Sam Neill and the Aussie Flag
After the recent tragic passing of beloved actor Sam Neill, I've noticed some talk about how he requested a change to the Australian flag for his character's uniform in the movie Event Horizon (1997).
Due to the wording of a particular article/post, it seems a lot of people (understandably) believe that Sam redesigned the flag specifically for the role.
But he didn't.
This flag was originally designed by Australian sculptor Alf Talc in 1988 - Australia's bicentennial year. Alf campaigned pretty hard to have the flag officially changed as he believed it would be a good symbol of the reconciliation between modern Australia and the original land owners of Australia, the Aboriginal Peoples. Here's a video of him talking about the design and its importance:
Reconciliation has been an important topic in Australia for many years but especially in the 80s and 90s. In 1999 Australia also held a referendum (read: voted) as to whether it should become independent of the Commonwealth, which would require removal of the Union Jack from the flag if it passed (spoiler alert: it didn't). Alf's flag design really caught traction during these periods and was pretty recognisable to many Australians, whatever their political stance.
So with the referendum a current topic at the time of the making of Event Horizon, it makes perfect sense that Sam Neill believed Australia would be independent in the future, and thus requested this specific design for his character.
How a design from 1980s was finally adopted as the national Australian flag... in 2047?
Sam Neill may not have designed the flag, but it was an important visible stance on Australian politics, and a nice little easter egg for us Aussies at the time
