode (each episode has its own director). Hooper knows about "cool," not to mention strange, having directed "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" and "Poltergeist" (co-written by Spielberg).

Although it was up to Hooper to integrate "the grays" into the story, it was the Earth-bound humans who received most of his attention. The director said he was hooked because the story was so character-driven.

"I liked that it wasn't sci-fi-y," he says on the phone from his home in Southern California. "It was like the real thing."

The real thing begins in the skies over Germany during World War II. Capt. Russell Keys (Steve Burton) is leading an Allied bombing mission. His bomber gets hit and is headed down in flames but is saved by some mysterious blasts of blue light. He and his crew are mysteriously healed and wake up in a field in France. But who really saved them and what was done to them after they were "taken"?

Keys returns home to a sepia-toned America to reunite with his parents and his best girl, something out of "The Best Years of Our Lives."

"I tried to give the characters that subtext, to give it that Norman Rockwell feel," says Hooper.

Hooper said no expense was spared.

"We had 60 locations and more than 60 actors. I had every lens, every cinematic toy," he says. And he had Lima.

The visual-effects guru, who had worked previously with Spielberg in television on "SeaQuest DSV" and "The Others," also had created outer dimensions for films such as "Space Jam" (he also designed the Green Goblin for "Spider-Man.")

"It was like doing 10 movies," says Lima on the phone from his home in Pacific Palisades, Calif. "We had 16 months of production. In my earliest discussions with Steven, he explained that science fiction is 'Minority Report.' Science mythology is UFO sightings, close encounters of the first kind." (Close encounters of the second kind are defined as physical evidence; close encounters of the third kind are alien sightings.)

Lima used a cavalcade of computer-generated digital tricks; there are no puppets or animatronics. But there is a human element. He took a digital photograph of his wife's eye, enlarged it, stretched it out, colored it and used that for the aliens' eyes.

"The iris is still in there," says Lima. "I wanted to show thought, to have these digital characters show emotion."

The grays also can take human form and read minds.

If "Taken" is groundbreaking for its length and visual effects, it also must set some sort of record for script-writing. Les Bohem wrote the entire 20 hours. A former member of the band Sparks, Bohem ("Dante's Peak") emphasizes the human relationships and family interplay.

The ensemble cast includes Catherine Dent, Joel Gretsch, Eric Close, Ryan Hurst, Matt Frewer and Michael Moriarty as the stern colonel who covers up the initial Roswell crash in tonight's episode. Some characters span several nights. Eight-year-old Dakota Fanning (the daughter in "I Am Sam") narrates all 10 episodes and appears in the final four.

Her voice is at once innocent and filled with wisdom.

"It's very much 'To Kill A Mockingbird,' " says Hooper. "It has that sensitivity, that kind of elegance."

As for the phenomenon itself - the long lists of people who claim to have been abducted, poked and prodded by aliens and returned to Earth - Hooper says he has studied it more than half his life. He finds it valid.

"I'm definitely a believer," says Hooper. "There's something out there."

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

coconnor@plaind.com, 216-999-4456


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Front Page News; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: abduction; alien; boring; spielberg; taken; ufo
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To: Mulder
Are there dolphins involved?
221 posted on 12/09/2002 9:32:46 PM PST by vikingchick
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To: vikingchick
Are there dolphins involved?

LOL! Your mind must be really in the gutter to think of that, although I wouldn't put it past the mad scientist. ;-)

No dolphins in that scene, though.

222 posted on 12/09/2002 9:40:39 PM PST by Mulder
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To: Mulder
rofl! Oh no, the pregnant girl isn't going to have an Alien busting out of her stomach, a la Sigourney Weaver movie?
223 posted on 12/09/2002 9:42:56 PM PST by vikingchick
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To: vikingchick
Oh no, the pregnant girl isn't going to have an Alien busting out of her stomach, a la Sigourney Weaver movie?

All of these modern space goblin movies invariably have an "earth girl" getting knocked up by one of "them".

224 posted on 12/09/2002 9:49:31 PM PST by Mulder
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To: Mulder
Yeah, the space goblins are total pervs, the lot of them.
225 posted on 12/09/2002 9:51:44 PM PST by vikingchick
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To: Mulder
Eeeewwww!!!!
226 posted on 12/09/2002 9:54:51 PM PST by vikingchick
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To: vikingchick
Yeah, the space goblins are total pervs, the lot of them.

There's nothing wrong with them that can't be fixed by some buckshot and some rural dwellers in the southern United States.

Eeeewwww!!!!

Another bad blonde.... (although I don't think she is really a blonde, and wouldn't want to find out after that episode....)

227 posted on 12/09/2002 9:58:40 PM PST by Mulder
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To: Mulder
You did NOT adequately prepare me for that. LOL!!! OK, I am officially grossed out.
228 posted on 12/09/2002 10:00:27 PM PST by vikingchick
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To: vikingchick
You did NOT adequately prepare me for that. LOL!!! OK, I am officially grossed out.

LOL! It took me by surprise too. Who'd have thought?

229 posted on 12/09/2002 10:07:50 PM PST by Mulder
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To: Mulder
I love Matt Frewer, but I really did NOT need to see him having sex with ... who the hell was that anyway? You miss half an hour and you might as well have never seen a second of it.
230 posted on 12/09/2002 10:13:51 PM PST by Timesink
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To: Mulder
Gad, at least they're surprising instead of boring us to death. That was fun. Checking out now. Goodnight!
231 posted on 12/09/2002 10:14:24 PM PST by vikingchick
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To: Fred Mertz; vikingchick
Fred, I too am having trouble staying awake..Dozed off and woke up again. You don't think we are being "taken" during the series, do you? Looking for marks on my body when I finish this post :~)

VC, the screaming father in the mental ward was not a unique idea. (Don't tell Steven, as if we werent' supposed to notice that was coming).. "They're coming for YOU"!!
Mother then explains to son, that Daddy is delusional, thinks the Aliens saved him from the War, but now they are going to come and take the son "away". Surprise! The Son says "they already have"...whoops!

OK, so the little girl making the Dolphins stand straight up in the water with her mental telepathy was a different twist. Actually, it was quite pretty. Score one scene for Spielberg after 12 hours of a really lame series, so far.

sw

232 posted on 12/10/2002 5:59:15 AM PST by spectre
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To: vikingchick
Who knew that you could take a subject with space aliens and abduction and turn it into a cinemagraphic War and Peace. Now THAT takes talent.
233 posted on 12/10/2002 6:06:46 AM PST by Lee'sGhost
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To: Mulder
Spooky -- Mulder.
234 posted on 12/10/2002 6:10:16 AM PST by Lee'sGhost
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To: Mulder
By far, Mary and Uncle Chet, in bed, was THE most disturbing part, thus far, of this whole series.

Blech, blech.

Best Regards,

235 posted on 12/10/2002 6:10:51 AM PST by scoopscandal
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To: Mulder
I think his granddaughter is the one who is bad as the Col was.
236 posted on 12/10/2002 6:11:57 AM PST by KevinDavis
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To: Fred Mertz
Lucky you didn't wake up to see the last ten minutes, Fred, you'd have trouble falling back to sleep!

Best Regards,

237 posted on 12/10/2002 6:15:01 AM PST by scoopscandal
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To: vikingchick; scoopscandal; mil-vet; spectre; WhiteGuy; KevinDavis
....Are there dolphins involved?.....

My but you are Prescient

Now for my word.....

There were bright lights, there were people abiding their jobs, there were wise men watching the lights assemble over Seattle, there were heavenly bodies protecting the events, there was a virgin birth.....

238 posted on 12/10/2002 2:28:02 PM PST by bert
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To: vikingchick
Spielberg hates blondes, Germans and the military. Not necessarily in that order
239 posted on 12/10/2002 2:34:48 PM PST by bribriagain
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To: bert; spectre
There were bright lights, there were people abiding their jobs, there were wise men watching the lights assemble over Seattle, there were heavenly bodies protecting the events, there was a virgin birth.....

Ohhhhhh. Myyyyy. Good catch. ha ha ha!

240 posted on 12/10/2002 2:40:33 PM PST by vikingchick
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