The latest collaboration between Taika Waititi (Thor: Love and Thunder), Jemaine Clement (What We Do in the Shadows), and Iain Morris (The Inbetweeners) is Time Bandits — a new Apple TV+ show based on the 1981 film made by Monty Python’s Terry Gilliam. Considering the absurdist nature of Gilliam’s humor, Morris, Waititi, and Clement are a perfect fit to bring Time Bandits to a new generation.
We at FandomWire got the opportunity to speak with Time Bandits co-creator Morris about reimagining Terry Gillam’s cult classic family adventure, working with Waititi and Clement, and why fans and newcomers alike should be excited to see this new version of Time Bandits. Check out the interview below!
Time Bandits Iain Morris Interview
FandomWire: I can think of few people as influential in comedy as Terry Gilliam. When making Time Bandits, did you find it intimidating having to adapt the work of someone so beloved?
Iain Morris: I thought when you started that question, you were gonna say me, and I was like, “No, no, no, no, no, you’re overstating the case.” Yeah, of course. But I think we all — me, Taika, and Jemaine — grew up on Monty Python. And that kind of Python-esque style was something we really wanted to try and bring to the show.
So it was daunting, but also it was exciting because, well, we’ve spent all our lives trying to write this kind of stuff. And obviously, this is an excuse to do it and be even more explicit with that Python-esque style and tone because it was trying to do a cover version of a Gilliam original, I suppose.
FW: How did you strike a balance between paying homage and respect to Gilliam’s film and distinct style while making this version of Time Bandits feel unique?
Morris: I think we just spent a lot of time talking about it, to be honest. And we spent a lot of time going through scripts — certainly the pilot script — and going over them and rewriting them and discussing them together and seeing what we thought was pushing too far and what we thought wasn’t pushing enough, and trying to expand the universe out but bringing it back.
So you’ll know from watching it, there are lots of things that are pretty similar to what’s in the film. But actually, the whole universe has expanded out and the characters are different, those sorts of things. It was trying to find a balance. And also, we really like the film, so we didn’t want just to copy it. We didn’t want just a direct version of it because it exists, and it’s good.
FW: The fact that you have ten episodes instead of 110 minutes allowed you to go to some new time periods that the original Time Bandits couldn’t. What was your favorite one that you got to take the Bandits to?
Morris: I liked Georgian England because I’m English, and also, my friend Fran Bowman wrote a book about the history of pineapple many years ago, and it blew my mind. And she’s friends with Jemaine as well, so we kind of lifted a lot of her work on the history of the pineapple for the Earl of Sandwich episode.
I also liked the Maya one as well because I’ve been to lots of those temples and stuff in the Yucatan and places, and I found that particularly interesting the way that the art department and the costume departments really thoroughly researched those things to the point where I was like, “I didn’t know this existed!” They were like, “We found some research two years ago that suggests these are the colors they used, and these were the things they painted.” That was kind of amazing. It was like being there. They built these wonderful sets, and it was like actually stepping back in time.
FW: The ending of this season of Time Bandits does leave the door open for more adventures. Are there any other time periods that you’d want to take the Bandits to in the future?
Morris: I am obsessed with Egyptian history. Okay, that’s talking about two to three thousand years, really, but I like the early Pharaonic kingdoms, like Nubia and the Kushite kingdoms further down the Nile. I love all that stuff. Also, at University, I studied a lot of Indian religion, and there’s the Indus Valley civilization in Mohenjo Daro, which people don’t know that much about. That’s another place where, if I was time traveling, I’d go to Mohenjo Daro and the Indus Valley civilization. So if there’s a possibility that we could try and do something with that, I’d like to do that.
FW: I think part of what’s so great about Time Bandits is that it’s not just nostalgia bait or even a kids’ show. Why should people of all ages be excited to see this new version of Time Bandits?
Morris: I think that is funny. And I think it’s educational — that’s not a great sales point for a TV show to educate, [sarcastically] “everyone should watch it because they’ll be educated; it’s like a history program.” But I think it’s funny and it’s adventurous, and I think me, Jemaine, and Taika, we all love that kind of ‘80s shows that were serialized and what’s going to happen next and where they’re gonna go, and they’re in danger, but they’re not in danger. Those are things I think everyone can get into.
And I think, watching back a lot of ‘80s films particularly, they had a kind of excitement, a sense of adventure. And I think that what I’m proudest of with the show really is it doesn’t feel like anything else on television at the moment. It’s quite hard to categorize. And I think that’s the reason to watch it: there’s nothing like this really on at the moment.
And tonally, with the adventure and the comedy, it’s worth watching for that. Also, I mean, honestly, I would watch Jemaine and Taika’s performances forever. And I’ll say, they’re their own harshest critics because I’d do a cut of it, and I’d put in loads and loads and loads of them, and they’d be like, “No, that’s no good,” and I’d be like “No! That’s my favorite line! You can’t cut your bits!” So I’d also watch it for the two of them.
FW: So when I was talking with Kal-El Tuck about his role and working with Taika and Jemaine, he said there was a lot of back-and-forth improvisation with them. How much of that did you see as the writer and director?
Morris: Yeah, there’s a lot of it. They did a lot of that on set, and everybody kind of was relatively loose with the scripts. Typically, we’d do a version, and then we’d kind of look and change it a bit. And people would play with it, and they throw things around and it was great fun. Everyone, all the cast, actually, would play around a lot.
But obviously, Jemaine making up his things that would happen in his version of Hell was one of my favorite days ever. And again, that was the hardest because every single one was hilarious. And there was one, I can’t remember exactly what it was, but he cut it, and it was like, “Instead of mountains, EVIL mountains,” and I was like, “You can’t cut that!” and he cut it.
FW: How did you balance the humor of the comedy with the excitement and intensity of the adventure?
Morris: I think that we all like that kind of stuff. I think we all want to be an adventurer; we all want to see where we’re gonna go next. Me, Jemaine, and Taika — we’re all quite childish in our own ways. And we wanted to think about being excited by something, and being led through something, and wanting to watch the next episode, where we go, and what are these people going to do next. And I think that was us partly entertaining ourselves as much as anything and going, “Well, how can we make something that we would like to watch and we’d want to keep engaged with?”
FW: Obviously, the best family movies and shows are those that have a strong emotional through-line. Why do you think this is important in a show like Time Bandits?
Morris: I think you’ve got to care about the characters. And then for you to care about the characters, I think you’ve got to feel what they want, what they feel, or you’ve got to think, “I’m worried about them,” or “I can see what they want to achieve. I can see what they want to get out of life. I want them to get that.” So, that emotional through-line becomes a kind of narrative drive as well. You’re going with people along those journeys. I think that’s important.
The first time I ever really clocked it, I think, was when I was watching the original British version of The Office. It was fantastically funny, and Gervais’s lead character of Brent was amazing. But it was Tim and Dawn in the original that really kept me coming back and led me through it. And that was a very emotional, sensitive story at the heart of this phenomenal monster that Gervais had created.
I think that plays for lots of things, actually. You can have really good comedy, but if you haven’t got a sort of heart that people can attach themselves to, a drive they understand, it’s harder to enjoy the comedy because it’s just a lot of jokes. It’s more rewarding to read a comic novel than it is to read a joke book. You might read five pages of a joke book and laugh, but are you gonna read 50 pages? Whereas with a brilliantly comic novel, you’ll read the whole way through.
Time Bandits is now streaming on Apple TV+.
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