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
I have seen Spielberg say he believes at least some UFOs are aliens. They were the subject of his first childhood home movies, and they keep showing up in his films.
Maybe the title "taken" did have a hidden meaning, LOL!
sw
http://www.timothysnodgrass.com
Is working on a document describing his convictions and experiences of distinguishing between good and bad. He reportedly was taken to Heaven in something akin to Ezekiel's charriot--sounding a lot like some routine saucer shapes.
I respect Tim because of his humility [he owned that he overreached and probably got it wrong when he assumed the 9.0+ pending quake was inevitable--noting that the UFO that broke up the huge meteor probably prevented the big quake by breaking up the meteor].
And some Freepers know him personally and attest to his accuracy as a modern prophet as well as his authenticity as a Christian. I just notice that he's above average humble and that counts for a lot with me. Besides that, he seems pretty logical and down to earth.
After 40 years of studying UFO's and a brother who worked around them . . . I'm convinced there are evil ones--evidently most of the commonly reported ones would be evil according to my criteria. . . . and evidently some few positive/good ones.
I figure they are going to be wholesale involved in helping set up and maintaining the evil world government--as well as the GREAT DECEPTION the Bible speaks of for our era. Claiming to have genetically engineered Jesus et al for social engineering purposes is askew quite plenty from my knowledge of Jesus from my relationship with Him.
BTW, I have a UFO ping list for those interested.
A UFO and abduction expert last night said that this series is way off the mark and has nothing to do with real data in real research into the phenomena.
I think the evidence for massive implanting and abductions is conclusive as far as I'm concerned.
The URL for the implants is:
http://www.karenlyster.com/effects.html
This above article gets into BEFORE AND AFTER EFFECTS of implant removal. Interesting, to me.
A good doc on two MD's doing surveys on UFO's and abductions at their two different offices 20 miles apart within the same HMO org is very good, too--and available at URL:
http://www.karenlyster.com/gordon.html
I found their surveys solid and their results quite interesting and comparable. They essentially support other surveys indicating millions of abductees nationwide.
Excerpts:
The following is a document describing a UFO survey by David Gordon, M.D. and his wife and I did in their medical practices in 1992. The purpose of the survey was to establish the veracity of UFO sighting and contact reports and to get a general idea aboutthe scope of the phenomenon. They wish to re-post this survey at this time because of recent inquiries about it.
PREVALENCE OF UFO SIGHTINGS, CONTACTS, AND ABDUCTIONS IN AN HMO PRACTICE
There have been recent medical gatherings (1) and media publications (2,3,4) in which respected psychiatric professionals have supported the claims of people who say they were abducted by UFO's. Some of these people have been found to be suffering from a type of post-traumatic stress disorder (3). A recent Roper survey of over 5,000 people, whose results were mailed to 100,000 psychiatric professionals, found a 2 per cent potential UFO abduction rate in the general population (5). To discover the prevalence of both UFO abductions and sightings, and to establish the veracity and clinical relevance of these claims, I undertook a survey of my own HMO practice members.
. . .
The results were surprising. Out of 1050 HMO members surveyed, 115 (11%) reported having had seen a UFO by the criteria listed above. Only two had reported it to the authorities. Sixty (6%) of the objects had been close enough to be able to sketch structure. The other 55 (5%) objects had been nocturnal lights moving non-ballistically. Eight members (0.8% of the total surveyed population) related an involuntary UFO contact or abduction. four (0.4%) other members reported visual contact with UFO entities without abduction. Most of the members reporting objects or entities were known personally by me for several years and had no history of mental disturbance. Furthermore, medical records were available on all of these persons to confirm this.
A GOOD SUMMARY of the whole abduction thing is available at:
http://www.crystalinks.com/abduction.html
There are examples and a check list of evidence and a good description of the standard scenarios.
Then there's the article Which talks about the $5,000 USDOLLAR FINE & YEAR IN JAIL at:
http://www.karenlyster.com/law.html
PROVIDED FOR IN THE "EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL EXPOSURE LAW" courtesy of our government regarding beings and events that "DON'T EXIST/DON'T HAPPEN; MOVE ALONG."
Happy reading.
If you consider all the inherent contradictions in the reports -- they don't seem to show up often on radar, but when they do it's considered proof of their existence; suddenly, after "Communion" was published, all the disparate descriptions of aliens and abductions start to be consistent; prior to 1947 there were few descriptions of "disks", although the circle is the simplest of shapes; abduction memories, along with memories of early child abuse, seem to clear up quite readily under the guidance of a believing hypnotist, even though the simplest of drugs can absolutely prevent long term memories of forming. Don't these guys know anything?
I STRONGLY agree.
VERY DISAPPOINTING. Should have been beneath his dignity--if he had any.
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