(The following interview was originally published in STARLOG Magazine , April 1981 ) OUTLAND (Writer and Director Peter Hyams take us Behind-the-scenes on his upcoming SF Drama) By Alan Brender PART I Q: How did you get involved in this project ? Hyams: I really don't know how to answer that . I wish I could come up with a terrific about a bolt of lightning or something . I was thinking very hard about what I wanted to do next - what kind of film I would like to do . As a filmmaker , the kind of movie that appeals to me most is one where I have the opportunity to create na environment - whether it's a Western , a World War II movie , or a futuristic world - where it's possible to create an atmosphere physically . One of the most exciting things about a movie is that you can sit down and be transported into a different world . I have two children - boys 11 1/2 and 13 - who are absolute freaks on the kind of Star Wars movies that there are . I wanted to make a movie that appealed to them , but that would also appeal to me .There seemed to be a dichotomy . A lot of the movies that were set in the future were kids's movies . I wondered why they didn't cross over . I began to realize that it would be interesting to make a movie that was set in the future that used the future as a location - rather than the sole object of the movie . I wanterd to make a movie where the focus was not on hardware . It would not be a movie about serial dog fights near Mars or where a monster devours a city . Outland simply evolved from taking what I thought was a good story and setting it in the future ... imposing upon it all the problems of the future to see how people would react in that setting , but keeping the focus of the story very tense with a suspenseful plot in a serious situation . It really kind of grew from there . It was serious for me . All this wonderful kinf of machinery - all this extraordinary film technique - appeared to me to be spent on the periphery as opposed to enhancing something . Q: How did you go about incorporating the future into your script in a realistic way ? Hyams: Well , rather than having a series of lucite domes and pepople gliding across conveyer belts wearing tight fitting jump suits , it appeared to me that what's exciting and appealing about the future is the fact it's a frontier . And frontiers have historical similarities . The same people who built the Suez Canal are the same people who built the Alaska Pipeline , and are the same people who settled Dodge City . They are the same people who run the offshore oil rigs right now . And they are the same people who would be on Io . And for the same reasons . There are quite often people who have little to lose and are looking over their shoulders . They are quite greedy . They live very close to the surface of violence . They normally are people who are exploited , put into very tough situations , who are there to make as much money as they can - and not for the reasons of altruism or adventure . People didn't go to Alaska to build the Pipeline because they felt they were altering the course of the species . There was a lot of money to be made very fast . They were willing to endure the terrible hardships involved . To try to portray them accurately in a mining situation on na alien environment , that interested me . Q: Do you admire these people ? Hyams: I don't admire them . I certainly admire them more than the people who own the companies , the mining towns or own the resources . I just don't think they are heroes . I think they are people who are doing a lot of menial work for a lot of money compressed together under awful conditions . There's a real toughness about them . Q: Did the mining aspect of ALIEN influence you at all in developing the mining Community in Outland ? Hyams: No . I was not inflenced by ALIEN at all . I certainly admired the making of it . This is a very dissimilar movie . ALIEN did not focus on the characters. This movie is about a bunch of people that I think you get to see sides of that you don't ordinarily get to see in films . Q: How did you go about creating a futuristic world ? Hyams: I tried to write something that was believable . I tried to design something that I felt was believable . And I tried to photograph it in a believable way . The single most important thing to me was to make a film that seemed feasible .I hope that when people come out of Outland they will think it's not only feasible but probable. I have a feeling that that's what is going to be there. I think the next stage in space exploration will not be to plant a flag . It will be because we need resources . We need fuels . We need uranium , metals . There's a great deal of territory out there to get it from . Once we have the hardware to do it , we'll do it . Q: Why did you chose Io for the location of your mining company ? Hyams: Because Jupiter to me is the most imposing sight I've ever seem in my life . I first started to write this movie when the first series of photographs started coming back from Voyager . And they found a volcano on Io . I began to go to libraries . I began to buy astronomy books . And I began to read voraciously about Jupiter. It has within it a scale I just couldn't comprehend . I wanted the location to be within our solar system . I didn't want it to be 8 billion light years away . I wanted it to be feasible . We're not talking about traveling at the speed of light for 200 years . These are our people - people from America , people from other countries . I tried to use the technology that I think is around now and to just bring it a step further - not eight leaps further . I also wanted to show all the problems . They haven't been doing this for for hundreds of years ; so things don't work that well . The air conditioning doesn't work . The ventilating system doesn't work well . They sweat their brains out . They're unconfortable . They're claustrophobic , and they go a little nutsy . They take a lot of dope . They need hookers . It's not Musak piped in and a lot of tranquilizers ; it's a very tough way to live . And Jupiter symbolizes our Solar System, symbolizes somethin within reach. It also symbolizes awesome violence . Do you know that the red spot in Jupiter is a storm three times the size of Earth ? I draw before I write . And I started to draw this place over and over , fussing with the size of Jupiter in the sky . And we're not used to that . We're used to the moon being the largest thing in the sky . Could you imagine if two thirds of the sky was this thing ? Imagine if there was more of it than sky ! Could you imagine the feeling you would get ? And that's what would be life in Io . Q: Was it difficult to reproduce this and do it well? Hyams: It's difficult to do anything well . I hope we did it well . This is a kind of audience that is very sophisticated . They have seen some very good movies about the future . You can't out-special-effects Star Wars . This is a thing of pipes and joints and broken plumbing . Things get too hot ant they get to cold . Every design of this movie came trough function . We sat down and decided what we would do rather than the effect . We sat down and figured it out how you can squeeze the most people into the smallest amount of space. I wanted the mining colony to look a bit penal . I wanted this entire world to look like a place where function was the only requisite . The people who made this place simply wanted to cram as many workers in the smallest amount of space , give them air to breath , food to eat , and clothes to wear - and that's it ! The atmosphere plays a principle role in this film . It can kill you very quickly . I created what the atmosphere does to people . It's really the lack of pressure - and what happens when people are exposed to zero pressure . Not pretty ! As a director , you want to do everything differently . You may reject things that are good simply because they have been done before - what the suits look like , what the helmets look like and even waht the space freighter looks like . Specially the freighter . I wanted it not to look like anything anyone has ever seen , and it doesn't . Q: What does it look like ? Hyams: It looks like what I think it would look like , a big nasty tug - a sort of Staten Island ferry . The object of that shuttle was to take a big box - so you could put as much freight as possible - and then stick big nasty engines on it so you can get it up and you can get it down . Q: How did you go about casting the film ? Hyams: You write a role for a man in his 40's who has been around - and you want it to be believable . It's a role that depends on good acting . There are some very tender things in this movie , hopefully . I didn't want a cardboard man . I wanted somebody with a wife and child .He has to leave them .he's a man capable of tears , but he is also very stubborn . This is not a place where All-Stars get sent ; the rising star of a law enforcement agency doesn't get sent here . he is a guy with a big mouth , and very stubborn . I think your initial reactions are are kind of obvious as to who you would like for that kind of role. Q: Did you have Sean Connery in mind when you wrote it ? Hyams: No , not when I wrote it . First I wrote the man . Then I started thinking of Sean Connery , Paul Newman , Gene Hackman .You think of grown men . You don't think of the Robert DeNiros and Al Pacinos because they are too young. You want a guy in his middle-to-lates-40's who looks like a tough guy . You think of the most proeminent ant the best and the biggest stars in that age group . (end of Part I)