WRITER EXCLUSIVE
Numbers Game
Richard James on adapting Gerry Anderson’s unmade space opus Five Star Five into a new novel
Chris Thompson’s design for the planet Kestra.
DEVELOPED IN THE WAKE OF Star Wars’ huge success, Five Star Five could have been Gerry Anderson’s answer to George Lucas’s classic intergalactic epic. That is, if it had actually reached the big screen... It has now finally been brought to life – on the printed page at least – after languishing in creative limbo for four decades. Anderson and co-writer Tony Barwick’s original screenplay has now been turned into a novel by Richard James (subtitled John Lovell And The Zargon Threat) and accompanying audiobook read by Terrahawks’ Robbie Stevens.
“George Lucas has got a lot to answer for!” laughs James. “The late ’70s are littered with films that were attempting to cash in on Star Wars, from Star Trek: The Motion Picture to Disney’s The Black Hole. Five Star Five certainly follows many of the same story beats as Star Wars and its main protagonists are a grizzled space freighter captain, John Lovell, and his talking chimpanzee sidekick, Clarence B Bond. We don’t have to look too far to see who they might be based on, nor the assembled forces of the evil Zargon Empire.”