Why New Cult 2000 AD Sci-Fi Movie Changed One Thing From the Original Comics

This year is shaping up to be a big one for comic book-based films, with Supergirl, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Clayface, and Avengers: Doomsday all hitting over the course of the next several months. Those aren’t the only comic-based properties on the way this year though, as a 2000 AD favorite is also finally getting its time on the big screen, and now we know why the film made a key visual change from the original comics.

Attendees at the Annecy Festival will get the chance to watch the debut of Duncan Jones and Stuart Fenegan’s Rogue Trooper, which originated from the 2000 AD comic strip created by Gerry Finley-Day and Dave Gibbons. The Rogue Trooper film will make a few changes to things and will pull from different iterations of the book, and one key change it will make is to the glowing white eyes of the comics, which Fenegan explained was due to having viewers connect with the characters (via Animation Magazine).

“In the original creation from Gerry Finlay-Day and Dave Gibbons, Rogue always had these glowing white eyes, and it wasn’t until I think War Machine that Dave changed it so that they had more human eyes, that was one of the changes Duncan embraced for the movie. As cool as it is to have those white glowing eyes, it’s hard to have a character for a two hour movie and engage with them”. Jones reveals that this is’t the only change they made regarding connecting with the characters, saying “We made them look more human with the shape and the face proportions, and things like that. And then we took our human characters, we kind of pushed them to be a little bit more extreme.”

What Is Rogue Trooper, And Could This Be A New Franchise?

In the comics, Rogue Trooper follows a genetically engineered soldier named Rogue who is able to survive the poisonous atmosphere of Nu-Earth. In addition to his blue skin and white eyes, he also carries equipment that actually has the personalities and memories of three of his fallen friends who were killed in action, so as he makes his way across Nu-Earth, his gun, helmet, and backpack are talking to him and even arguing amongst themselves.

The series and character went through a number of iterations over the years before Gibbons returned to the character with a grittier take and some unexpected shakeups. Gibbons and artist Wil Simpson introduced a new Rogue GI named Friday, who was more inspired by the Vietnam War as compared to the original Rogue, who was inspired by World War II. Friday and Rogue did meet several times along the way before the original Rogue died, which would put Friday in the lead character role for the rest of the series.

Rouge has returned in other stories, including the acclaimed Blighty Valley series from Garth Ennis and Patrick Goddard, but now he’s back in the spotlight for a feature film, and the question becomes whether or not this could be a new franchise for the world and the character.

In an interview with Variety, Jones was asked about franchise potential, but that’s not where his focus is at the moment. “We’ve put so much effort into this and spent so much time on it, we really just want to make sure that we get this film in front of an audience. As an indie film, that’s the scary thing because you don’t have a studio that’s there to make sure that the film gets out there. We’re at the point now where we just need to find a way to make sure that this film gets as many eyeballs as possible,” Jones said.

Rogue Trooper makes its Annecy International Animation Film Festival debut on June 22nd.

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