''The Time Guardian'' is a 1987 Australian
science fiction film
Science fiction (or sci-fi) is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, interstellar ...
directed by
Brian Hannant
Brian Hannant (born 13 February 1940) is an Australian filmmaker who worked for many years at Film Australia.
Select Credits
*''Three to Go'' (1970) - director
*''Flashpoint (1972 film), Flashpoint'' (1972) - writer, director
*''Mad Max 2'' (19 ...
, co-written by
John Baxter and Hannant, and starring
Tom Burlinson
Tom Burlinson (born 14 February 1956) is a Canadian actor and singer.
Career
Tom Burlinson was born in Toronto, Canada, the son of Antony T. Burlinson (born 1923, in Greenwich, Middlesex) and Angela Schofield (born 1926, in Bury St Edmunds, ...
,
Nikki Coghill
Nicola Vicars Coghill (born 4 January 1964) is an Australian actress. She is best known for playing the roles of Sister Jackie Crane in ''The Flying Doctors'', and Miranda Parker in ''Neighbours''.
Career
Coghill was born in Melbourne. She has ...
,
Dean Stockwell
Robert Dean Stockwell (March 5, 1936 – November 7, 2021) was an American actor with a career spanning seven decades. As a child actor under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he first came to the public's attention in films including ''Anchors A ...
, and
Carrie Fisher
Carrie Frances Fisher (October 21, 1956 – December 27, 2016) was an American actress and writer. She played Princess Leia in the ''Star Wars'' films (1977–1983). She reprised the role in'' Star Wars: The Force Awakens'' (2015), ''The Last ...
.
''The Time Guardian'' was released in Australia on 3 December 1987. The film vastly underperformed at the box office and was poorly received by critics.
Plot
In 4039, a city of survivors from the Neutron Wars travels through time and space escaping the Jen-Diki, a race of cyborgs intent on wiping out humanity. Two soldiers from the city, crusty Ballard and historian Petra, are transported to the South Australian outback in 1988 to prepare a landing site for the city. Petra is wounded and Ballard seeks help from geologist Annie Lassite.
Ballard is dismayed when Annie's ancient cave paintings depict Ballard's city. After a police officer, MacCarthy, activated Ballard's tracking device despite his protests, an advance party of Jen-Diki arrive in Australia.
Cast
*
Tom Burlinson
Tom Burlinson (born 14 February 1956) is a Canadian actor and singer.
Career
Tom Burlinson was born in Toronto, Canada, the son of Antony T. Burlinson (born 1923, in Greenwich, Middlesex) and Angela Schofield (born 1926, in Bury St Edmunds, ...
as Ballard, a grizzled 41st-century soldier;
*
Nikki Coghill
Nicola Vicars Coghill (born 4 January 1964) is an Australian actress. She is best known for playing the roles of Sister Jackie Crane in ''The Flying Doctors'', and Miranda Parker in ''Neighbours''.
Career
Coghill was born in Melbourne. She has ...
as Annie, a 20th-century geologist;
*
Carrie Fisher
Carrie Frances Fisher (October 21, 1956 – December 27, 2016) was an American actress and writer. She played Princess Leia in the ''Star Wars'' films (1977–1983). She reprised the role in'' Star Wars: The Force Awakens'' (2015), ''The Last ...
as Petra, a 41st-century historian with a specialisation in the 20th-century's technology and customs;
*
Dean Stockwell
Robert Dean Stockwell (March 5, 1936 – November 7, 2021) was an American actor with a career spanning seven decades. As a child actor under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he first came to the public's attention in films including ''Anchors A ...
as Boss, a 41st-century city official;
*
Tim Robertson
Tim Robertson is an Australian actor and writer.
He is a graduate of the University of Western Australia] (1965) and taught at Flinders University in Adelaide, where he began adapting and directing plays. He joined the Australian Performing Gro ...
as Sergeant McCarthy, a pragmatic 20th-century Australian police officer;
*
Jim Holt (actor), Jim Holt as Rafferty, an alarmist 20th-century Australian police officer.
Production
Brian Hannant had been drawn to the rock formation at
Wilpena Pound
Wilpena Pound – also known by its Adnyamathanha language, Adnyamathanha name of Ikara, meaning "meeting place" – is a natural amphitheatre of mountains located north of Adelaide, South Australia, Australia in the heart of the Ikara-Flinders ...
in South Australia while making ''
Mad Max 2
''Mad Max 2'' (released as ''The Road Warrior'' in the United States) is a 1981 Australian post-apocalyptic action film directed by George Miller. It is the second installment in the ''Mad Max'' franchise, with Mel Gibson reprising his role a ...
''. This inspired him to write a script with John Baxter in the early 1980s. According to Baxter the script was originally called ''Time Rider'', about a geologist who, while investigating magnetic anomalies around Wilpena Pound in South Australia, encourages a man from the future, who is a scout sent back in time to find a home for his people, pursued by the Jen-Diki tribe. Baxter:
heearly scripts contrasted present and future lifestyles, and involved, in addition to the love story, and elegiac relationship between the girl and Prenzler, an old man in the nearby town who held the key to certain incidents in her future. There were elements of satire: conceived as descendants of contemporary polluters, our Jen-Diki were variously the remnants of a mining conglomerate or of a labour union. The modest action climax used a minimum of special effects.[John Baxter, "Box Three: John Baxter", ''Cinema Papers'', March 1989 p40]
Hannant and Baxter received two
Australian Film Commission
The Australian Film Commission (AFC) was an Australian government agency was founded in 1975 with a mandate to promote the creation and distribution of films in Australia as well as to preserve the country's film history. It also had a producti ...
grants and had their script optioned to two local production companies. They eventually sold it to Chateau Productions, and succeeded in raising finance from
New World Pictures
New World Pictures (also known as New World Entertainment and New World Communications Group, Inc.) was an American independent production, distribution, and (in its final years as an autonomous entity) multimedia company. It was founded in 197 ...
and with the help of
Antony I. Ginnane at Hemdale. According to Hannant the $8 million budget was raised in two days but of that $1 million went to brokers. The film obtained pre-sales worth $4.8 million to Hemdale Film Corporation.
[HEMDALE HOLDS OUT ON PRE-SALE PAYMENTS TO IFM By MARK LAWSON ''Australian Financial Review'' 29 March 1988 p 34]
Producer Tom Wilkinson said "Here at last was a special effects story that had originality, pace and a big idea. The waiting has been worthwhile. We wanted to make sure we had the right combination of leading actors and the right technical skills because those will be the real making - or unmaking- of the movie."
Eight weeks before shooting, Hannant says Hemdale presented him with a rewrite of the script by an American writer. Hannant tried to incorporate changes but says he did not have enough money. John Baxter quit the project and the shoot was cut from 13 weeks to nine. Hannant left the film during post production ("one step ahead of being fired," according to Baxter
) and some extra scenes were shot by the editor.
Tom Burlinson
Tom Burlinson (born 14 February 1956) is a Canadian actor and singer.
Career
Tom Burlinson was born in Toronto, Canada, the son of Antony T. Burlinson (born 1923, in Greenwich, Middlesex) and Angela Schofield (born 1926, in Bury St Edmunds, ...
was cast in the lead. "If we're successful," said Burlinson, "if it comes off, we'll show the world we can make this sort of film... I play a tough old so-and-so which is different for me... Ballard is almost an anti-hero and not like any of those young men I used to play. He doesn't take any nonsense and he's a bit of a head-thumper."
[SCI-FI FILM SET TO STUN THE WORLD By ROB LOWING ''Sun Herald'' 8 June 1987 p 15]
Filming took place in South Australia at the soundstages of the
South Australian Film Corporation
South Australian Film Corporation (SAFC) is a South Australian Government statutory corporation established in 1972 to engage in film production and promote the film industry, located in Adelaide, South Australia. The Adelaide Studios are managed ...
at
Hendon
Hendon is an urban area in the Borough of Barnet, North-West London northwest of Charing Cross. Hendon was an ancient manor and parish in the county of Middlesex and a former borough, the Municipal Borough of Hendon; it has been part of Great ...
and at a deserted quarry outside Adelaide. Mirage Effects did the special effects.
Baxter says the final film bore little relation to the original script:
There was a minimal love story, no contrast in life styles. Prenzler had disappeared. The main role, in which we envisioned a mature international actor with a reputation in science fiction and action films (the prospectus specified "Scott Glenn
Theodore Scott Glenn (born January 26) is an American actor. His roles have included Pfc Glenn Kelly in ''Nashville'' (1975), Wes Hightower in ''Urban Cowboy'' (1980), astronaut Alan Shepard in '' The Right Stuff'' (1983), Emmett in '' Silverado'' ...
or equivalent") was then by local boyish lad Tom Burlinson. At the behest of Hemdale, the film began and ended in a fire-fight (explaining to my satisfaction the awkward opening of ''The Terminator
''The Terminator'' is a 1984 American science fiction action film directed by James Cameron. It stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator, a cyborg assassin sent back in time from 2029 to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), whos ...
'').
Location of the small township that was destroyed in this film by the Jen-Diki. It was in an area of South Australia called Port Gawler. The little township was there for approximately 2 months then gone. Everything I had seen in the movie was also seen in the town, police car, service station and auto wreckers all the same as in the movie. Also security 24-7 while the town was there.
Release
The film was released in Australia on 3 December 1987 and in the United States on 4 August 1989. In the Philippines, the film was released by Eastern Films as ''Spacetrap'' on 17 February 1990, with six
Nintendo Family Computer consoles raffled during the first three days of release.
Reception
The film was poorly received, commercially and critically. It failed to recoup its marketing costs in its cinema release and Hemdale did not have the money to meet its pre-sale obligations.
Hemdale then agreed to pay a reduced amount of $2 million but there were difficulties in obtaining this as well.
[GOLDFARB RENEGES ON PRE-SALE DEBT By MARK LAWSON ''Australian Financial Review'' 28 April 1988 p 36]
David Stratton
David James Stratton (born 10 September 1939) is an English-Australian award-winning film critic, as both a journalist and interviewer, film historian and lecturer and television personality and producer.
Life and career
Born in Trowbridge, ...
later wrote that:
The story of ''The Time Guardian'' is an object lesson in how the deal-driven 10BA films could be white-anted by the non-creative people. Hannant and Baxter might have made a memorable sci-fi drama to stand alongside classics of the genre but they had the wrong producers, the wrong deals, the wrong budget, the wrong cast and, in the end, the wrong script.
''Filmink'' wrote "It’s hard for filmmakers who want to make sci fi in Australia. ''The Time Guardian'' made it that much harder... There’s Dean Stockwell as an officer, Carrie Fisher running around as a warrior, Tom Burlinson as a grizzled warrior in a performance that killed his career as a leading man, Nikki Coghill being genuinely charming amidst the carnage. A film that should have a bigger cult."
References
Sources
*Stratton, David (1990) ''The Avocado Plantation: Boom and Bust in the Australian Film Industry'', Pan MacMillan: Sydney. .
External links
*
''The Time Guardian''at Oz Movies
''The Time Guardian''at
Australian Screen Online
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), known as ScreenSound Australia from 1999 to 2004, is Australia's audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting and providing access to a national co ...
''The Time Guardian''at ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Time Guardian, The
1987 films
Australian action adventure films
Australian science fiction films
Films about time travel
Films set in South Australia
Films directed by Brian Hannant
1980s English-language films