Ridley Taps Peoples to Write The Forever War Script

Seems that we’ll be getting a movie treatment of The Forever War at some point in the near future, it’s rare for me to be surprised in this day and age of the Internet, but today…I sit here with my mouth agape.

To be honest, I had no idea that there was even going to be a movie version of the 1974 epic sci-fi novel The Forever War; I had no idea Ridley Scott was attached to direct, and I had zero hope for it until I found out that David Peoples (who wrote the screenplays for 12 Monkeys and Blade Runner) was writing the script for this one.

Add all three of those things together, and it has earned an instant opening night ‘must watch’ from me, though I’m sure a few of you will need some convincing.

The story revolves around a soldier named Mandella as he and a handful of other conscripts are trained to fight Humanity’s first extra-terrestrial enemy. In order to cross the vast distances of space and participate in the conflicts with the Taurans the humans use wormhole like “collapsars” to arrive in a matter of seconds, at speeds that cause extreme time dialation…

The movie will be interesting if they can make all of the complicated scenarios that Mandella faces as he passes through centuries of humanity evolving in the face of a seemingly “Forever War”, only to become the oldest soldier in history.

The ending is what will clench this as a solid title or a dud, but I’ll leave that to your imagination and the screenwriter to sort out for you.