STARBURST reports from the set of G-LOC, from director TOM PATON, which is currently screening on Horror Channel. We caught up with him and the cast, including CASPER VAN DIEN, to find out what to expect…
We ventured into the wilds of deepest darkest Yorkshire to take a look at the set of G-LOC, the latest genre movie from one of STARBURST’s favourite directors, Tom Paton. This time around, it’s an actual studio, rather than an adapted forest or improvised battlefield. This is because G-LOC is a movie about space and spacecraft. G-LOC is a piece of classic science fiction, using the fantastic and forward-looking to tell stories about the modern-day. Set in a distant future, G-Loc is the story of Bran (True Blood’s Stephen Moyer), a man who is fleeing the dying Earth to make a new home of the distant human colony of Rhea. Alas, they are not open to the sudden rush of refugees coming to their world.
The set designer’s office is plastered with photographs taken from real-world space stations. Though G-LOC is set quite far in the future, the aesthetic is meant to be one that’s lived in. The Rheans prefer more mechanical and cruder approaches to technology, so the entire ethos behind the set design is to make the whole thing lived. The office is littered with tiny models of the set and countless rejected ideas. The set designers have spent hours poring over old archive footage of the Space Race, and are cleared inspired by the MIR and SkyLab, but more towards the end of those station’s lifespan.
The set is busy; one small area is a full spaceship console, complete with switches, pilots chair and the like. It looks amazing once the lights are turned on. Another set is a generic control room, one that has been redressed more than once throughout filming. Finally, we make it to a classic sci-fi corridor. Actors Casper Van Dien and Tala Gouveia are gearing up for a day of action-heavy filming in the claustrophobic sci-fi corridor that makes up much of the movie’s set.
We caught up with director Tom Paton to learn more about where the idea for the movie came from: “I was looking at the whole Venezuelan crisis, and I watched the documentary about this family that was travelling from Venezuela and how they were full of all these better life dreams that we’re going to be there waiting for them. And when they get to the American border, they weren’t allowed in. So they spend three years in this detention camp in horrible conditions. All these people with their hopes and dreams ripped away from them. And then you look at the world today with Trump and Brexit, and I wanted to tell a story that reflected our times. I wanted to take a fantasy film and make it relevant to now.”
“So, G-Loc is about that.” Paton continues, “In this movie, Earth is heading toward a second Ice Age, and suddenly this gate pops up in space and on the other side is a habitable world called Rhea. But one year on Earth is 18 years on Rhea. People from Earth are migrating through, but by the time Stephen Moyer’s character tries to get to Rhea, settlers have been there for hundreds of years. And they don’t want any more refugees.”
Tom describes Moyer as a “phenomenally powerful actor.” He continues “You know, you write these things, and they sound good on the page. But when you hear them coming out of somebody of his calibre, he elevates the material and is really, really impressive.”
It’s a fantastic cast; Casper Van Dien is perhaps best known for his role as Johnny Rico in Starship Troopers. In G-Loc, he plays Decker, part of the crew of the ship bringing supplies to the Earth refugee camp. We caught up with him in his trailer, still as energetic and sparkly-eyed as he was back in the Johnny Rico days. We asked him what kept bringing him back to sci-fi. “I’ve done a lot of work, including many westerns and I’ve made enough of movies for a lifetime, but I keep coming back to sci-fi – I just love sci-fi films. I think early on people associated me with Johnny Rico, and that’s okay, I like working in the industry. I just recently had a small part in Alita Battle Angel, and it was a lot of fun to do that. And that was because of Starship Troopers.“
Casper continues, “I read Starship Troopers as a kid. I went to military school and grew up in a military family, so it was one of the books everyone around me liked to read. And I watched a lot of propaganda films and war films. And I just enjoyed them. The Starship Troopers is an amazing book, but the script was completely different. When I read the script, I was like, ‘wow, I thought I’d missed something from the book’, but it was all the genius of Ed Neumeier and Verhoeven. But it’s not just their satire alone, Robert A. Heinlein’s sense of humour is still there. I think a lot of Americans missed the satire when it first came out.” The actor smiles, “One of the things that I like about that movie is that people on the far right in America and people on the far left love it. And they love it because they think it’s their film. And, you know, it’s quite interesting to have both sides like it, but I like that they can have a discussion and say why it’s theirs. And I think that it’s better to have films that bring people to table being able to have a conversation.” The parallel to his latest film is clear “That was one of the things that appealed with G-LOC. I liked working with Tom, he’s great. I would love to work with him again. I know that he’s just a film buff and he’s passionate and young is exciting. He’s you know, it’s awesome to be on set with him. And I think he’s got a huge career ahead of him.“
Mike Beckingham is no stranger to readers of STARBURST, with credits including Tom Paton movies such as Black Site and Redwood. G-LOC sees Mike take on a different sort of role. “I play the role of Edison, Bran’s computer. It was fun to do but challenging because I’m only a voice.” Edison is also the movie’s comic relief of sorts; a rather self-centred AI that provides sarcastic commentary throughout the film. As usual, Mike is modest about his talents; despite a lack of a physical presence, the charisma of the character shines through.
The other main character is Osha, a native of Rhea. She’s played by Tala Gouveia, best known for her work on kids sci-fi shows such as Thunderbirds and Scream Street. We asked what she thought of the character. “She has to fight quite a lot of big guys. She’s very scrappy. She’s sarcastic – funny hopefully! She’s written very well, and I love sarcastic characters.” The movie puts Tala through her paces, “there’s a lot of big, exciting action, and it’s my first time doing my own stunts, so that was a fun challenge, which I’m really enjoying.”
Of course, Tom Paton is better known for creating horror and action movies. We asked him why he felt this story needed to be sci-fi. “Telling current stories is the point of science fiction, at least it is to me. It’s it takes the world as we know it and repackages it into something different. For those of us that are politically engaged anyway, we understand what they’re doing. But there’s this great trick in basic sci-fi. Things like the Battlestar Galactica take somebody on a Friday night who wants to enjoy themselves. And the next day, they’ll feel like they’ve changed their opinion on something, but can’t quite understand why they did it. And it was because sci-fi makes it the right size, gets them to ingest it in a way that they find palatable, rather than feeling like you’re being told off or lectured. And I think that’s kind of was the whole thing about this script was making a movie that feels entertaining – like you’re having a good time while you’re watching it. But hopefully, you’ll come away from it and think about the message as well.”
G-Loc screens on Horror Channel on Friday, February 11th at 4pm and the following day at 8am.
