Bruce Boxleitner’s Lantern City is a new TV show being worked on by Bruce Boxleitner (who you might know from Tron, Scarecrow & Mrs. King, and Babylon 5), Trevor Crafts (Executive Producer), and Matthew James Daley (Writer). It is a stempunk story which is sure to get genre fans popping. A Lantern City graphic novel is also being worked on. I had the opportunity to sit down at C2E2 with the three gentlemen in charge of the project.
From left – Mathew James Daley, Bruce Boxleitner, Larry Poupard, and Trevor Crafts. We discussed Bruce Boxleitner’s Lantern City at C2E2.
Larry Poupard: Why did you pursue the steampunk genre for Lantern City?
Trevor Crafts: I think that one of the things we found interesting about the steampunk genre is that we found a huge tidal wave of people who were building and making and creating. I have always been a fan of historical fiction and I felt it was something which was right on the cutting edge right now and nobody had really cracked the code. Nobody had figured out how to do something which would be a really dynamic show or film which really embraced the steampunk ideals.
So we decided to go about it in exactly the opposite direction with Lantern City than what people usually do with. We decided to engage the fan base first and talk to the steampunk community about what they wanted in a show. We wanted to get the ideal of the visual look and the feal. That was one of the jumping-off point. I had the idea of Lantern City and brought Bruce Boxleitner in during the very early stages. This composed most of our very early conversations in just seeing what this group of people had done and knowing this was the group we wanted to engage with.
Bruce Boxleitner: I was always fascinated by it [steampunk] but I just didn’t know what it was called. Steampunk? I thought “What does that mean? Steampunk?” I do not think that there is one definite definiation. I think ours is just going to be an interpretation. I think Hollywood has used it by dancing around it with League or Extraordinary Gentlemen and Wild Wild West. I think ours is going to be a unique world which is going to blend all interpretations and people who really love stempunk are going to see something they like in Lantern City.
Larry Poupard: The write-ups so far about Lantern City talk about how the land is ruled by a totalitarian family. Many steampunk stories incorporate political commentaries about totalitarianism, fascism, or other types of fringe political beliefs. Is political commentary going to be a major talking point for Lantern City or is it simply going to play in the background?
Matthew James Daley: It is impossible for that [political commentary] to play in the background of Lantern City because it is too prevalent in the world we created. Now we are not going to spend half of every episode talking about politics around a parlor. The politics of this world, which is a totalitarian world, runs so deeply in everyone from the top to the bottom. We did not set out to make political statements in Lantern City, it is in our world and it needs to be addressed in every episode more through the characters and through the action.
Trevor Crafts: One thing I would like to add to that is that Matt has created this wonderful three-tiered society. The Grey Empire is the top tier. The “worker class” is at the next tier down and they basically make and function. Now we find out there is this growing underground where you live entirely on your own without any rules and it is a very violent place. You can starve to death or die very quickly in this part of Lantern City.
Going back to your first question, I think the society in Lantern City is interesting because we can showcase all of the different styles of steampunk within each of those three strata of society where all of that political pulling and pushing happens.
Matthew James Daley: With the underground, the main question you would ask yourself if you fled from society to live there is “What price is my freedom?” because every day is a battle to survive. You are not under the federal regime, but you can’t trust anyone who says they have your back. Even for the people organizing and running it, it is a very dangerous place but very exciting too.
Bruce Boxleitner: We can definitely reflect on current stories. Science fiction has always been very good in that way because you can comment on modern society without slamming a message in your head about how we are taking a side. This Lantern City is a world unto itself but I believe we can reflect modern anxieties without an issue.
Matthew James Daley: The aspects we look at such as the loss of freedom and what you are willing to give up are key in Lantern City. That [giving up for freedom] is one of the central questions of the show.
Bruce Boxleitner: You security would be a big thing. In all strata in society, people have to wonder how secure they are in that particular strata. This particular question is a movement in all societies throughout the years. Not just in the modern, but during Bolshevism and other times as well.
Larry Poupard: Most of the people you have signed for the show so far have worked on science fiction in the past. Did you go after these actors specifically to share in their fan bases or because they might have more of an open mind to use for understanding the world of Lantern City? Is it an amalgamation of the two?
Trevor Crafts: It is definitely an amalgamation of the two. I was thinking from the very beginning about who I would cast in the various roles for Lantern City, and there are still very many left to fill. Matt built a world in which there is over forty different characters that all intertwine together.
I think, for me, there is a unique aspect of television where you can innately understand when people are really working well together. The group of people we started to put together for Lantern City has people who already know each other and have camaraderie. You are right, these people have a base understand of the genre and a love for the genre which comes through.
That is one of the reasons why Firefly was so popular. It was a good show, but there was this “perfection” in casting where you had this group of people who you learned to love or hate depending on their character. That is something we are trying to replicate. We want to have that group…that cast that loves going to work every day and loves what they do because that is going to come through in their performances. They are all genre fans, and they have genre fan bases so that is all factors in.
Matthew James Daley: They have not had any genre-based questions and questions about genre elements, which is great, because I was expecting to have to explain things. That is just great. They got it, especially John…
Bruce Boxleitner: John Ryes-Davies. I originally met him in London. I worked with him back on Scarecrow & Mrs. King back in 1984 so I did have a small acquaintance with him. We met up with him at Dragon Con and we gave him a script. He wrote us, I don’t know how many pages.
Trevor Crafts: He came up to you first, didn’t he? He said “I heard about this new show you are working on.”
Bruce Boxleitner: Yes, he was dressed very nicely and was a proper British gentleman. Here is was in the hot summer sun in Atlanta in a full suit, and he was great. I want this to be gotten straight…he came to us. Most of the actors have done so including, just recently, Gigi [Edgley from Farscape].
I am the only one at this table who has been in a sci-fi ensemble, and I know that is what I want to relive again. Maybe from a different aspect. During the best years of Babylon 5 we had the best cast. To find that is like lightning in a bottle. I think that when we have actors from this genre, there is identification right away with them from the audience. We don’t have to introduce them necessarily before or during Lantern City. There will be a couple we might have to, but the audience will get it right away with Lantern City. We are targeting an audience right now, and they will bring all the others in with them. My experience at Babylon 5 is what turned me on to this project when Trevor brought it to me. I want to go through this again.
Larry Poupard: You stated that you took this project to the fans first. How are you preparing yourself to deal with a fan base which can get very technical about a type of technology which has never truly existed?
[All three men laugh]
Bruce Boxleitner: Exactly!
Matthew James Daley: I think with where we are right now in production I fell – and I have always felt this way and am very specific about this – is that there has to be a blending of the real and the created. By “the real,” I mean real sets and the Lantern Guard in Lantern City needs to be real and touchable. We have built some of those sets and some of those costumes already. Things like the skyline can be CGI.
Somebody asked us when we were building the plan if Lantern City was just going to be a CGI show. To some extent, what show is not a CGI show these days? If you think about a show like Star Trek or Babylon 5, there were elements which were CGI-created, but there were aspects of “the real” there. Some great movies like District 9 have CGI, but there is a lot of “the real.” We have made many great pieces and augmented them.
What that means for production, where are we going to go for production? There is a lot of great production happening in Eastern Europe where wider spaces are a little bit more attainable. Like in Dune, we will build as much as we can for “the real,” and then we can simply augment with CGI.
Bruce Boxleitner: What is great is that we have the technology now to help us create these worlds. We can make these cityscapes now. Years ago, it would have been so expensive; a project like Lantern City would have never gotten off the ground.
You can learn more about Bruce Boxleitner’s Lantern City by following this link to its official site.
Personally, I am looking forward to seeing more about Lantern City in the near future.
