Over 60 years ago, Arthur C. Clarke wrote a novel called Childhood's End, a story about an alien race that arrives on Earth and quickly solves all its problems. Of course, creating a utopia is never easy, and the price that society must pay for a perfect world is always high.
Now, that story finally gets a screen adaptation, courtesy of a new miniseries on Syfy that airs next week. Actors Mike Vogel and Yael Stone, along with writer Matthew Graham, recently spoke to press about the miniseries and what fans of the book can expect, as well as discussed the price of living in a utopian society.
Many consider Clarke's novel as one of the best pieces of science fiction ever written. This meant that those involved with the miniseries felt the responsibility of getting it right.
"Initially, I did not realize the full weight of the project that I was committing to until I was on an airplane headed to Australia," said Vogel. "As I started researching the book, and researching the history, and the sort of the position that Childhood's End held in the eyes and the viewpoint of the fan base, I went, 'Oh man, wow, this is a big commitment.' I think Matt [writer Graham] has done a fantastic job of maintaining the integrity and a lot of the characters and a lot of the main ideas of the book."
Although Stone admitted she was familiar with Clarke's work, she did not read the book and understand its significance until she took her role in Childhood's End.
"I hadn't read the book, and then when the project came up, I then read the book," she said. "And I think it asks a lot of fascinating big questions. But obviously the book being written when it was, kind of comes through from this very 1950s framework. It's a very sort of hetero-normative viewpoint. And I think Matthew has done a great job in just re-imagining the story and this incredible novel, while also kind of paying homage through a truth but also modernizing it."
Graham, however, read the book when he was 14 years old, and admitted that it left its mark on him long after. However, his job with Syfy's adaptation was the most difficult of all: he had to take a book written in 1953 and create something relatable to the audiences of today.
"We've done something to update it in some ways and make it more accessible to a broad audience," said Graham. "Which I think is essential if you're writing about the future not knowing what's going to happen to us. You can't set it in the 50's because we all live in the 21st century and we know that those people in the 50s have been worrying about the nuclear war and that is going to happen at least for a while. So we have to be updated in order to keep the sense of paranoia and uncertainty that purveys the book."
At the beginning of Childhood's End, aliens come to Earth and become its Overlords, instilling peace on the planet, as well as solving the problems that plague it: famine, sickness and even death. Eventually, Earth becomes utopia, although that comes with a high price. But how would humanity actually handle such an occurrence?
"It's a really tough one because there's a bit of me that kind of sides with Colm Meaney on this one: Colm's character, Wainwright," said Graham. "And that in some ways you kind of want to be just in charge of your own destiny for good or for bad. We don't want to be condescended, we don't want to be mothered, we want to do it ourselves. But right now with everything that we're facing, whether it's ISIL, whether it's the fact that we're going to run out of antibiotics, and we're going back to medieval science in the next generation, I think I would take the gamble; I think I'll have the overlords."
Stone agreed that she would also take a chance on letting aliens fix Earth's problems.
"I feel like it would be deeply egotistical to say, 'no, our culture is much more important than people's lives in the state of our environment,'" she said. "I guess, I look around and I think, 'you know what, we haven't been doing such a hot job so far.' So I'm interested to see what the aliens would do."
Vogel, however, disagreed, believing that the price the aliens exact for utopia, at least in terms of Childhood's End, isn't worth it.
"I fall on the other side - and maybe that's a sick sadistic side of me - but I just think that if we look at the story, yes, the aliens come down and solve the problems but it comes at a price, doesn't it?" he asked. "It's not for free. There's a time where everything works out, but there's still a price tag attached to it and it's a pretty hefty one. Where as I look at it and say, yes, we screwed up a lot of things, but I still have a strong belief in the ability and the decency of humanity, as ugly as we can get - and we can get pretty sick and ugly - that in the end decent people, people of courage, will rise up and will stand for what's right."
"And what comes out of that will be something beautiful, and there will be great culture, great art - all of those things I think come from that."
Childhood's End premieres on Syfy on December 14.
