Editorial
Hide and Speak

Another year has begun, and you know what that means—it's time to take stock of last year. And so, as we all do, I'm asking myself the usual personal questions—

Did I get done half of what I'd hoped? How many resolutions did I break that I had to make all over again just a few weeks ago?

Since I'm an editor, I don't only take stock of myself—I take stock of my magazines as well. And as I look back at 2007, I'm reminded that the sci-fi luminaries we interviewed for Science Fiction Weekly have shared some fascinating insights.

Take a look at these 10 compelling quotes from last year. Can match them up with the interview subjects listed below?

1. I'm tired. I feel, maybe as a sports guy, can he beat his record every week? No. One day he has to accept that after spring and summer there is autumn and winter, and I felt in autumn. I have too much respect for myself, first, for the moviegoers and for the cinema in general, because I feel lucky. And I can't just make a film. I can't go to Hollywood, take a big check and make a film. I can't. It's an act of faith, and I give everything to a film. On 10 films, there are four I finished collapsing on the ground because I was too tired.

2. Entertainment Weekly is the kind of magazine that is very condescending, and they think in a very narrow box, and they always have. So that's why I would recommend that if you want to really get your information and know what movies to go see, I wouldn't resort to that particular publication, because they are pretty shallow.

3. I was born to science fiction, and I was born to fantasy. I grew up with Captain Video and His Video Rangers and Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, and Robert Heinlein and A.E. van Vogt and Ray Bradbury. I still have a book that ... I had lunch with Ray Bradbury, and he wrote me a little dedication in a book he gave me that I really cherish. I can quote, chapter and verse, so many science-fiction stories.

4. I've watched the film with enough audiences now, maybe half a dozen, and the response has been consistent enough that I sort of have an idea of how it's going to play out. When you talk to mostly younger people afterwards, they react to the fact that it didn't talk down to them, that it was serious, that it dealt with serious issues, that it wasn't just the typical Hollywood bulls--t or whatever you want to say. They really liked that. And certainly the whole movie operates as a metaphor for feeling disenfranchised. They completely got that. But they got that because they live that and almost everybody feels that way. That's what was so interesting is sometimes older people would have certain issues with the movie or they would wonder about this or that, but young people got it immediately.

5. I'm an assistant director of my own sets. I move my own sets. I shoot very fast. I never leave the set, and, you know, I love working with actors. I love giving actors freedom. I love improv'ing with actors. It freaks studios out, because they're like, "That wasn't in the script. That wasn't in the script. What's this? He's wrecking the movie!" And I'm like, "Trust me, it's going to be funny."

Life sentences

6. I went, "Oh my gosh, I can actually trust him. He says he'll do things and he'll do them. That's cool. That's not like anyone I have ever met in Hollywood before." They lie automatically. They lie without thinking. They lie in the way some people breathe. Here was somebody who stuck to his word.

7. I've seen a lot of first-time filmmakers, and they're always so dark and twisted. And I said I wanted to do something fun—something the family could just sit down and giggle about. I'm a huge fan of the old Pink Panther movies and Arsenic and Old Lace and Cary Grant, and Buster Keaton and all of those kinds of things, and of course, more recently, things like A Fish Called Wanda, which is one of my all-time favorite movies. And I wanted to make something just like that.

8. I kind of felt like I've always bitten off more than I can chew. Ever since I was a little kid my eyes have always been bigger than my stomach. And the key is, how can I figure out how not to choke? And I felt like the subject matter of this film, the political, the religious and the pop culture blended together, was such a massive idea that I had to do it justice, and I had to create something very epic and elaborate and detail-oriented to the point where it could be seen over and over and over again and kind of dissected.

9. Every night when I go to bed and nobody's popped a rogue nuke somewhere in the world, I feel this sort of combination of "I don't believe we escaped for another day," and gratitude because we did escape for another day. Because there's so much of that stuff out there.

10. I think the thing that surprises me most is that directors like myself who are used to directing actors walking around and sitting on their butts and talking can be very scornful about the effects, as though it were just a bunch of computers and things blowing up and giant robots and that sort of stuff. Actually there's a tremendous amount of art and artifice brought to these details. The animators are like actors, and the amount of attention to the aesthetic of this aspect of the filmmaking is really extraordinary and impressive.

The match game

Interesting quotes, but what's even more interesting was who said them. Can you guess which of the following subjects we interviewed to obtain which of the above sound bites? The answers are below.

a) Stephen King, The Mist

b) Michael Bay, Transformers

c) Chris Weitz, The Golden Compass

d) Nicolas Cage, Ghost Rider

e) David Hewlett, Stargate Atlantis

f) Luc Besson, Arthur and the Invisibles

g) Rainn Wilson, The Last Mimzy

h) David Goyer, The Invisible

i) Neil Gaiman, Stardust

j) Richard Kelly, Southland Tales

However you made out on this quotable quiz, don't forget to keep reading Science Fiction Weekly—because in 2008, we promise to continue delivering even further behind-the-scenes revelations.Answers: 1-f, 2-d, 3-g, 4-h, 5-b, 6-i, 7-e, 8-j, 9-a, 10-c