Interview: Zoom's Tim Allen

By Fred Topel: 2006-08-09 00:00:00

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You wouldn't think of Tim Allen as a sci-fi fanboy. His stand-up persona and long running sitcom suggest a macho, tool-loving brute, with enough of a kind streak to do Christmas movies. Turns out, his heart may be closer to Galaxy Quest, the loving send-up of Star Trek. Zoom is Allen's version of a superhero movie. Here's what he said at our recent junket sit down to promote his man-in-tights intepretation.

"This was all about that," said Allen. "It was a real tough sell because Galaxy Quest was real delicate, the parody reality of it. And I'm staying it out of respect for Sony, because it was tough to tell them that this was what it was all about. I'm being even conservative, 85% of the Galaxy Quest-ish look at Superheroes is still in this. They still wanted to skew it so kids would understand but they left a lot of the adult references in it."

Allen plays Zoom, a retired superhero who must train a group of kids to become the new generation of Earth's protectors. He thinks the whole government training program is stupid, so he gives it his trademark sarcasm.

"I'm surprised they left it in because I told Rip Torn, 'For a straight guy, you're awfully dramatic.' So I got to be the smartass, which I really wanted to be, that didn't take any of this seriously. But in this case, the guy did have a superpower.�

The impending threat is actually Zoom's brother, turned evil by gamma radiation, returning from the alternate dimension where he was exiled years ago. Simple enough, but the backstory of that is not.

"Have you ever seen a bus fall off a bridge? Anybody? Anybody ever seen trains derail? The reality is that superheroes would sit in superhero firehouses and wait for shit to happen that just doesn't. And eventually one gets bored and goes AWOL, and then you got to go get him back. That's what superheroes do. And I had this long speech in the movie, explaining that essentially you just go get rogue guys. That's what superheroes do. The reality is that superheroes couldn't do what civilians get our selves into and that's where I wanted this parody to go. There's just not much for us to do. And that's why this guy was angry and had that speed shop. He just went AWOL himself and just didn't really want to be part of that.�

If you think about the specific powers of the famous superheroes, most of them are too limited to be philanthropic. "You don't actually do anything. You're never around burning buildings. Is there an alarm? Superman can get there quick. He's the only guy that can do that. But how busy would he really be? He would be so busy. You know blowing out fires, stopping domestic disputes, come on. Please, don't make me break your back with my little finger. If that was a real world what would superheroes be? They wouldn't be the X-Men. I mean literally I want to get into, 'what are you wearing, what is that shit you wear? Who designs that?' The X-Men, it was because they all had that weird leather thing going on, but remember there was a kid in X-Men that looked at Magneto's hair and said, 'Creepy head.'"

In Allen's world, superheroes don't have perfectly cool transportation either. "The flying saucer, it's 100% of what I wrote in there. I want it exactly like that 50's spaceship but that they got the gag, and we never really figured out how fast we could make it go so it only goes this fast."

By the time Allen finally made his movie, the superhero genre had already been explored in detail. Allen definitely gives props to The Incredibles. "The best example, unfortunately written about the same time this concept was, was The Incredibles. Remember that whole series about how they had to make that wonderful woman in there. Actually it was a man's voice, but they did try to make why they have the S's and all that stuff. It's kind of stupid really."

The Zoom script required a lot of work to protect the filmmakers from legal troubles. "It was real struggle for us because all the way through it we had to keep changing because X-Men actually, they were leaning on us. They didn't get the parody aspect. So they were saying, "You can't have this, you can't because they own every single superhero attribute. You can't have a guy wearing glasses in a movie with one eye or something. It was weird, so we'd have to change the script all the time. So it was real struggle to keep it a satire and a parody and have a through line that kids and adults would enjoy."

Ultimately, Allen came up with Zoom's power, super speed, as a public domain version of The Flash. "I always liked the Flash because no one ever discussed how fast could the Flash run. We thought if this guy Zoom, when says I'll be back in a second, he literally would be standing there and goes, 'Got it.' And the studio went, 'Well, how do you show that?' And I go, 'That's not my problem.' I think it would be funny if the guy was [gone and back with] no noise because I can run that fast."

If this in-depth analysis of superheroes gives you a new perspective on Tim Allen, don't worry. He still loves tools. "Right now I'm so adept at them I love buying people tool kits. I've been through 40 of my own tool kits. I love it. Every time I go to people's houses, instead of a flower arrangement or a bottle of wine, I bring a tool kit, which looks a little annoying. 'As long as you're here, can you do that light switch?' Which I just did last week. I changed the dimmer out at somebody's house. Annoyed that this didn't work so I fixed their dimmer."
Zoom opens August 11.

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