|
|
Set in the 22nd Century, the movie follows the medical ship Nightingale 229 as it answers a distress call from an enigmatic man named Troy at a comet mining operation in a distant galaxy. The young stranger's secret cargo results in the deaths--one by one of the ship's crew, while they also face the throat of the gravitaiontional pull of a giant star that is about to go supernova. The cast is as stellar as the setting, headlined by James Spader, Robert Forster, Angela Bassett, Lou Diamond Phillips and Robin Tunney. Hill was brought onto the project when Austrailian director Geoffrey Wright left during pre-production in 1998, reportedly because of creative differences with the studio.
"It was kind of unusual," he says, explaining how he came onboard. "Very simply, they called me. They had a couple of problems, so I read the script and told them what I thought. Obviously, I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't liked the story, but at the same time, I felt the story should be told in a rather different way. "So I gave them my version of it. I said, 'If we could do these certain things, then I'd be willing to do the movie,' [MGM chief] Frank Mancuso and I have done a number of films together and I like Frank--he's an honorable guy. And the producers were kind of in a pickle of a situation. I guess the reason I wanted to do 'Supernova, at the core, is that I not only liked the story, but it very much reminded me of the kind of Science Fiction I used to read when I was a kid and the kind of movies I used to see, too." Hill touches lightly on the elements he sees as being strongest in the movie. "It's certainly not gadget-driven and it's not really special effects-driven, although we do have our share of those elements. This one is like almost all Science Fiction stories--situational. The premis is a little more complicated than what you normally see in Science Fiction movies nowadays. It's really kind of an update of a 1950s SF piece."
In addition to structural changes in the story, Hill also shifted the emphasis towards suspense. "I think the previous version of the script was probably more interested in what I find the least interesting aspect of Science Fiction--the predictive element. I don't want to say that that sort of thing isn't legitimate. I think a lot of people are interested in the genre because they want to know what it's going to tell them about how people are going to live in the future. But I think SF is utterly worthless in that capacity. I believe it's a form of literature and is interesting as a form of literature; It's not particularly sound as far as predictions go. I just shifted the weight back to what the movie was at its core--a mix of suspense, horror, and old-fashioned, 'hard' Science Fiction."
Regardless of his films' commercial success, Hill's approach to storytelling is that of an artist, with a genuine concern not only for the story, but the characters that inhabit it. "Someone said that there are only two types of stories; the crucifixion and the odessey, which I guess proves that he was a lot smarter than I am," the director says smiling. "I guess that proves that if you get your categories wide enough, you can always find a story that fits. Supernova is clearly an odessey and not a crucifixion. Over the years, a lot of people have asked me about the misopoetic nature of some of my work, as if I had all this stuff in mind. I'd love to tell you that I do, that's it's all planned, but I don't. I just work them out in terms of the stories and characters. I think Hemingway said that you should never examine the process of creativity because if you do, it will probably stop. Just accept it and keep moving, I think I agree with that. I just try to make interesting characters. Sometimes the stories lead the characters and sometimes the characters lead the story. I don't try to analyze it."
Despite the incredible changes wrought by the emergence of digiral-based special effects, Hill admits that there are certain universals that transcend the technology. "It's essentially the same as working with other elements in the film," he says, then laughs. "You tell people what you want and get very angry if it doesn't come out that way you want it to. A lot of it just doesn't happen in front of you; you have to wait for the results. There's an old joke in effects work and animation that goes, 'How's the shot going?' And the answer is either, 'Too early to tell', or, 'Too late to change it'. There's still a bit of truth to that."
"That's one kind of pressure, the type brought on by the success of a series," he says. "On the other hand, being a film director means living with pressure. You come to work and if you have a bad day--which occasionally happens--it's enormously expensive. Any mistake you make has huge consequences. Just an hour's work on a movie costs $10,000 or more. A lot of very skilful technicians and highpowered equipment depend on you. And, of course, there are always schedules and bugets. Those are the kind of pressures I felt, not any connected with having done Alien." As Supernova's release approaches, that pressure will no doubt increase, but--like his other projects--this new Walter Hill film will carve out its own niche.
