As groundbreaking as the original Land of the Giants series was and as much as some of us have cherished certain characters or scenarios featured therein, some aspects of the series’s premises were (unnecessarily) incoherent, silly, or simply thoughtless. Why did all the giants speak English, and why did their streets and cars bear such a strong resemblance to those found in mid-century Burbank? The Spindrift supposedly set out on a routine suborbital flight from Los Angeles to London in 1983, but here in the third decade of the 21st century not even Jeff Bezos commutes that way.

I am not currently aware of any substantive plans to remake Land of the Giants as a new series; some studio has undoubtedly bought the rights to all the Irwin Allen productions, but they’re under no obligation to do anything with the rights anytime soon. Nevertheless, I think there is merit in trying to conceive of how the setting for the show could be improved over the original as well as updated for the 21st century.

One element of the series that I always enjoyed was the technological advantage the tiny heroes enjoyed over the giants.  It gave the giants a plausible reason beyond basic cruelty to marshal resources to hunt the Earthlings, and it gave the Earthlings a little leverage in their interactions with non-hostile giants.  What follows is the product of about a day of brainstorming a new take on this premise.

I have no immediate plans to write any stories set in this world.  My most compelling story ideas are typically self-contained, with characters whose encounter with size-fantasy are thorough and complete.  I have, however, felt challenged by recent efforts of other authors to create worlds where characters can come and go and size-fantasy can be encountered repeatedly with multiple variations and scenarios.  So I thought I’d post this here and let anyone use it as they saw fit.  You never know where inspiration will come from.

Continue reading “Land of the Giants – Revisited” →