{"id":4107,"date":"2014-01-08T00:00:52","date_gmt":"2014-01-08T05:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smugfilm.com\/?p=4107"},"modified":"2014-01-10T19:23:01","modified_gmt":"2014-01-11T00:23:01","slug":"an-interview-with-roger-christian-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/an-interview-with-roger-christian-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"The Man Who Built R2D2 and Brought us ‘Battlefield Earth’: An Interview with Roger Christian (Part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"roger\"
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\nRoger Christian built the future with his own two hands. As set dresser for Star Wars<\/a> and production designer for Alien<\/a>, he\u2019s the man who, among other things, built R2D2 and made an industry out of turning scrap metal into spaceship walls. As director of films such as\u00a0The Sender<\/a> and Battlefield Earth<\/a>, he\u2019s no stranger to the dizzying highs and lows of filmmaking. His life\u2019s work is a reminder that it is no mean feat to get by in this industry.<\/em><\/p>\n

These days, Roger has a book coming out, a new film,\u00a0Stranded<\/a>,\u00a0available on Netflix, and is currently gearing up for the imminent release of his long-lost companion piece to The Empire Strikes Back<\/a>, the short Black Angel<\/a>. I was very honored that he took the time to sit down with me.<\/em>
\n
\n\"stranded\"
\nStranded<\/a> (2013)<\/em><\/p>\n

The reason I wanted to interview you is that I landed randomly on your film Stranded on Netflix, and I watched it and really took to it. And then I looked you up, and your career is quite remarkable.<\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah, I\u2019ve done a few things. Yeah, Stranded is interesting.<\/p>\n

The pacing is amazing\u2014it sorta jumps right into everything.<\/b><\/p>\n

That was the plan. The writer and I conceived it that way. We were doing another film called 13 Eerie<\/a> before that, which was a zombie movie, and we were working with the producer in Regina [Canada], and the writer and I were trying to do Corman films like in the old days. We just wanted to do a bunch of classic horror films, or interesting films. And somebody suggested, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you do Paranormal<\/a>\u00a0[Activity] in a space station, because you have this background in all this stuff.\u201d And I didn\u2019t want to do Paranormal. Then, both of us, funnily enough, found the film Demon Seed<\/a> with Julie Christie, and both of us liked the concept of it, and I said \u201cWhy don\u2019t we do something interesting around that kind of idea, except in a space station.\u201d And then after we wrote it, we thought, \u201cOh god, we\u2019ll never make this, because we don\u2019t have a space station.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, on the last week of the shoot on 13 Eerie in Regina, the first AD said \u201cOh, by the way\u2014you know there\u2019s a space station set in the studios in Regina?\u201d and I thought he was just winding me up.<\/p>\n

There was just a set laying around?<\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah, some kid had bought it. There was a TV series that was done Vancouver, and this young rich kid had wanted to make a film, and they sold him the set for a dollar if he took it away, and he did. So they spent about six million on this set\u2014it was a huge, huge set. So he made the film, he was a first timer, he actually had it done that way when I went over to it, so we redid the set completely so I could shoot anywhere at any time, because I only had fourteen or fifteen days to shoot this thing. So we rebuilt, we had the space station, so the producer said, \u201cWell, if you can get an actor,\u201d and Christian Slater came aboard, and we got it made pretty quickly.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s amazing.<\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah. And I said to the writer, \u201cSo, this thing should just start. Wind you in right to the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yeah, the beginning reminds me of Gravity<\/a>, but looking at the release dates, that must be a coincidence, right?<\/b><\/p>\n

Coincidence, yeah, because I hadn\u2019t seen that, I didn\u2019t even know about that film when we made this.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the same thing in that it starts all of a sudden.<\/b><\/p>\n

Always a way to do something like this. Especially when you\u2019re low-budget in this kind of arena. I think, you know, the audience obviously needs to know where it is right from the start, and it puts you right in the place. A small space crew, and that\u2019s going to be stress right from the word go.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s very finite. And you use carbon monoxide poisoning, which is such an intuitive antagonist for a space movie. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever seen that used before.<\/b><\/p>\n

The writer I worked with and I tried to do things where we thought, \u2018well, that would be such an interesting aspect of living in a moon base.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"lorca\"
\nStarship<\/a> (1984)<\/em><\/p>\n

Your second feature, which I\u2019m looking at now, it has two titles: \u2018Lorca and the Outlaws\u2019 and \u2018Starship\u2019. Which title do you prefer?<\/b><\/p>\n

We always called it Lorca and the Outlaws when we made it, because I was trying to do\u2014again, it was a low-budget opportunity\u2014and we were trying to do it like a space western. So, I thought, that title was the one.<\/p>\n

That one got into trouble. The financier bankrupted the company, didn\u2019t pay any of us, and then bought it back for nothing and released it himself. And it\u2019s a big shame, because I had Tony Banks from Genesis, and they were at their height at the time, and he did an amazing soundtrack for me, but this guy took it off and put in someone else [Craig Huxley] and redid the soundtrack. And it\u2019s a shame, because we were trying to be very irreverent with it.<\/p>\n