Citizen Siege

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Citizen Siege is an intellectual property created by Lorne Lanning. It is completely separate from the Oddworld universe, instead being set on a dystopian, near‐future Earth. At one point Oddworld Inhabitants were working to create a CGI feature film and two video games to showcase this new IP, all of which developed using a shared digital back lot.

Setting

The Citizen Siege universe is a near‐future version of Earth where people have given up their civil liberties at the promise of being protected from various threats and democracy has been replaced by global corporatism and martial law.[1], [2] In an early interview, published before the Citizen Siege film was officially announced, Lorne described the fictional world as ‘a place where a state becomes privatized and America becomes Americo.’[1]

Citizen Siege is set to be much more direct in its commentary on contemporary politics than the Oddworld series, with a dark and gritty feel, and graphics that are mostly realistic, but with stylized human characters.[3]

Feature film

Citizen Siege was first announced as a CGI animation feature film for cinematic release to be developed by the partnership of Lorne Lanning and Sherry McKenna with Vanguard Animation. The original press release listed Lorne as the film’s director, John William as producer, and Sherry, Terry Botwick, and Margaret French Isaac as executive producers.[2]

The film is described as a ‘poltically edgy sci‐fi action thriller’, whose hero is ‘an ex‐patriot [who] finds himself ensnared in a nightmarish credit racket that leaves him “repossessed”.’[2] It is said to already be in active development,[4] with a PG‐13 rating probable if an R isn’t achieved.[5] While earlier hoped to be out in 2009,[6] a 2010 is now a more likely release date.[7]

Video games

There are two Citizen Siege video games planned.[7] The first of these is Wage Wars,[8] intended to be released before the Citizen Siege film to support a ‘synergy’ between the two that has yet to be revealed.[7] Wage Wars will be an online game,[8] and may be digitally distributed.[6] The second game has yet to be announced.

Production history

The concept of Citizen Siege pre‐dates that of Oddworld, and was one of the stories Lorne told Sherry to convince her to co‐found Oddworld Inhabitants. Like all of Lorne’s intellectual properties, ideas for cinematic and video game versions were developed in tandem.[9]

By December 2004, Lorne was bringing Citizen Siege more to the forefront of his mind as he felt his politically edgy IP was appropriate to the current political climate of fear mongering and relinquishment of civil liberties. His plans were, against his wishes, published in an interview by ComputerAndVideoGames. Seeing that major studios were concentrating on making animated films family friendly, Lorne and Sherry initially tried to pitch Citizen Siege as an effects‐heavy, live‐action film that Lorne wouldn’t have directed,Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] </references>

  1. a b Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named EnterOddworld
  2. a b c d OddBlog (29/10/2006). ‘Oddworld Creators and Vanguard Animation Partner on Citizen Siege’, press release.
  3. a b Bunce-Edwards, William (11/11/2006). Post 139 in ‘Citizen Siege Film Announced’. Oddworld Forums.
  4. a b Game Revolution (30/10/2006). ‘Lorne Lanning Talks Citizen Siege’.
  5. a b Lanning, Lorne (22/06/2007). ‘GDC Lorne Lanning interview’ by Bengt Lemne. Gamereactor Television.
  6. a b c Lee, Matt (03/07/2007). Email to MoxCo. Executive. ‘Citizen Siege correspondence’. Oddworld Forums.
  7. a b c d Lanning, Lorne (30/07/2007). ‘Where’s Lorne Lanning Been?’, podcast telephone interview with Crispin Boyer. EGM Live*. Partial transcript by William Bunce-Edwards (07/08/2007). Post ?9 in ‘EGM EXTRAS ON 1UP!’. Oddworld Forums.
  8. a b c Lanning, Lorne (05/09/2007). ‘Lorne Lanning’, special feature. CGSociety.
  9. a b Bunce-Edwards, William (08/11/2006). ‘Meeting Lorne & Sherry’. OddBlog.
  10. Fritz, Ben (29/10/2006). ‘Oddworld team lays “Siege” to CG project’. Variety.
  11. Bunce-Edwards, William (29/10/2006). ‘Citizen Siege film announced’. OddBlog.
  12. Hayward, David (31/10/2006). ‘Lorne Lanning: GameCity Keynote part 2’. Functional Autonomy.