Is ‘Yellowjackets’ Based on a True Story?

Yellowjackets hive, let’s get a-buzzing! (I know, I know, I’m sorry, but if I can cram two puns into a sentence, I will!) We are currently in between seasons for the hit Showtime series, but that doesn’t mean we can’t dig deep (and perhaps find some revelatory clues that might point the way towards season 2)! Or at the very least, give us something to tide us over in the meantime.

For those unfamiliar with Showtime’s psychological thriller series, Yellowjackets tells the story of a New Jersey high school soccer team (in 1996) whose plane crashed deep in the Canadian wilderness on their way to a national tournament. The surviving team members were stranded there and left to try to survive for nineteen months. The series takes place both in 1996 (while they were stranded) and in the present day (as the remaining survivors try to unravel a current mystery).

Is it based on a true story?

Yellowjackets is fictional, however, it does have several real-life influences. While it does draw heavily from the William Golding classic Lord of the Flies (in which a group of schoolboys are stranded on a desert island after a plane crash and have to form their own society), executive producers Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson have said they were explicitly influenced by the 1993 film Alive and 2009’s The Donner Party.

Most people are familiar with the infamous Donner Party story (in which settlers in 1846 became trapped in the Sierra Nevada mountain range and resorted to cannibalism in order to survive.) Of the 87 settlers that were trapped in the snow-bound mountains, 48 survived the ordeal. The 2009 film, directed by Terrence Martin, stars Crispin Glover, Clayne Crawford, and Christian Kane.

Alive also tells the actual true story of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which crashed into the Andes mountains in 1972. The flight was carrying 45 passengers and crew, including 19 members of the Old Christians Club rugby team. The crash made headlines around the world because the surviving passengers were stranded for 72 days. Some of them died from starvation and the freezing temperatures, and the ones that survived were also forced to resort to cannibalism to stay alive. Two of the survivors hiked for 10 days trying to seek help, and a total of 16 survivors were rescued.

The film was directed by Frank Marshall, written by John Patrick Shanley, and narrated by John Malkovich. It featured an ensemble cast that included Ethan Hawke, and one of the actual survivors, Nando Parrado (played by Hawke in the film) served as the technical advisor for the film.

(featured image: Showtime)

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