QUINT: We should talk a little bit about DAMBUSTERS...
PETER JACKSON: Yeah, anything you'd like to talk about... DAMBUSTERS... It's one of those ones, without wanting to make it sound like a rerun of KONG because KONG is my favorite movie, but DAMBUSTERS was a movie that I... When I was a kid I saw a great double feature of DR. NO and DAMBUSTERS on a Sunday afternoon at a cinema here and both had a great affect on me. It was the first time I had ever seen a BOND film as well. DAMBUSTERS encapsulates a lot of things I really love. I am a big fan of the 1950s British war movies where they were made 10 years after the war, often made with complete access and cooperation with the real people that were involved, heard true life stories. There's a level of authenticity to them. There's a whole slew of them and, really, of all those true stories DAMBUSTERS is one of the most remarkable.
And it's a great melding of action/adventure with bureaucracy, which appeals to me. As well as the climactic act, which is obviously the raid itself, what I liked about the original film and the true life events, something that we won't be changing with our telling of the story, is the way that this scientist, Barnes Wallis, had to convince the government of this crazy idea to develop what seemed like an impossible thing; a bomb that weighed something like 9 tons, I think it was, that could bounce on the surface of a lake.
And the British government were being beset by crazy inventors all the time. There was a continual stream of people harassing the government, saying they've invented the ultimate death ray that will take out the Germans and everything. Times of war can bring out the best in people, but it's also a chance to make the nutcases shine and make themselves heard as well.
So, Barnes Wallis was regarded as being something of an eccentric really, when he first presented the case. He had this real uphill battle that took years to convince the government and the bureaucracy that this could work. Slowly, he chipped away at them and I loved that side of the story. It's got a slightly dry humor to it. It is something that the British do really well that no other country really excels in quite as much is the eccentric inventors just kind of tug away and tug away and they always get underestimated by other people, but they often come through at the end. The British actually invented a lot of things, radar being one of them, that helped them win the war, as well as the Americans getting involved, ultimately, which was the turning point.
But 1943 is also interesting, the year of DAMBUSTERS, because it is one of the dark years of the war. The war hadn't quite reached that point where it became obvious that the Nazis could be defeated. The Allies had suffered quite a few defeats. The way it happened in time, it was great for morale. There's a bit of political intrigue in it, too, because the Americans and the Russians were both on to Churchill thinking that the British were not actually doing enough in the war. The Russians were getting hammered on the Eastern Front and the Americans were in the Pacific and the English were seen as being sort of holed up on the island and what are they actually doing and contributing?
So, Churchill was extremely thankful of this raid because it did prove that the British were able to strike a fairly resounding blow against the Nazis, do their bit in the war.
It's also another one of those cinematic experiences that we haven't quite nailed yet with the technology that exists today. We haven't really seen a World War 2 low level bombing attack that has been done with all the power of CG that really make you feel like you're really participating in that raid. They were flying incredibly low, barely missing the treetops.
QUINT: That was a really great part of the original. I love seeing it in films when they set up something to be nearly impossible and then they make it really impossible. They had a tough time flying at 200 feet or whatever it was and then were told they had to be no higher than 60 feet off the ground...
PETER JACKSON: Yeah, they thought 150 feet was the level and then they kept dropping the bomb during the tests that would just sink. It didn't bounce because it was too high and had too much downward momentum, so they had to go lower and lower, made even more difficult because they had to fly at night.
They flew at that level right from Britain and into Germany to stay under the radar. They knew that if the German Night Fighters were able to track them that they would be absolute mince meat. They had no choice but to fly under the radar, which means they were flying at only 40 or 50 feet. Some of the pilots that we've spoken to were saying that they had a split second in the darkness to see that they were flying towards high tension power lines and they a split second to decide if to go over them or if they were going under them. They said they often just went under the power lines, these big 4 engine bombers.
It's also remarkable the way... This is the kind of story that I like. It's not just a flying story, but the fact that in addition to the bureaucracy and the hurdles and challenges that Barnes Wallis went through when building the bomb and designing the bomb, they realized that it was such a precision, such precise flying that was required that they were going to have to get a special squadron to do it because they couldn't rely upon an ordinary squadron, so they had to hand pick the best people they could find and form a new group. And they only had 7 weeks to find these guys, to build the modified aircraft, to train... and during that 7 week period, they couldn't even tell the guys what the target was.
They put a squadron together starting from nothing to basically employing and managing 700 people, with all the ground crew and support people and the office people. The first few days, when the clock was ticking, was spent getting envelopes and rubber bands and pads and pens and ink and everything because they didn't have anything in this squadron, but they had this incredible job to do in 7 weeks time.
Guy Gibson, who formed the squadron and was given the ultimate authority to get the guys together, train then and ultimately lead the raid... by the time he actually took off that night, by all accounts he was physically pretty wrecked. He could barely stand up. He'd seen the doctor the day before the raid, and obviously nobody knew about the raid because it was secret, but the doctor said to him that he should have a week in bed. He just sort of laughed. Then (the doctor) offered him pain killing pills because he had some really bad stress stuff... he could hardly walk. Of course, he couldn't take anything for the pain because it would dull his (reactions).
All that human part of the story would be great to do and makes it a helluva lot more than just a flying film.
QUINT: I know that in the original they changed the shape of the bomb for security/military purposes. I would assume that you're going to have the bomb as it was...
PETER JACKSON: We've already got out bomb built! We went over to England in May and we measured up all the original bombs there and Weta have just finished an exact copy of it. We're about to start building the mechanism to spin it under the plane now. It's one thing to be making movies, which is enjoyable, but I do love all the research and the history and I love building a copy of the bouncing bomb and building airplanes. Just that historical aspect of it is really one of my favorite things.
In this case it's particularly good because Christian (Rivers) gets the hard job of directing the movie and I get all the fun of just helping out with all the research and stuff. I'm having a great time!
Christian's started doing animatics. We haven't got a screenwriter yet. We're just in the process of choosing now that we have the rights squared away. It's a bit like the situation we had making both KONG and LORD OF THE RINGS, there's an aspect to the story that you know will be in the film regardless of how the script develops, so we've started to pre-vis the entire raid and Christian's been working on that for a couple of months now. We're actually able, at the moment, to sit down and watch about half the raid.
QUINT: Is there anything else that has been declassified by the British government that you're able to include?
PETER JACKSON: It's not so much... What's happened in the last 40 or 50 years, which wasn't really easy for the filmmakers in 1955, was that most of the people that were being portrayed were alive still. There's no one being a particularly bad person in this story, but the bureaucracy and the amount of antagonism towards Barnes Wallis when he was developing this bomb was slightly toned down in the original film because some of the people who were antagonistic towards him were obviously alive and they didn't want to embarrass people unnecessarily.
So, the truth about what he had to go through and the hoops he had to jump through and the people that tried to squash the development of the bomb... that story can be told in a way that's slightly more blunt now than it could be told in the '50s.
QUINT: While it's a minor point in the film, I think most people that have seen the original are going to want to know what you're going to call Gibson's dog in the new film.
PETER JACKSON: Yeah, anything you'd like to talk about... DAMBUSTERS... It's one of those ones, without wanting to make it sound like a rerun of KONG because KONG is my favorite movie, but DAMBUSTERS was a movie that I... When I was a kid I saw a great double feature of DR. NO and DAMBUSTERS on a Sunday afternoon at a cinema here and both had a great affect on me. It was the first time I had ever seen a BOND film as well. DAMBUSTERS encapsulates a lot of things I really love. I am a big fan of the 1950s British war movies where they were made 10 years after the war, often made with complete access and cooperation with the real people that were involved, heard true life stories. There's a level of authenticity to them. There's a whole slew of them and, really, of all those true stories DAMBUSTERS is one of the most remarkable.
And it's a great melding of action/adventure with bureaucracy, which appeals to me. As well as the climactic act, which is obviously the raid itself, what I liked about the original film and the true life events, something that we won't be changing with our telling of the story, is the way that this scientist, Barnes Wallis, had to convince the government of this crazy idea to develop what seemed like an impossible thing; a bomb that weighed something like 9 tons, I think it was, that could bounce on the surface of a lake.
And the British government were being beset by crazy inventors all the time. There was a continual stream of people harassing the government, saying they've invented the ultimate death ray that will take out the Germans and everything. Times of war can bring out the best in people, but it's also a chance to make the nutcases shine and make themselves heard as well.
So, Barnes Wallis was regarded as being something of an eccentric really, when he first presented the case. He had this real uphill battle that took years to convince the government and the bureaucracy that this could work. Slowly, he chipped away at them and I loved that side of the story. It's got a slightly dry humor to it. It is something that the British do really well that no other country really excels in quite as much is the eccentric inventors just kind of tug away and tug away and they always get underestimated by other people, but they often come through at the end. The British actually invented a lot of things, radar being one of them, that helped them win the war, as well as the Americans getting involved, ultimately, which was the turning point.
But 1943 is also interesting, the year of DAMBUSTERS, because it is one of the dark years of the war. The war hadn't quite reached that point where it became obvious that the Nazis could be defeated. The Allies had suffered quite a few defeats. The way it happened in time, it was great for morale. There's a bit of political intrigue in it, too, because the Americans and the Russians were both on to Churchill thinking that the British were not actually doing enough in the war. The Russians were getting hammered on the Eastern Front and the Americans were in the Pacific and the English were seen as being sort of holed up on the island and what are they actually doing and contributing?
So, Churchill was extremely thankful of this raid because it did prove that the British were able to strike a fairly resounding blow against the Nazis, do their bit in the war.
It's also another one of those cinematic experiences that we haven't quite nailed yet with the technology that exists today. We haven't really seen a World War 2 low level bombing attack that has been done with all the power of CG that really make you feel like you're really participating in that raid. They were flying incredibly low, barely missing the treetops.
QUINT: That was a really great part of the original. I love seeing it in films when they set up something to be nearly impossible and then they make it really impossible. They had a tough time flying at 200 feet or whatever it was and then were told they had to be no higher than 60 feet off the ground...
PETER JACKSON: Yeah, they thought 150 feet was the level and then they kept dropping the bomb during the tests that would just sink. It didn't bounce because it was too high and had too much downward momentum, so they had to go lower and lower, made even more difficult because they had to fly at night.
They flew at that level right from Britain and into Germany to stay under the radar. They knew that if the German Night Fighters were able to track them that they would be absolute mince meat. They had no choice but to fly under the radar, which means they were flying at only 40 or 50 feet. Some of the pilots that we've spoken to were saying that they had a split second in the darkness to see that they were flying towards high tension power lines and they a split second to decide if to go over them or if they were going under them. They said they often just went under the power lines, these big 4 engine bombers.
It's also remarkable the way... This is the kind of story that I like. It's not just a flying story, but the fact that in addition to the bureaucracy and the hurdles and challenges that Barnes Wallis went through when building the bomb and designing the bomb, they realized that it was such a precision, such precise flying that was required that they were going to have to get a special squadron to do it because they couldn't rely upon an ordinary squadron, so they had to hand pick the best people they could find and form a new group. And they only had 7 weeks to find these guys, to build the modified aircraft, to train... and during that 7 week period, they couldn't even tell the guys what the target was.
They put a squadron together starting from nothing to basically employing and managing 700 people, with all the ground crew and support people and the office people. The first few days, when the clock was ticking, was spent getting envelopes and rubber bands and pads and pens and ink and everything because they didn't have anything in this squadron, but they had this incredible job to do in 7 weeks time.
Guy Gibson, who formed the squadron and was given the ultimate authority to get the guys together, train then and ultimately lead the raid... by the time he actually took off that night, by all accounts he was physically pretty wrecked. He could barely stand up. He'd seen the doctor the day before the raid, and obviously nobody knew about the raid because it was secret, but the doctor said to him that he should have a week in bed. He just sort of laughed. Then (the doctor) offered him pain killing pills because he had some really bad stress stuff... he could hardly walk. Of course, he couldn't take anything for the pain because it would dull his (reactions).
All that human part of the story would be great to do and makes it a helluva lot more than just a flying film.
QUINT: I know that in the original they changed the shape of the bomb for security/military purposes. I would assume that you're going to have the bomb as it was...
PETER JACKSON: We've already got out bomb built! We went over to England in May and we measured up all the original bombs there and Weta have just finished an exact copy of it. We're about to start building the mechanism to spin it under the plane now. It's one thing to be making movies, which is enjoyable, but I do love all the research and the history and I love building a copy of the bouncing bomb and building airplanes. Just that historical aspect of it is really one of my favorite things.
In this case it's particularly good because Christian (Rivers) gets the hard job of directing the movie and I get all the fun of just helping out with all the research and stuff. I'm having a great time!
Christian's started doing animatics. We haven't got a screenwriter yet. We're just in the process of choosing now that we have the rights squared away. It's a bit like the situation we had making both KONG and LORD OF THE RINGS, there's an aspect to the story that you know will be in the film regardless of how the script develops, so we've started to pre-vis the entire raid and Christian's been working on that for a couple of months now. We're actually able, at the moment, to sit down and watch about half the raid.
QUINT: Is there anything else that has been declassified by the British government that you're able to include?
PETER JACKSON: It's not so much... What's happened in the last 40 or 50 years, which wasn't really easy for the filmmakers in 1955, was that most of the people that were being portrayed were alive still. There's no one being a particularly bad person in this story, but the bureaucracy and the amount of antagonism towards Barnes Wallis when he was developing this bomb was slightly toned down in the original film because some of the people who were antagonistic towards him were obviously alive and they didn't want to embarrass people unnecessarily.
So, the truth about what he had to go through and the hoops he had to jump through and the people that tried to squash the development of the bomb... that story can be told in a way that's slightly more blunt now than it could be told in the '50s.
QUINT: While it's a minor point in the film, I think most people that have seen the original are going to want to know what you're going to call Gibson's dog in the new film.
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