The Point Radio: CHILDHOOD’S END Comes To Life

The beloved science fiction classic CHILDHOOD’S END by Arthur C. Clarke is coming to SyFy this week in a special three night event – starting tomorrow night. EP Matthew Grant and stars Mike Vogel and Yael Stone talk about their journey to bring this favorite to life. Plus there’s no doubt that Earth, Wind & Fire and Chicago are rock legends. The members share their favorite memories as well as talking about their continuing nationwide tour.

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Transcript

The Point Radio. Hey, it's Mike Raub, Arthur C. Clarke's childhoods and comes to Sci-Fi for a special event in just a few days. And we've got a sneak peek with both the cast and the creators. Plus who doesn't love Earth, Wind and Fire and Chicago?

The guys are on tour all over the U.S. and they're here to talk about how it all got started for each group. Let's get to The Point. This is The Point. The Point Radio.

Get The Point Radio. There's no doubt that one of the most beloved science fiction novels of all time is Arthur C. Clarke's childhoods end. And it's coming to a special three night event on the Sci-Fi channel. Among the stars are Mike Vogel and Yael Stone and the whole thing is spearheaded by writer

and executive producer Matthew Grant. For Mike, it didn't take long for him to figure out exactly how big Clarke's novel was. Initially, I did not realize the full weight of the project that I was committing to until I was on an airplane headed to Australia. And just because everything happened quite quickly and as I started researching the book

and researching the history and the sort of the position that childhoods end held in the eyes and the viewpoints, I think, of the fan base, I went, oh man, wow, this is a big commitment. But yeah, I read the book while we were filming and Matt will speak to it. But I think Matt has done a fantastic job of maintaining the integrity and a lot of

the characters and a lot of the main ideas of the book. Some parts of it have been altered a bit. My character in the book is the 60 year old head of the UN from Finland. So we went with a 35 year old Missouri farmer. It's a logical leap.

But I think it made him, you know, made Ricky more relatable, more trustworthy as the every man rather than the politician. But yeah, that was my experience with the book heading into this. And for Yael? I was familiar with Arthur C. Clarke kind of in a periphery way as the guy who kind

of predicted the internet and the use of personal computers and as a visionary and a kind of futurist. I hadn't read the book. And then when the project came up, I then read the book. And you know, I think it's a really fascinating, big, big questions.

But obviously the book being written when it was kind of comes through from this very, you know, 1950s framework. It's this very sort of heteronormative viewpoint. And I think Matthew's done a great job in just reimagining the story and this incredible novel while also kind of paying homage to it through, but also modernizing it.

Matthew came to the project with a lot of passion for the Clarke novel. It was a book I read when I was 14. And it kind of stuck with me mostly because as a 14 year old, to be told some aliens won't show themselves because we can't handle it was just frankly, the coolest thing you've ever read in your life.

And you couldn't wait to get through the pages where to the point where they would reveal themselves because you couldn't imagine what it would be that would be so awful, so challenging. So that was the kind of the initial thing. And then of course, the fact that the story plays out the way it does, it is haunting to especially to a kid who's used to kind of reading stories where things are kind of

soon said emotionally to you in a way that makes you feel comfortable. So it kind of was with me for on and off for most of my life as a book that I remembered always fondly and was always excited by. So and as the others have touched upon, you know, yes, we've done something to update it in some ways and make it more accessible to a broad audience, which I think is essential

if you're writing about the future and not knowing what's going to happen to us. You can't set it in the 50s because we all live in the 21st century and we know that those people in the 50s, no point in them worrying about nuclear war. It ain't gonna happen at least for at least for a while. So it had to be updated in order to keep the sense of paranoia and uncertainty that pervades

the book. And then, you know, Mike touched on making Ricky a farmer rather than a politician. I think, again, that reflects the age we're in now where we're a little bit less. We're more distrustful of politicians and we're certainly more aware of the cynicism that pervade and the problems that pervade global politics.

So, you know, I adopted a more kind of Old Testament approach, really, you know, it's a kind of a God speaking to the farm boy rather than God and making him a king rather than God speaking to the king. To translate all this visually, of course CGI plays a big part, which was yet another challenge for some of the actors.

I've never worked with imaginary things in front of me. I have to say that was a first time for me and on my first day of set, I was looking at a piece of green gaffer tape and the arrival of a being that represented everything that my whole life was set against and perhaps the thing responsible for the loss of my mother. And I got to say, it was pretty, pretty tough to be working off that green piece of gaffer

tape. I think I wrote on my script the date and I wrote, this is the day I have to stop acting because I can't do it and it's impossible. I didn't tell anyone, but that's how I felt. For Matthew, well, there was a whole other set of challenges.

I think probably the most difficult aspect of it all for me was every single morning seeing what we had to shoot and do in the day. And it never seemed to get smaller. I kept thinking one day we're going to look at a call sheet and it's going to say, Mike sits under a tree and eats an apple.

And it never did. It just said 5,000 extras, 100 utopians, giant spaceships, huge aliens. And it was such a daunting, it's always an idea, I think, to never fully know the scale of something. It was a big project to never fully understand the scale of it going in because you just

wouldn't do it. And once we got going, as exciting as it was, it was just every day was so daunting. So much to do and the scale and the ambition of it all. The story involves a powerful race of aliens who come to Earth and offer mankind the end of all of our woes with a pretty hefty price attached though.

So for a what if question, I asked the cast how they could react to such an offer in real life. And on the bar room conversation we had almost every single night in Melbourne. Well, it's Matthew here. It's a really tough one because there's a bit of me that kind of sides with Cole Meaney

on this one. Not Cole Meaney, the character, he's Colton's character, Wainwright. In some ways you kind of want to be just in charge of your own destiny for good or for bad. We don't want to be condescended.

We don't want to be mabbled. We want to do it ourselves. But right now with everything that I'm looking down the gun barrel of, whether it's ISIL, whether it's the fact that we're going to run out of antibiotics, we're going back to medieval science, medieval medicine in the next generation, I think I would take the

gamble. I think I'd have the overlords. Good night, childhoods. End of End begins on Sci-Fi on Monday, December 14th. Get complete details right now at Sci-Fi.com.

Some good news for DC on TV. All that and more come up as we look at what's going on in pop culture. Sci-Fi is developing a new drama based on Harrow County, the comic done by Cullen Bunn and Tyler Crook. Series launched from Dark Horse in May and the property was announced soon after as being

in development with Universal Cable Productions even as early as July as part of a first look deal between the publisher and the production company. The Harrow County graphic novel collection of the first few issues should be in comic stores right now. Smallville's Tom Welling is headed back to television in both a starring and a producer

role. It's all for a CIA drama called Section 13 in development from CBS. The series comes from Warner Brothers and Welling's production company and it's written by Carla Kedner who also does Bones. It takes a lot to be considered music legends but there's no one more deserving than the

guys from Earth, Wind and Fire and Chicago with countless hits over the past few decades. I talked to Verdine White from Earth, Wind and Fire about the early days and the first time he heard one of his songs on the radio. Oh, you know, it's just amazing. You go crazy and you, Ralph Johnson, we always agree.

If you're lucky enough to get one hit song and you love it and you hear it on the radio, we've been fortunate enough to have many. So it's been a really blessing but the first time was fantastic. In addition to continuing with Earth, Wind and Fire, Ralph Johnson produces material for a lot of other artists and I ask him what he looks for when he wants to work with a

new act. Well, and the things that any of us, you know, who've all done different records with different people, I think you just look to see what's there from that particular artist and just try to bring out the best in it all. After decades on tour and on the radio with some great hits, I talked to Lee Lochmane

from Chicago about how it all began for him. Well, I was going to school at DePaul University where I met Walt and actually about a year or two before we went to college, I was sitting in with a band called the Mission Links, which Walt, Danny and Terry were playing in. When that group broke up, they formed Chicago and me and Robert were lucky enough to be

asked to join. Beautiful. That's the history. So for Chicago's Robert Lamb, who does he listen to? Who are some of the musical influences in his life?

Well, obviously Earth, Wind and Fire was the first time I heard Earth, Wind and Fire. I mean, I just, my jaw dropped, I stopped in my tracks. Actually, Chicago was recording an album of the Cowden Ranch the first time I heard Earth, Wind and Fire. And it just, you know, it was like that.

Those vocals are amazing. Those horns are exactly right. The rhythm section is doing it great. Who is that bass player? I want to hear more about him.

So, you know, Earth, Wind and Fire for sure. When I was younger, I think The Beatles had a big effect on me. And because I'm a piano player, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis and Stets Domino, those were all guys that, you know, that informed my desire to be a rock piano player. The bands are continuing their live tour all around the U.S. well into the new year.

I asked Philip Bailey what makes the groups work so well together. You know, both catalogues are extensive and everyone knows exactly what they were doing and where they were when they were singing these songs. And there's so much history and our philosophies are similar in our music and what we would hope our music would do for people to uplift and make them feel better.

So it's just, you know, there's a lot of commonalities that make this a real special tour. Earth, Wind and Fire and Chicago still on tour and coming to a city near you. Get more information right now at LiveNation.com. That's it for the podcast right now.

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