Ethnicity, not an issue for Tomorrow: Beattie

Writer/director Stuart Beattie says he does not anticipate controversy over the ethnic identity of the invaders in his adaptation of the successful novel Tomorrow When the War Began, and he’s ready and willing to create a trilogy.

“I don’t anticipate it, but if people want to talk about it, they can. That’s what it’s for,” Beattie told Encore.

In the book series – which started with the first volume in 1993 – the invading enemy, their country or ethnicity, is never identified. Author John Marsden has deliberately avoided that question, leading to years of speculation, but in a recent participation on the ABC’s Q&A, he announced that the film adaptation would give the invaders “a definite ethnic identity”. Marsden could not escape a heated debate about Australia’s historical fear of invasion and the fictional work’s potential to “create xenophobia” and the politics associated to the topic.