Response to our last installment of Drawing on Imagination — where you may recall we envisioned a new take on Gerry Anderson's classic 1970 series UFO — was certainly varied and drew lots of opinions, both positive and negative.

This time we decided to tackle something with perhaps fewer preconceptions; less prior baggage, as it were...albeit no less controversial: Joe Haldeman's classic science fiction novel, "The Forever War". The novel tells the story of William Mandella, an elite soldier fighting for Earth in a centuries-long interstellar war against the 'Taurans'. The series focuses mainly on the dehumanising effects of war and its attendant bureaucracy. The book was heavily based on Haldeman’s experiences in, and thoughts about, the Vietnam War.

After waiting 25 years for the screen rights to the book to become available, Ridley Scott recently purchased them from Hollywood VFX legend Richard Edlund, and will finally turn this science fiction classic into a major motion picture event (Edlund remains attached as an executive producer and visual effects consultant).

Presuming Scott would probably favor something realistic and lived in, I tried to echo the look I had seen of soldiers during the Vietnam War (given that "Forever War" is a Vietnam parable). In the first illustration, the helmet design itself is not dissimilar to those worn by American GIs; I begin with a semi-circular bowl with side pieces that would suggest the chin strap. The rest of the outfit would be somewhat ragtag as each soldier would probably customize his/her own gear according to individual tastes and needs, and, of course, according to the environmental parameters of the mission.


Next, I set out to tackle the Fighting Suits, advanced, weaponized environmental EVA suits which amplify human strength using a semi-logarithmic response. Most of the previous depictions I've seen of them have the appearance of giant egg-like enclosures. However, such a design would look quite comical, especially in long shots of the battle scenes as hundreds of giant chicken eggs wage bloody war with deadly hoards of angry aliens.


Rather than take that approach, I decided to keep a somewhat egg-like shape for the headgear, and model the rest after deep sea diving suits, whose pressurized enclosures are not dissimilar from the apparatus worn by astronauts, but are more robust. (Those unfamiliar with "The Forever War" may be interested to learn that the suits can be made to change color like a chameleon, in order to blend better with the surrounding environment—something the static drawing is unable to depict.)


Then there are the Tauran aliens themselves. They are described in the book as follows: "... had two arms and two legs, but his waist was so small you could encompass it with both hands. Under the tiny waist was a large horseshoe-shaped pelvic structure nearly a metre wide, from which dangled two long skinny legs with no apparent knee joint. Above that waist his body swelled out again, to a chest no smaller than the huge pelvis. His arms looked surprisingly human, except they were too long and under-muscled. There were too many fingers on his hands. Shoulderless, neckless. His head was a nightmarish growth that swelled like a goiter from his massive chest. Two eyes that looked like clusters of fish eggs, a bundle of tassles instead of a nose, and a rigidly open hole that might have been a mouth sitting low down where his adam's apple should have been. Evidently the soap bubble contained an amenable environment, as he was wearing absolutely nothing except his ridged hide, that looked like skin submerged too long in hot water, then dyed a pale orange."


OK, so maybe Haldeman smoked a joint rolled from a page out of "Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials"... still, it is always a challenge to interpret a writer's vision with a workable and believable design. In the end, a successful design will not be judged upon how faithful it is to the written word, but how well it integrates itself to the overall film. Blind adherence to the source material can be extremely limiting and may hinder any possibility of expanding and enhancing the original concept.

Of course, one always likes to take the literary descriptions as a starting point to explore new ideas, especially in the case of established properties that have existing preconceptions.

Either way, I hope you enjoy this little peek into what could be...