# The Tripods



## Dave (Jan 6, 2005)

John Christopher's Tripod Trilogy is to be made into a film according to Variety. I read "The White Mountains" (1967), "The City of Gold and Lead" (1967), "The Pool of Fire" (1968) and also "The Guardians" (1970) at school.

More on the author here:
http://www.gnelson.demon.co.uk/tripage/jc.html



> _from SciFi Wire_
> 
> *Jordan To Helm Tripods*
> 
> ...



The 1984/5 BBC series The Tripods was one of the longest adaptations on British television -- as long as War and Peace (1972/3), and with 120 speaking parts. It is available on VHS PAL, but only series 1 is on DVD.

I can't see how a 90 minute film could do the story justice. According to this site:
http://www.gnelson.demon.co.uk/tripage/film.html

Touchstone have held the rights since the 1990's and that was about the sixth or seventh option taken out on the trilogy. They want to switch it from Europe to North America and set it in the future. John Christopher would rather it was made historically than as routine SF, but thinks the switch to North America would not alter it substantially.

If this is a new script then none of that could be true.


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## ray gower (Jan 6, 2005)

The BBC really went to town in producing the Tripod trilogy and built on a lot of things that weren't actually in the books.

But as I recall the series were not exceptionally long. So we certainly aren't looking at a LOTResque film trilogy.

If the film were to follow the actual story (unlikely), then I don't honestly see any real problem where it is set- A smashed and weed covered London isn't really that much different to a smashed and weed covered New York, apart from the bint with an ice cream cornet in her mit, who will inevitably form a major symbolic backdrop somewhere. And mud and stick houses look the same who ever built them.

The problems come if they try and change its concept into something as unthinkingly mindless as Battlefield Earth


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## leah36 (Jun 26, 2013)

I just bought and watched season 1 and 2 of The Tripods , I remembered seeing as a child on tv and when I saw the boxset on Amazon I just had to have it !


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## Rodders (Jun 27, 2013)

I remember this being on TV, but lost interest at the time as you didn't see much of the tripods themselves.


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