TALL TALES
Tales From The LoopW W W.SCI FI N OW.CO.U K |^053
characters are responding in the way they do
[to the sci-fi elements], rather than it being
earth-shattering [for them]”.
Seeing as the show’s sci-fi elements- including robots, cybernetic arms
and gravity-defying rocks – need to feel
unsurprising, Halpern and his team took a
grounded approach to depicting the sci-fi.
Halpern describes the opening episode’s
robot as “a combination of a real robot on set,
that was brilliantly made by Legacy Effects,
which duplicates a robot from Simon’s
paintings, and then, when it’s walking, it
transitions into CG, because we couldn’t
get [the practical robot] to walk. It’s very
seamless.” When it came to creating new
visual elements for the show, Halpern turned
to Stålenhag for advice. “It was important to
me for him to be involved, because he had
originally created this world,” Halpern says.
“So in fact there are several elements in the
show that weren’t in his paintings that I
asked him ‘what would this look like within
your aesthetic?’ and he just designed them.”
So everything in the show – even the new
elements – are all within Stålenhag’s style,
and often come directly from his own pencil.
While the Tales From The Loop book
READY FOR ANOTHER TRIP?
TV has felt disappointingly flat and linear since the wonderfully psychedelic Legion came to an end. If
fans were expecting Legion writer Halpern to simply do the same again, they’ll be disappointed – but not
very. Tales From The Loop is almost as trippy as Legion is, but with some crucial differences. “I would say
both Legion and this show have a great deal of wonder to them,” Halpern says, “but with Tales From The
Loop there’s a far more stripped-back quality, it’s not as kaleidoscopic in its imagery. It’s poignant and
hopeful and there’s a melancholy to this show that is quite different than Legion, tonally.”was set in Eighties and Nineties Sweden,
the TV show is transplanted to the US,
but it maintains a very Scandinavian feel,
especially in the snow-swept opening
episode. Halpern says that Stålenhag was
very supportive of him shifting the action
to the States, but that his own personal
tastes led him to give the series a very
European look anyway. “It’s an international
community working at this facility, so I
wanted to reflect that in the aesthetic of the
town as well, so it’s less Norman Rockwell
and more this timeless combination of a lot
of influences, and that speaks to the clothing
and the cars and various props.”
Tales From The Loop is a strange,
atmospheric show that, like the paintings it
is based on, defies categorisation. It features
character vignettes set in an off-kilter sci-fi
world, and is both an anthology show and
a serialised drama, in which even minor
characters are also main characters. No
wonder Halpern struggled to find a soundbite
for it. But who can resist a series as weird
and lush as this one?Tales From The Loop is available on Prime
Video from 3 April.The stories are driven
by the characters...Tales From The Loopby Simon Stålenhag, publishedby Simon & Schuster. Hardback, £25.050-053_SFN_170 Tales.indd 53 18/03/2020 08:16TALL TALES
Tales From The LoopW W W.SCI FI N OW.CO.U K |^053
characters are responding in the way they do
[to the sci-fi elements], rather than it being
earth-shattering [for them]”.
Seeing as the show’s sci-fi elements- including robots, cybernetic arms
and gravity-defying rocks – need to feel
unsurprising, Halpern and his team took a
grounded approach to depicting the sci-fi.
Halpern describes the opening episode’s
robot as “a combination of a real robot on set,
that was brilliantly made by Legacy Effects,
which duplicates a robot from Simon’s
paintings, and then, when it’s walking, it
transitions into CG, because we couldn’t
get [the practical robot] to walk. It’s very
seamless.” When it came to creating new
visual elements for the show, Halpern turned
to Stålenhag for advice. “It was important to
me for him to be involved, because he had
originally created this world,” Halpern says.
“So in fact there are several elements in the
show that weren’t in his paintings that I
asked him ‘what would this look like within
your aesthetic?’ and he just designed them.”
So everything in the show – even the new
elements – are all within Stålenhag’s style,
and often come directly from his own pencil.
While the Tales From The Loop book
READY FOR ANOTHER TRIP?
TV has felt disappointingly flat and linear since the wonderfully psychedelic Legion came to an end. If
fans were expecting Legion writer Halpern to simply do the same again, they’ll be disappointed – but not
very. Tales From The Loop is almost as trippy as Legion is, but with some crucial differences. “I would say
both Legion and this show have a great deal of wonder to them,” Halpern says, “but with Tales From The
Loop there’s a far more stripped-back quality, it’s not as kaleidoscopic in its imagery. It’s poignant and
hopeful and there’s a melancholy to this show that is quite different than Legion, tonally.”was set in Eighties and Nineties Sweden,
the TV show is transplanted to the US,
but it maintains a very Scandinavian feel,
especially in the snow-swept opening
episode. Halpern says that Stålenhag was
very supportive of him shifting the action
to the States, but that his own personal
tastes led him to give the series a very
European look anyway. “It’s an international
community working at this facility, so I
wanted to reflect that in the aesthetic of the
town as well, so it’s less Norman Rockwell
and more this timeless combination of a lot
of influences, and that speaks to the clothing
and the cars and various props.”
Tales From The Loop is a strange,
atmospheric show that, like the paintings it
is based on, defies categorisation. It features
character vignettes set in an off-kilter sci-fi
world, and is both an anthology show and
a serialised drama, in which even minor
characters are also main characters. No
wonder Halpern struggled to find a soundbite
for it. But who can resist a series as weird
and lush as this one?Tales From The Loop is available on Prime
Video from 3 April.The stories are driven
by the characters...Tales From The Loop
by Simon Stålenhag, published
by Simon & Schuster. Hardback, £25.