The hit BBC series Luther, which stars the iconic British actor Idris Elba in the titular role, returned for a follow-up in movie form last weekend. Despite receiving widely positive reviews, some viewers have been left pondering their memory of the season five finale. While Alice’s path was understandable, the movie appeared to change the nature of Luther’s fate.
In the season five finale, Luther’s boss, Martin Schenk, is seen reluctantly arresting his corrupt friend after a crime beyond the pale. However, in the new movie, Andy Serkis’ businessman David Robey has Luther sent down after releasing evidence of Luther’s illegal antics before his subsequent breakout.
Naturally, some fans have been scratching their heads over this change, but thankfully, Luther’s creator and writer Neil Cross discussed the reasons behind these changes in a new interview with Radio Times. He asserts that the plotline had to be altered to make the movie passable as a stand-alone feature.
“He goes to prison for a whole bunch of stuff that he’s done. But Robey is still the mechanism behind which a lot of this stuff gets released,” he said.
“There’s a great gag that we gave to Patrick Malahide about ‘having a photograph in the Cloud, whatever that is’. So we can assume that Robey has drawn down that photograph of a dead body, right? So the continuity and the lore, as it were, is still entirely logically and dramatically consistent.
“But the needle that we had to thread, and it’s a unique needle, is that we had two audiences to address. Audience number one is the fans who are familiar with Luther and what he’s done and why. But there’s a second audience, which is people coming into the world entirely ignorant.
“And we had to construct the story such that it was equally satisfying for both audiences.”
Luther: The Fallen Sun is available to stream on Netflix now. Watch the trailer below.
