Mortal enemies: Auckland v Wellington

Sir Peter Jackson says if Wellington was a Mortal Engines-style city, it would be wind-powered.

Jackson, his co-producer and writer Philippa Boyens, and director Christian Rivers are talking shop ahead of the release of their sci-fi fantasy movie Mortal Engines on December 6.

Set 1000 years in the future, the film follows the fortunes of Tom Natsworthy (Robert Sheehan) and Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmarsdottir) who uncover a terrible secret festering at the heart of London – the greatest of the giant, marauding ‘‘traction cities’’ that roll across Earth, hunting and stripping smaller towns in what they call ‘‘Municipal Darwinism’’.

Rivers, from Whanganui, said he’d been asked once what Wellington would be like if it was a traction city. ‘‘I said, ‘Well, we constantly have earthquakes and gale-force winds so it probably wouldn’t too different.’ ’’

Jackson said the capital would ‘‘be a wind-powered city, with sails’’. ‘‘Except when we got too far the wind would die out, and we’d be stuffed.’’

While both Jackson and Rivers were reluctant to be drawn on who’d win in a traction city fight between Wellington and Auckland, Rivers eventually picked a side. ‘‘That’s an easy one isn’t it? It’d be Whanganui.’’

‘‘Whanganui is a dark horse no-one pays any attention to that will surprise us all,’’ Jackson said.

Boyens didn’t think pitting Wellington against Auckland was a ‘‘fair fight’’.

‘‘I think Wellington would be more mobile ... or maybe not, we’ve got a lot of bureaucracy here! Yeah, that’s not a fair fight.

‘‘If we could draw upon some of those Taranaki boys, and the Horowhenua. It could be a Bottom of the North v Top of the [North], it’d be a fair fight then.’’

There aren’t any Pacific cities in Mortal Engines this time round but Jackson didn’t rule out the possibility of seeing one if they get to make a sequel.

‘‘Sydney shows up [in the books], which has got large corks bobbing around the top of it. So he [author Philip Reeves] does have a bit of fun with that. But he doesn’t seemed to have stretched as far as New Zealand.

‘‘That’s not to say that, with a bit of permission from Phillip, we couldn’t sneak something in.’’

Sir Peter Jackson

You can see London gobble up European villages when Mortal Engines opens on December 6.

Sir Peter Jackson, Philippa Boyens and Christian Rivers debate the strongest Kiwi traction cities.

One of the ‘‘traction cities’’ from Sir Peter Jackson’s new sci-fi fantasy movie Mortal Engines, which will be released on December 6.