Spielberg has done it again. This time with an animated TV series that will keep young and old at home on Wednesday nights. Alex Dodd reports
The Japanese might have been churning out magnificent manga for years, but – make no mistake – when Steven Spielberg puts his name behind an animated series for TV, it’s a moment in history: manga goes mainstream across the world.
South Africans will be clocking into that moment next week with the screening of the first episode of the groundbreaking animation series, Invasion America, on M- Net at 5pm. Set to run for 13 weeks, the series is a coup for M-Net who secured it following an output deal with DreamWorks.
It’s the first TV series the pay station has managed to score from Spielberg’s famed international television company.
Set in the present-day United States, Invasion America revolves around the epic adventures of a 17-year-old boy called David Carter, a young loner who is light years away from the typical American teenager he so desperately wants to be. Ring any bells? He might have come a long way since ET, but key to Spielberg’s great success is the fact that he has always known the open sesame to the average human soft spot.
David is shocked to learn that his absentee father in fact hails from the planet Tyrus, and is a charismatic leader referred to as Cale Oosha, which means “our ruler”. This makes David one of a unique breed – half human, half Tyrusian – destined by his lineage to rule.
When David was just a toddler, his father was compelled to leave his exile on Earth and return to Tyrus (so that’s where all those missing Earthling daddies went) to lead the rebellion to overthrow his uncle, the Dragit, and reclaim the throne. Cale Oosha entrusted his young son to his loyal friend and mentor, Rafe, to protect him and teach him, as he had taught Cale before him. Over the next 15 years, David and his mother, Rita, moved frequently before settling into normal life in the sleepy New England village of Glenport, Massachussetts. But unbeknown to them, thousands of Tyrusians were insidiously infiltrating Earth, attaining powerful strongholds high within the US military, all the way to the White House. (Omigod – and we thought the Monica Lewinsky affair was a crisis!)
Now, in 1998, the fateful time has arrived and Tyrusians, under the Dragit, are launching their invasion of Earth. But, Tyrusian rebels, the Ooshati, vow to fight the hostile conquerors to the death, and look to David to lead them against his uncle to continue his father’s fight. Viva the Ooshati, viva!
Invasion America is Spielberg’s personal brainchild, dating back to the early Nineties. The ever clever Spielberg reportedly wanted to do something in the tradition of Japanese animation that would be suitable for prime time TV. The idea went through several incarnations but remained unsold until 1996, the year that Spielberg joined forces with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen to form their own studio, DreamWorks. DreamWorks’s animation arm quickly sold the concept to the fledgling Warner Brothers Network.
A far cry from Daffy Duck, Invasion promises, through ground-breaking animation (12 000 to 13 000 frames in the first episode) and sophisticated storytelling, to appeal to young and adult audiences alike. Created by Spielberg and developed by Emmy Award-winning producer Harve Bennett (Rich Man, Poor Man and Star Trek II, III, IV and V) the drama features computer-generated sequences combined seamlessly with feature film quality cell animation. The series also features the voice talents of people like Robert Urich, Leonard Nimoy, Lorenzo Lamas and Kristy McNichol, among others.
What better reason to abandon reality on a Wednesday night than an emotionally-charged 2-D universe?