The writer is just so much more intimately involved in the television process than the feature film process.
'Carnival Row' is us looking at the stranger; 'The Curiosity' is the stranger looking at us.
If you look, like, in 1960, there was no such thing as an astronaut. It was a totally fanciful concept, but nine years later or whatever, we were landing on the moon, which is just astonishing.
I was way into 'Voltron,' Ray Harryhausen: anything with giant monsters, I was really into. Even dinosaurs - for a while, I wanted to be a paleontologist. So it's almost like primal, ancestral mythology to me, this fascination with monsters.
If it involved giants on any level, as a kid I was really wrapped up in that.
I feel like, as an industry, we've gotten too dependent on source material originated in other mediums.
There's a lot of possibility in the 'Pacific Rim' universe for additional stories to be told, whether that's additional graphic novels or animated series or video games or movie sequels.
We wanted it to be that you could go to the comic shop and read about the back story of 'Pacific Rim' and the drama inherent in it.
One of my earliest memories is seeing a 'Godzilla' movie - not just my earliest movie memory, but any kind of memory.
You don't naturally tend to identify with someone who's very different from you on the outside.
I love that sense of discovery. You're experiencing something for the first time, and your parents aren't in on it, previous generations aren't in on it. It has a chance to belong to you and your generation in a way that nothing has. If 'Pacific Rim' is a fraction of that, I would be very proud.
With bad sci-fi - sci-fi that I don't really like - you watch it and get the impression that you're just seeing exactly what they created because they needed it in the movie. You feel like there's nothing more beyond that.
When you have a movie that has big stars in it... like, Will Smith does a great job in 'I Am Legend,' and it's a magnetic performance, but he's always Will Smith. That's not his fault. That's not anyone's fault. He's the center of it, and he's a movie star. But when you see something like 'Jurassic Park,' Sam Neill is Alan Grant.
Legendary is in the unique position in that they have the resources to take risks, which I think has really benefitted 'Pacific Rim.'
I think that's where the magic happens, when you get a bunch of people who are really, incredibly talented and good at what they do and very passionate about the project that they're working on and in love with it. I think that's when you get something that's really special.
I do tend to be on the more optimistic end of things.
We tend to see films as artifacts of one mind. The reality of it is, I think, when you come out here and start working, you have to learn pretty quickly that it's a very collaborative process.
You have to be open to other people's ideas, and you can't be too married to your own.
For screenwriting, when you're writing, you're talking to hundreds - hundreds of people who might be interpreting what you're saying. When you're writing a comic book, you're really only talking to the artist.
A lot of screenwriters write certain characters, certain parts, with actors in mind. I don't really tend to do that. I describe them as specifically as I can, but I don't really picture anyone in particular.
