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
Great thinking! Unfortunately, the writing will probably be translated as one of the little girl's droning homilies: "Sometimes life is like a box of chocolates. But other times, it isn't."
But going along with your post (which was very good, BTW), I'd say that Mary wasn't a product of an abduction. I still think her Grandfather, Crawford, who originally entered the craft, didn't come out of there the same as he went in, ONE way or Another.
sw
So, nevermind...grins.
sw
I don't know if I nailed it, VC? Kind of stupid, when "what's her name" entered the space craft like she did. AND, like you, I don't believe the ship is really disabled. Trick!
IF the Aliens start releasing people they captured from the 1940's, looking as if they arrived just yesterday, I'm REALLY gonna throw a shoe at the TV.
Stay tuned.
sw
Ohhh allright..
I got carried away I guess. My point is "we are them".
There is another recurring generational theme, the star pendant. It was once an ear ring and the other one is still around somewhere. I look for the other star to reappear around the neck of someone, perhaps on one of the current crash occupants.
The tape of this saga should be about half of the air-time, considering the commercials are legion!
sw
Yeah, it was way too easy to bring down the spaceship. I suspect the aliens will now disable the military's evil weapons and bathe the humans with unconditional love and warm hugs.
Ditto that. My shoe is ready and waiting by the television.
What if, after attempting to blow the spacecraft to smithereens, they finally discover the writing on the alien metal says something like Peace on Earth like in the song "One Tin Soldier"?
That's when the other shoe gets launched.
Still waiting for Spielbergs unique genius to shine forth.
There are just so many ways this can end, and they have all been thought of before...just guessing here...:~)
sw
Dumb ending #1: Aliens give up on humans, take the girl and leave.
Dumb ending #2: Aliens are really dolphins, take the girl and leave, saying, "So long and thanks for all the fish".
Dumb ending #3: Aliens take off their gray suits, reveal themselves to have horns and tails, proceed to create utopian society on earth.
Dumb ending #4: Aliens give up on humans, quarantine earth from all future contact with the galactic empire.
Dumb ending #5: Girl does the time warp again, moves everything back to 1947, only this time it's going to be different, nobody will get hurt.
Dumb ending #6: Girl wakes up and it's all a dream.
Besides the apparent anit-US military bias I have enjoyed the mini-series so far.
Viking Chick, don't READ THE FOLLOWING (she's on another time zone and hasn't seen it yet)
Remember the old Twilight Zone where the guys landed on another planet and the Aliens recreated the visions of HOME and relatives that were in the astonauts thoughts? Spielberg must have seen it too, LOL.
sw
I think it will turn out that the space goblins are here for a very sinister purpose.
Could be for food (like in "V") or they want a slave race (sort of like the "X-files").
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.