Amazon's New Sci-Fi Series 'Tales From the Loop' Is Based on Futuristic Paintings

Snow floating upwards instead of down? Robots befriending children? Amazon Video's new series Tales From the Loop follows the people living in a small town above a machine called The Loop, which was built in the 1950s by the government. The advanced technology is supposed to unlock the mysteries of the universe, but it also has a few abnormal side effects. 

The futuristic sci-fi series was adapted from a book of digital paintings by Swedish artist Simon Stålenhag. 

"I learned from my profession how to do robots and monsters and dinosaurs and all of that stuff," the creator told Slate. "Once my hand knew how to do that, I had to do that, so I was like, 'I have to put a robot in this scene of a rural setting in Sweden,' and it kind of worked." 

Series creator Nathaniel Halpern spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about how he brought Stålenhag's pictures to life on the small screen. "He has this wonderful marriage between the ordinary and the extraordinary and it's very hard and rare to find a unique aesthetic within science fiction these days. Usually it reminds you of something else. Here it really just stands on its own," Halpern said. 

Adding: "So I was really taken by the quality of the paintings, but also I felt they were quite emotional. There's a poignancy to the image that I responded to. So then the notion of adapting paintings into a TV series on top of that felt wonderfully unique, and it just felt like a wonderful opportunity."  

Nathaniel also revealed to the outlet that one painting will correspond with each of the eight episodes, but viewers may notice some differences. "There's a lot of imagery that is strewn throughout the season, but there are these core images that we really try to be faithful to," he said. 

The show creator continued: "The episode with the sphere, there was a painting of what seemed to me a grandfather and grandson walking out to that sphere. That was the painting and the story was born. If you've seen that image, that painting takes place in winter. We just happened to be shooting during summer at that point, so I couldn't be faithful to the season. But we built that structure and tried to be as faithful as possible in that regard."

Though the streaming service has not yet announced if there will be a second season, the show's creator did reveal that there are possibilities to expand on the storyline.

"The Loop itself is this wonderful storytelling generating device and really the town is more the star of the show than anything. So the possibilities are somewhat endless to continue to tell stories about the people who live here," the showrunner revealed to THR.

You can now stream Tales From the Loop on Amazon Prime Video.