When it comes to tackling time travel on the big screen, one could say that Jonathan Nolan is an expert. The screenwriter of “The Dark Knight” spent years researching the practicality of time travel for his 2014 film “Interstellar” (directed by his brother Christopher Nolan), to the point that he continued to bring up the topic through the project’s long development. Became an expert on.
Which is why, when he read William Gibson’s 2014 book “The Peripheral,” Nolan was both excited and annoyed.
The story, now a Prime Video series produced by Nolan, concerns a young woman named Flynn Fisher (Chloe Grace Moretz) living in near-future America who is unable to plug into an AR device that looks like a video game. is capable. Transfer his mind data to a distant post-apocalyptic future and pilot a host robot body.
“It was very upsetting, because I spent a lot of time [‘Interstellar’] Thinking about time travel, we always wanted to do a time travel project,” Nolan told TheWrap. “And so I spent years, honestly, thinking about multiple worlds and feedback loops and wormholes and all the different mechanisms Thinking in, by which time travel could work, in part because – I mean ‘Back to the Future’ is one of my favorite movies, I think it’s one of the very few perfect movies, but Time travel movies are inherently problematic. Because at some level, and this may be true for all quantum mechanics, your mind rejects the idea. This seems inherently problematic.
When Nolan read “The Peripheral”, he realized that Gibson had solved the problem.
“After spending years and doing his best on the film, reading Gibson’s book was an inherently heroic venture because, as always, here Bill turns his vast imagination toward the subject and, frankly, nails it. Hole in one,” he said.
“How do you combine multiple worlds theories with a plausible theory of time travel? Well, you just combine them. You just say that every time you travel – and I’ve always been interested in the idea that you can travel with information and yes, information does matter on some level, but it doesn’t right? That’s a big difference between Michael J. Fox and an email, isn’t it? So the idea that you can travel with information but also critically that every time you do it, you cool a fresh universe, a stub. It’s simultaneously admirable and heartbreaking, two ingredients for drama that make a Kind of necessary. So, as soon as we read it and realized what he was suggesting, yeah it was simultaneously very disturbing and also very exciting as a possibility for a series.
The idea to turn “The Peripheral” into a show actually originated with filmmaker Vincenzo Natali, who serves as executive producer and director of half of the first season’s episodes. After working with Nolan and Lisa Joy on “Westworld”, he suggested they team up on the “Peripheral” adaptation.
It was an easy yes — Nolan says he became a Gibson fan when he read “Count Zero” at age 14 — and Natalie says Nolan and Joy were ideal collaborators.
“I think the extraordinary thing about it, certainly from my perspective, was the privilege of having Jonah and Lisa involved,” he told TheWrap. “If you read the book, it’s intentionally difficult—it’s like being dropped off in a foreign country without a guidebook or without speaking the language, and you have to find your way through that world as a reader. A reader as it’s intentionally difficult, and I think only people like Jonah and Lisa who really understand and appreciate her and style can look beyond that and see that this is a story that’s going to be an exciting The narrative translates to a visual and dramatic experience that is incredibly human.
Natalie credits Nolan and Joy with suggesting the first season focus on the character of Flynn, while the book splits the storyline between Flynn and Wilf (Gary Carr). He also starred in series creator and writer Scott B. Smith’s “beautiful script” was also singled out for portraying humanity at the center of the show.
As Season 1 ends, are there expectations for a second season? While Amazon hasn’t officially renewed the series yet, conceptual work had begun on what Season 2 could look like when we spoke with Nolan and Natalie.
Scott and the writers are working away at the conceptual stage [on Season 2]Nolan revealed. “We’re excited to see what viewers make of it and we’re excited if the opportunity to make a second season presents itself.”
New episodes of The Peripheral are streaming Friday on Prime Video.
