Quotes / Serendipity Writes the Plot

I grew up in the era of Steven Spielberg, and Ridley Scott and James Cameron. And you look at classic monster movies such as Jaws and Alien, even the original King Kong, where they spend the first half of the movie teasing you. That was before the advent of digital and computer graphics, and they couldn't show a lot. As a result, the filmmaker is so much more effective.

— Gareth Edwards on Godzilla (2014)

Josh: The boring, practical reason [why we stayed on Earth] was because of the budget. It was made apparent to us what the limitations were. Everyone – the studio, the producers, our director, hoped that this is like what they did with The Purge, the first movie. Where you [can hint] at what greater world can be out there, and then if the first movie is a success then we can start opening that up. We kind of just wanted to get our foot in the movie door.
Pat: Just the practicality of it. Each CGI character costs a lot to make. In an early draft of this we had a lot of CG characters and a lot of the alien worlds.
Josh: And then one by one, it was like "you gotta cut this!"

— Writers Josh Miller and Pat Casey on Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)

The look of the Phazon Suit was just one of those things that happened because we were running out of time. One thing I became known for our team was that I could create cool looking shaders or surfaces that just looked interesting. We didn't have time to concept or model a new suit for Samus so Todd Keller came to me and said, "make a cool looking suit by messing with the shaders and textures."

So, the Phazon Suit came about because of time constraints, but sometimes the most creative ideas just happen when you're not given the time to over think it. I think I only worked on the Phazon Suit idea for a couple of days at the most.

— Mike Sneath, on the Phazon Suit in Metroid Prime

I have a funny story about Stellastarr. Two years ago, a friend (one who enjoys British rock) told me: "I know a rock band that the Director would certainly enjoy." He recommended Stellastarr. But I misheard him. Instead, I bought an album by Starsailor.

In Japanese, my friend pronounced it “suterasutaa," but I heard "sutaaseiraa." But thanks to this mistake, Starsailor's song "Way to Fall" found its way into the credits music for MGS3! It seems silly and improbable, but I think that life is improved by these little accidents.

— Hideo Kojima, on how he eventually found the ending theme for Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

Some stories in these audios are simply not meant to be visually depicted, as the medium informs how the plotting unfolds. Some plays have pivotal twists in them that only work because you cannot actually see these events. You rely purely on what you can hear alone, and thus come to conclusions based on that. But this can make you ever-more prone to having the rug pulled from under you. Other audios are set in environments which actively play into the fact that you can't see anything. Like taking place in total darkness or complete blinding light or in dimensions where the very sense of sight doesn't exist. Or perhaps the premise of the adventure itself is thematically and metatextualy connected to the fact that you are listening and not seeing. And ergo, giving such stories visuals would negate some of their appeal. Or maybe said premise is simply far too grandiose and expensive-sounding to capture effectively in the kind of animation styles that we've had for the missing episodes, and attempting it without the sufficient budget would only serve to weaken the entire experience.

—The Whoniversals, "Doctor Who | Animating Big Finish?"

---