'The Tribe' has distinguished itself as a television series with truly cult status around the world. Almost 300 episodes were produced over 5 seasons. And the series heralded other Tribal activity, from soundtracks to albums to novel tie-ins. Including the bestselling works by A.J. Penn being 'The Tribe: A New World', 'The Tribe: A New Dawn' and 'The Tribe: (R)Evolution'. Which are rather like seasons 6, 7 & 8 in the continuing saga.
There has been much speculation about a sequel or a motion picture version which was explored in the enormously successful 'Keeping the Dream Alive' which was not only a Tribe memoir, but also a fascinating account of what occurred behind the scenes. It is also a compelling memoir of the creator of 'The Tribe' - as well as the founder of the Cloud 9 Screen Entertainment Group - who produced the iconic series. 'The Tribe' screenplay has an introduction, bringing the behind the scenes story right up to date to 2022 since the time 'Keeping the Dream Alive' was published.
And the screenplay is a must read for 'The Tribe' fans to read. Along with anyone interested in the motion picture and television industries and what it takes to bring productions from conception to the silver screen.
Those of us who are a certain age remember The Tribe. Maybe you mostly remember the face paint and strange outfits? You don't remember the social commentary (or the occasional camp moments that made it such a joy to watch.) That's fine! This book is aimed at you. It's the screenplay of a movie Raymond wrote in the hopes of rebooting the franchise, to introduce it to a whole new audience. The movie is stuck in Development Hell, but we hope it will be made some time.
You don't need to know anything about the original series, but this next part is for the people who do know a bit about it, so feel free to skip down.
This is, very loosely, the first series of the show. Many of, but not all of, our main character feature. There's no Patsy, Paul, KC or Cloe, but we have Mouse and Sammy. There's no Ryan or Zandra. There's no Tai San, but we have a very similar character, Eden. Amber, Bray, Lex, Salene, Trudy are all here; Trudy is an old school friend of Amber's, not Bray's, and Bray is a lone scout hired by Amber to bring Trudy to the Mall (where the Tribe is now called Rats in conversation, though they do seem to still be called Mall Rats.) Both Amber and Bray are described as having blistering martial arts skills, which is a bit of a change from the series! (Yes they could hold their own, but they weren't exactly Power Rangers.) (Bonus points if you get that.) Lex, while still mostly Lex, is quite a bit softer than 'our' Lex ever was. Zoot and the Locos feature, but there's no Ebony - her spot is taken by the Guardian, who seems rather more sane than we're used to. We also come up against the Priviliged and the Discards, two Tribes planned to feature in the sixth season (and who did feature in the New Tomorrow, the Tribe's sequel series of dubious canonicity.)
Several scenes are lifted straight from the series: Bray's "I'm bigger than you, I'm stronger than you" speech is here, Amber's attempt to teach maths to the children, the dance contest at the Tribal Gathering, the Gathering itself (the Mallrats seem to be in a stronger position here than they were at this point in the series, with Amber part of the leader's council). Trudy's baby has the same parentage, but ends up with a different name, which leads into a scene that I honestly laughed at (but note this is a script; if it were filmed, with music and costumes and scenery, it would probably come across much better.)
STOP SKIPPING HERE if you were skipping. This is formatted as a script, so we don't really get into anyone's head - occasionally a stage direction will make it clear how someone is feeling, but it's still not the depth we'd like. However, as an introduction to the world of The Tribe, this is really great - the opening, frantic montage with Bray's voiceover, the satisfactory ending with room for more stories to happen afterwards, the character intros and behaviours - I enjoyed reading it. I was imagining it with the TV characters, but if you've never seen it that won't be a factor for you!
I would love to see this filmed; the Tribe is a wonderful concept and I think it deserves more attention than it has. But even as a read, this is a wonderful introduction to the world and will hopefully lead to more interest in this sadly overlooked series.
The Tribe Collector's Edition Screenplay is available now.
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