Showtime's drama/thriller Yellowjackets, which follows a soccer team after a plane crash, is actually inspired by real events and based on a classic novel. Yellowjackets brings some major talent to the screen with the likes of Tawny Cypress, Juliette Lewis, Melanie Lynskey, and Christina Ricci in the principal cast. The addition of two intermixing timelines shepherds viewers through multiple intriguing subplots in the past and the present. It's one of the first shows of its kind, as most audiences only get to experience the tragedy and not what comes after. Tactfully, the female-driven series covers themes of friendship and competition, as well as feminine rage, desire, exploitation, and loss.
Yellowjackets characters include a wide mix of girls on a high school soccer team that is bound for the national championships. Their plane crashes in the Canadian wilderness, leaving a trail of the deceased in its wake. Tableaus of mask-wearing rituals and tribal groups make sudden appearances throughout the episodes, foreshadowing what's to come for the team. In the present, the remaining survivors are trying to keep their pasts under wraps. Natalie (Juliette Lewis) leaves rehab to seek out team assistant Misty (Christina Ricci). Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) lives a humdrum life with her daughter Callie and unfaithful husband Jeff. Finally, Taissa (Tawny Cypress) tries to grow her political platform while facing some trouble at home. All the while, a reporter, who may not be who she says she is, sniffs around their past.
The series has a lot of wild moments, like the immediate flashforwards to cannabilism in the very first episode, Natalie's gun-toting confrontation, or Misty chopping off the assistant coach's leg, to name a few. Some of the best content comes in the form of the girls' character arcs. With the added benefit of two timelines, Yellowjackets explores what would happen to these girls if they were stranded, starving, and alone in a harrowingly realistic way. Given that Yellowjackets boasts such three-dimensional characters audiences have to wonder: Is this real? The answer is somewhere between both a 'yes' and a 'no'. There are two main inspirations that creators give credit to.
Yellowjackets Is Inspired By A Real Tragedy
Parts of Yellowjackets are based on the real-life tragedy of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571. In 1972 the Old Christians Club rugby team booked a flight from Uruguay to Chile in order to attend a match against the Old Boys Club. Due to poor weather and an inexperienced pilot, their plane crashed into the Andes mountains. Three crew members and eight passengers died on impact, while 34 people initially survived. Since the team and their family members crashed in such a remote location, they were stuck in the frozen wilderness for about 72 days. Over that time, several more people died of injuries and exposure, and some resorted to cannibalism. After only eight days search efforts were canceled, and the survivors remained stuck until Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa hiked for 10 days to reach the Chilean border.
While the main chunk of the story is inspired by a novel, Yellowjackets follows a lot of what goes on in the Andes plane crash. Like the rugby team, the Yellowjackets girls' soccer team also crashes in the northern wilderness, though the show doesn't reveal the reason behind the crash. One difference is the amount of time that the girls are stuck. The show's team is stranded in Canada for almost two years, rather than two months. An unpleasant similarity is that of cannibalism. It isn't unheard of for people to resort to the horrific act when deserted for an extended period, nonetheless, it's a repulsive theme that ties the show and the tragedy together.
When it comes to predicting the trajectory of Yellowjackets it might be useful to look deeper into Flight 571. No one knows how the girls are discovered yet, so perhaps two brave girls break off from the group and seek out help. There are bound to be a few team members that die of injury and exposure before having to face the masked teen tribal council. So far audiences are only aware of five adult survivors (Misty, Natalie, Shauna, Taissa, and Travis). However, no one really knows how it all pans out until the show reaches a conclusion.
Yellowjackets Is An Adaptation Of Lord Of The Flies
Yellowjackets is an all-female adaptation of Lord of The Flies. Originally the adaptation was planned by Warner Brothers Pictures to be a feature film. However, show creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson decided to pitch the idea as a five-season storyline. HBO almost bought the rights, but Showtime won them in the end. Many people were skeptical about whether or not teenage girls could capture the barbarism depicted in William Golding's classic novel. However, any viewer can see that hasn't been a problem at all.
Lord of the Flies, which has two previous movie adaptations, is set in the midst of a war-time evacuation. A British plane crashes on a remote island in the Pacific, and the only survivors are a group of pre-adolescent boys. At first, the boys fair well enough. A kid cruelly nicknamed Piggy finds a conch shell and the main character Ralph uses the conch as a communication tool amongst the group. Most of the boys elect Ralph "chief", but there are a few who become trouble later on. Things start to fall apart between the boys when idleness grabs hold. There's an invasive paranoia about an omnipotent "beast", which they all begin to believe in, and it comes to a head when hunting leader Jack neglects to send a signal to a passing ship.
Later in Lord of the Flies, a fighter pilot dies on the island in an airstrike, several of the kids see his corpse in the trees and mistake him for the beast. Jack defects from the original tribe and forms his own which does strange rituals and makes sacrifices to the beast. Jack's tribe mistakes a quiet boy named Simon for the beast and they kill him, with Jack and Piggy participating. Somehow, the object of power is no longer the conch but morphs into Piggy's broken glasses. Piggy attempts to speak with the tribe, but Roger drops a boulder on him and kills him. Jack and his tribe set fire to the forest while trying to hunt down Ralph and the fire flags down a passing cruiser. The boys are rescued by a British naval officer, but their experiences have left them broken and at a loss.
Everything The Show Changes From Lord Of The Flies
One of the reasons behind Yellowjackets' good reviews is because of Golding's novel's plotline. However, contrary to popular belief none of the boys in Lord of the Flies resort to cannibalism. Barbarism, yes, brutality, sure, but no cannibalism. Also, the novel doesn't follow what happens to the survivors. Another obvious difference is the fact that Yellowjackets is a women-led narrative, whereas the book only features young men. As well the series seems to be much more ensemble-focused in its storytelling rather than individualistic. There aren't characters audiences can point to and say "that's supposed to be Jack" or "that's Piggy's character", which frankly makes the series better. Too, there are a few tidbits of expositional information that aren't the same, such as the time period, the conch, and the fact that the kids in Lord of the Flies had no previous affiliation.
Perhaps the necklace in episode one will become the conch. Maybe the mistaken "beast" will be the coach, who falls out of the plane and gets impaled by a tree with a mysterious symbol carved on it. At some point, the girls will probably break off into rivaling tribes. Considering they didn't have an easy time getting along pre-crash, the environment is sure to bring unsurfaced tensions to a boiling point. Truly no one knows, but viewers who are familiar with Lord of the Flies may be able to make some conjectures about the future of Yellowjackets.