Andrew Niccol's new film Good Kill slams us into the world of drone warfare

This article was taken from the May 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.

Writer and director Andrew Niccol gets his kicks exploring the ethics of new technology -- whether it’s reality TV (The Truman Show), genetic engineering (Gattaca) or CGI creations (S1m0ne). His latest, Good Kill -- out on April 10 -- slams us into the world of military drone pilots. The film begins in a ground-control station trailer in the Vegas desert, as ex-fighter-pilot Tom Egan (Ethan Hawke) and his crew target unsuspecting terrorists -- and "proportionate" bystanders -- thousands of kilometres away in Afghanistan and Yemen. "They can launch and land drones on aircraft carriers now," explains Niccol, 50. “It used to be the best of the Top Gun pilots doing that, but because you can now do it with a drone, to me there’s a sadness to that.”

Niccol sent his screenplay to the US Department of Defense during production, but didn’t get any assistance. "When you tell an uncomfortable truth, that’s the way it works," he says. Instead, he went online. "I should have credited WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning, because those leaks are the reason I could see drone strikes and make them as authentic as possible." He also consulted four former drone pilots, who helped recreate the drone’s remote control system, which is typically based on Xbox controllers. "The younger guys would have a shift in Vegas, then go home and play video games," says Niccol. "I didn’t put it in because no one would believe it."

The drone’s role as an all-seeing eye echoes 1998’s The Truman Show. "When I wrote it there wasn’t any reality TV. Now there’s a condition called Truman Show delusion, where people believe they’re the star of their own reality show." That’s quite a legacy to have.

This article was originally published by WIRED UK