Right, so, The Tribe, what the heck is that? I appreciate that maybe like five people will know what this is about, and I’m sorry your childhood wasn’t as awesome as mine – but maybe the The Tribe movie will fix that!
The Tribe was a crazy, melodramatic teen series which ran from 1999-2003. But who needs another American high school show, right?! No, this one was set in a post-apocalyptic New Zealand, following a group of kids struggling to survive after a virus wiped out all the adults. Intrigued yet? Also, it had pretty damn good music:
Okay, I admit it. Everything about this show is very, very 90s, and just… well, it’s super weird. But I love it, and still remember it fondly as a part of my childhood. I remember it airing at 10 AM on Sunday mornings, and I would always be up. Even as a pre-teen, I recognised the absurdity of some of the plot twists and developments, but even then I also admired the show’s signature costume and makeup style, and the sometimes very gripping character arcs. I’ve never cried so hard as when Alice’s boyfriend what’s-his-face (I don’t even remember, I just remember being upset!) was dead and the others all tried to hide it from her. And when Bray and Amber found love in a hopeless place (cue singing) and I realised what shipping meant.
This show is like the normal teen show’s weird cousin who you sometimes don’t invite to parties. But when you do invite them, you know you’ll be entertained! And now, when series creator and mastermind Raymond Thompson is penning a script for the movie version and planning for a 2014 release, there’s no un-inviting The Tribe! So let’s jump on the Mallrats bandwagon and discuss why this film is going to be amazing.
1. The premise
Obviously the first thing a successful movie needs is a good premise, and luckily The Tribe has this. I was always impressed by how the series managed to take a classic, well-known scenario (the Lord of the Flies-esque chaos that results from children having to survive without adults) and put a totally original, interesting spin on it.
The great thing about the movie version of the series is that not only will we get a much more condensed and focused story, but we’ll also do away with some of the arbitrary hookups and disappearances that I think all long-running series suffer from to an extent. And obviously with a group of kid actors in a TV series, some of them will want to leave to pursue education or other careers, or just grow out of their roles or lose interest in acting. The Tribe definitely suffered because of this, having to sometimes get rid of characters and end storylines prematurely.
Although we don’t know yet if Thompson is planning to remake the existing series and start from the pilot premise, or if he’s planning to completely reboot the universe with a new story and new characters in the same basic setting, we can probably assume that some of the story elements will be the same, and they were pretty damn solid.
I’m very curious to see if the movie will incorporate any of the series’ surprising developments, though. In the show’s five-season span we moved from a fairly small-scale two-tribe war into a religious cult plot (focusing on Trudy’s baby), to a group of crazy tech people trying to take over the world and into some weird semi-supernatural uncertain future. What part of that story (if any) the movie would highlight is anyone’s guess.
2. The characters
In the first season we meet some of the key protagonists: Bray (the hero), Trudy (pregnant with Bray’s brother’s baby), Lex (resident bad boy), Amber (the heroine), Jack (the techie), Cloe (the innocent, young girl), Patsy (Cloe’s friend), Dal (Jack’s sidekick/the doctor), Salene, Zandra, Ryan, Tai-San, and the antiheroes Zoot and Ebony. The diverse cast of characters (later joined by many more) lent to some great, varied interaction. Plenty of love triangles, character deaths, betrayals, abductions, and fractured alliances along the way.
The movie could, if Thompson decides to keep the same group of core characters, focus on the best ones in the bunch. I’d say Bray, Lex, Amber, Jack and Ebony would all have to be in there, and obviously Trudy and Zoot if they decide to keep the pregnancy plot. I definitely think the Bray-Zoot-Trudy dynamic is really tight and could offer some great drama, especially if they keep the Bray/Amber love story as well (oh they better, I was a hardcore shipper of those two when I was 12!). But of course having that dynamic at the core of the story would limit the focus on some of the other great players like Lex and Cloe, and there’s only so much space in a movie. I just hope there are no glaring omissions from the lineup, because the characters worked really well together.
Plus, the show had something which very few series have: layered, identifiable villains. Zoot rose up as some zombie/god leader of his tribe, as evil and basass as they came… but before the virus he was Bray’s brother and Trudy’s loving boyfriend, and seemingly a really nice guy. Ebony was originally introduced as Zoot’s evil sidekick, but she actually ended up joining the Mallrats tribe and really grew as a character. And then there was Lex, the love-to-hate, Sawyer character in the group – until suddenly you just loved to love him, because the show had turned him into a really sympathetic protagonist.
3. Peter Jackson
No, he’s not directing. But the New Zealand movie scene looks a lot different post-The Lord of the Rings, and that’s gonna mean a lot for Thompson’s The Tribe movie. When talks first began for the movie, it was announced that Weta Workshop (the special effects company set up in New Zealand for LotR) would do the design and special effects for the movie. That’s ridiculously good news.
With hopefully a bigger budget, and the ability to actually recreate and improve the iconic sets, we’re looking at a whole new world for the characters to play in. And making use of New Zealand’s landscapes? Hello, beautiful cinematography! But hopefully they’ll keep the crazy costumes. Speaking of…
4. The crazy costumes
This was seriously my favourite part of The Tribe series. Half-90s rave party, half-The Flintstones, there was no limit to the costume and makeup departments’ imagination. Each character had a very specific look, which evolved over time but somehow still stayed consistent with the character’s development. Most of the kids, as they grew older, would tone down a bit of their extreme fashion choices, obviously getting used to living in a world where they had to be the adults. Some, however, still used clothes and makeup to come into their own; Cloe went from a mousy, scared little child dressed mostly in browns and reds to a very assertive, sassy young woman who mixed up blues and greens very effectively (can you tell I’m a little jealous? I could never pull that off).
Hopefully, the movie won’t try to mainstream these kids. I know it’s unrealistic that this new, adult-less world has an unlimited supply of hairspray and blue lipstick but let’s just go with it! It really makes them look tribal, for lack of a better word, and I always thought their extreme dress was a great way to visualise a world where kids had no guidance. There’s something very Peter Pan and the Lost Boys about it all.
5. The nostalgia and fandom
Believe it or not, but The Tribe still has a very large and dedicated international fanbase. Although most of the kids the show appealed to 12 years ago are grown up now (myself included), there is still a sense of community among Tribe fans who really did appreciate the story and identified with the characters. Perhaps because of the fact that it was never big in America, fans who did manage to discover it felt like they were part of a special group (or… a tribe, ahahaaa… anyway), and they’ve been “keeping the dream alive” ever since.
This movie will not only update The Tribe for a new generation, with a new cast and shiny new sets, but it’ll also appeal to those fans who grew up with the at times heartwarming, at other times outright bizarre, very different teen series. This show is like nothing you’ve ever seen (except maybe Atlantis High, which I of course watched because Michael Wesley-Smith was on it, but let’s not go there), and hopefully the movie will keep that same feel, and not cave to the pressure of trying to be mainstream to appeal to an American audience. The Tribe‘s charm was always that it felt like the underdog, the show which knew it was a little off the wall but was intent of having an awesome time playing in this unrealistic, yet believable world.
Did you ever watch The Tribe? What are your hopes for the movie? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Full credit to TribeWorld for all the pictures used in this column. That site, by the way, is pretty much the main reason why the Tribe fandom is as active as it is, so check it out!
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