By the time I got a chance to talk with Mike J. Nelson, ‘Mystery Science Theater 3000’ — the television series where he served as head writer and later hosted — had been off the air for nearly a decade. And yet MST3K, as its known to die-hard fans, never disappeared from the public conscious. The show’s premise of three friends (two of which happen to be robots) cracking jokes at bad movies seems deceptively do-it-yourself. In a way it was. In 1988, a group of Minnesotans convinced a local television station to give them a show where they would do just that. Mix in a pair of “robots” hot-glued together from whatever was lying around and you get the first season of ‘Mystery Science Theater 3000.’

Of course, the show’s real success lay in its writing. Lead by Nelson (who joined the during the second season,) creator Joel Hodgeson, along with fellow writers/cast-mates Trace Beaulieu, Josh Weinstein, Jim Mallon, Kevin Murphy, Frank Conniff, Mary Jo Pehl, Bill Corbett, Paul Chaplin, and Bridget Jones Nelson elevated simple snark into well-reasoned film criticism. Over 11 seasons, MST3K would not only popularize the art of movie riffing (Brad Pitt once proposed doing the audio commentary for Ocean’s 11 in the vein of Mystery Science,) but also teach a whole generation of budding filmmakers what to avoid when making their first film (so many of the series chosen films were the works of first-time directors.)

Sadly, cult status wasn’t enough to sustain the show. Low-ratings first lead to cancellation on Comedy Central in 1996, then again in 1999 after a breif stint on the Sci-Fi Channel (now SyFy.)

And yet the legacy endured. First through tape trading — the literal act of sharing VHS recordings of the show with other people. Then through peer-to-peer file sharing applications like KaZaa and LimeWire. And finally through licensed DVD releases. The latter became so successful that in 2007, Mike Nelson found himself riffing. This time under his own brand: RiffTrax.

A decade after my interview with Nelson, ‘Mystery Science Theater 3000’ returned with brand new episodes thanks to a combination of crowd-funding and Netflix’s need for new content. Sadly, neither Mike, nor most of the original creative team were asked to participate.

This interview was conducted in November 2007. It has been edited and condensed.

I think the P.R. person told me you’re the Creative Supervisor at Legend Films? Or did I just make up a title for you?

You know, we we sort of noodled around with the title and I think we came up with ‘Chief Content Producer.’ I don’t really know what that means, but that’s what it is.

Which leads us to RiffTrax, which you produce. It feels like Mystery Science Theater 3000, but with a catalogue of better-known studio titles.

Yeah, it sort of started back at MST. We used to be able to mess around with these electronic press kits, that they send out. We took a little bit of Titanic, and stuff like that, and I always thought, “Man it’d be so fun to be able to do this to a full-length movie.” So when the technology came about to do that, I jumped at it.

You’ve become an expert, of sorts, in the field of bad movies. You’ve written several books on the topic. You have a column in Cracked magazine about it. And now RiffTrax. That’s got to be a fun gig.

It is. I think when you’re when you’re young and your parents say, “You’re you’re never going to get anywhere watching movies and TV.” It’s like, well a few of us can slip through the cracks.

But, at some point it is a little wearying and you have to take a break from it all, because when you’re surrounded by a lot of badness you need some time off. Generally, it’s great fun.

Did you critique movies before MST3K, or did that come about because of the show?

That came about because of the show. I think it’s just all comics, and basically comedy in general, take culture and turn it around and making it funny. So, it’s more of a comic thing then than it is specifically about movies. I just happened to fall into that. And I happen to enjoy it.

I didn’t know you did stand-up. Was that in Minnesota?

Correct. I kind of did that for a couple of years. I started in acting. And I was not a professional musician, but a musician as well. Stand up comedy was really hot at the time. So I took that path because you could get paid, which I enjoyed.

Is stand-up how you got involved with MST3K then?

Yeah, exactly. A few of the guys started through the TV route, but the rest were stand up, or performers in some way.

At what point did you take over as head-writer? If I recall, you weren’t involved in those initial public access episodes?

It was after the first year [MST3K] was on cable. I was hired as a writer, and then they made me head writer. I just kind of got good at corralling the script from the start, and I enjoyed that process of fine-tuning it. It’s really sort of meticulous work, dealing with the time-codes, and exactly where does this joke go ,and how many can fit in there. I enjoyed that kind of meticulous work.

I’ve always been curious about the film section process for the show. What went into picking a film?

We assigned a few of the writers to just go through boxes of screeners and try to figure out which ones work. It got to be a little complicated because people didn’t want to give up their movies. It was when cable was really exploding and I think people thought, “Nah, there’s going to be a whole new market for this and we don’t want to signal the fact that this might be a bad movie.” So, they were holding on to ‘em.

So, we’d inevitably pick a movie we thought was great, and then they wouldn’t want to give up the rights because it was for Mystery Science. So we kind of ended up with a lot of movies that were, you know, lower priority. That’s what’s great about RiffTrax, you can just do whatever you want.

I’m guessing the Manos: The Hands of Fate (Season 4, Episode 24) people didn’t put up much of a fight?

That was one that I think nobody in a million-years thought we would want. It somehow ended up in a box of screeners and we watched, which we rarely do, the entire thing. When screening, you try to get the flavor and then move on. And with this one we were all just fascinated. But we thought, “There’s no way we can do it. It’s too bizarre.” We said, “No, there’s no way we can’t do it, this is great.”

Speaking of not watching the whole screener, there’s an anecdote in the MST3K book regarding Side Hackers (Season 2, Episode 2.) Specifically, how the team missed a very intense rape and murder sequence in the film. When that scene did come up during the writing process, how did you deal with it?

(Laughs) You know, we were on quite a time crunch and [the show] was really low-budget. Especially in those early days. So there was no one specifically assigned to go through that. Someone just watched the first part of it and we said, “This looks good.” It was sorta light hearted at the beginning. And then, yeah, (Laughs) as you mentioned something horrible came up.

So, we just had to cut around it. And the movie was not terribly long, so I think we ended up reading a bunch of letters at the end to fill time for that huge section we cut out.

One of the more charming elements of MST3K is how the show embraces its Minnesotan roots. There’s a real ‘We did this ourselves’ flavor to the production. Did it help to be geographically removed from Hollywood? Did you feel more free creatively?

Oh, yeah. I mean both things were important. If you’re in Hollywood, and you run into these people all the time, you’re not going to be able to make fun of them. You gotta see them tomorrow at the grocery store.

So, that was important. But also, the executives really didn’t want to spend much time in Minnesota. They would make big noise about it when a new executive would come aboard. They’d fly out. And you know, “We’re going to be here a lot.” And then they spend a couple days in Minnesota, go back home and they never come out again. I don’t know why that is.

Being Canadian, MST3K never aired up here. So my first exposure to the show was through the movie…

Oh, that’s interesting. You saw the movie first.

Yeah. Based on that introduction, I just assumed you had always been the host of the show. That is, until I started obtaining tapes of earlier seasons and was introduced to (series creator) Joel Hodgson. Did you feel any pressure taking over for him?

I knew there would be a lot of feedback that wouldn’t necessarily be positive, to put it gently. Because we would do something, like, change the color of Joel’s jumpsuit and we’d get a ton of letters, like, “What are you doing?”

But also as the as the head writer, I was always right there. I mean, in every Joel episode you can’t see me, but I’m standing next to the stage with a script in hand. And I’m so intimately involved with that it didn’t seem like that big of a deal to walk ten-feet further into the stage, and just do it that way. So I was still focused on the writing and trying to make it as good as it could be. That kind of took the heat off for me. It’s like, I can’t worry about that stuff. The rest of the cast insulated me from the worst letters, even if they we’re secretly enjoying them behind my back.

Back when MST3K was still on the air, you would encouraged fans to share VHS tapes to get the word out. Recently, the series has been enjoying a healthy DVD run. Seems like things have come full circle.

Yeah, and they do well. It’s interesting to me when I speak at college campuses, and kids who are way too young to have really seen it know all these episodes. They always say, “Yeah they’re available on DVD, and we all trade them.” And sit around and watch them in the dorm rooms.” So it’s great. I love it.

Let’s circle back to RiffTrax, which you co-host with fellow MST3K alums Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett. Given that you can now riff on any studio film, how do you go about picking?

Since RiffTrax doesn’t supply the movie, the biggest thing is that people have to have a fair shot at getting it. These days you can get pretty much anything. But if there’s a chance it might be on your on your shelf, or your buddies shelf or whatever, then that’s one of the criteria.

And the other one is: does it have that sort of… earnest goofiness that you look for? Some people think, “Geez, do you really hate this movie? Is that why you picked it?” But that’s not really the point. I didn’t hate Manos: the Hands of Fate, it amused me. So that’s part of it.

And also: if the movie itself can be entertaining. I mean, I can’t do all the heavy lifting. So, a combination of those things.

How does the writing process differ between an episode of RiffTrax and an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000? The latter was a group process and the former you’re mostly alone, right?

It’s pretty tough. I mean, there was a really hard element of writing Mystery Science. It was the same that this is, and that just that you have to sit down and slog through [the movie] and make sure everything fits. That the timing is right.

But before that, at MST, you got to have the fun of sitting in a big writing room, and having a bunch of laughs with people. Even if some of what you were saying would never make it to a script. It was all part of the process.

[RiffTrax] has sort of trimmed that away. Where I don’t get that great joy. But, you know, it’s got its own rewards in terms of it being more efficient. And it’s still fun when you see the final product.

And Kevin and Bill still write with you part-time?

Yeah, that’s part of it. [RiffTrax] been doing very well, so hopefully it’s building towards getting people in here on a regular basis. Whether it be Bill or Kevin or someone else. It’s just makes it a lot more fun for everyone.

Is there any ad-libbing in these? Or is it still strictly adhering to time-code?

What you’re doing is recreating what was the ad-libbing. That’s what it’s all about. You’re making these jokes as though you’re trying to entertain your friends, just like you would sitting around. So doing it in the room is recreating that moment. If I’m laughing, it’s genuine.

Last few questions, where you disappointed when Kevin Smith was asked to do the Roadhouse DVD commentary. You’ve been very vocal about your love for that film.

(Laughs) I have to say I was a little disappointed. I know that he had some connection to it as well, and he’s obviously far more Hollywood than I am. So, that’s how he got in. But, you know, the fact that my phone didn’t ring over that: C’mon guys!

That said, you can download it from RiffTrax.

Exactly right.

Finally, I’ve spent enough time asking you about bad films, are there any good ones you’ve seen lately?

Yeah, I always have trouble remembering the good ones. Its like you enjoy complaining about bad restaurant meals. I have to say though, I watch it again because I was considering it for a RiffTrax, and it might be a future title. It might be to… kids won’t enjoy it anymore, but I swear if you if you watch The Big Chill. Just to see this narcissistic generation frozen in time. It’s just amazing. My wife and I watched it and were laughing out loud several times. It’s just how that film does not age well at all.

Your wife also wrote for MST3K, is it hard not to slip into riff mode with her?

If it’s bad, I think you can’t help it. There’s a switch in you that you can’t just help react to. But I don’t actually have TV, so it’s always DVD. So it’s something that you choose. It’s rare that you’ll see a movie that will just be awful. It’s usually something I want to watch.

Mike J. Nelson was originally published in the Offline on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Remember ‘Italian Spiderman?’ In the winter of 2007, this expertly crafted bit of pop-parody took a then still pre-pubescent YouTube by storm. Blogs were written. GIFs were made. Eventually, the trailer became a full-fledged series. Hit a road-block. And ceased production.

The internet moved on.

That project did, however, give co-creators Dario Russo and David Ashby, now rebranded as Dinosaur, the clout to produce their next project: the cult-favorite ‘Danger 5’. That series would take Russo’s love of the 1960’s and apply its aesthetic to the second World War. By its second series, ‘Danger 5’ found itself in the 1980s, with a plot-line focused on a time-traveling Hitler. It is, for lack of a better term, art. And it was, much like Italian Spiderman, meticulously crafted to emulate its eras of inspiration.

However, before all that, it was the fall of 2008 and Dario agreed to jump on the phone with me and talk about the then-still-in-production, ‘Italian Spiderman’ series.

Where did the idea of spoofing foreign films through the lens of a superhero movie come from?

The idea was completely obtuse. One of our regular actors was complaining about never getting a lead role, and another one of our friends suggested that we make something called “Italian Spiderman” and he could be the lead in that. Ironically the actor in question didn’t get the lead role and was only in about two shots of the final film.

So, it didn’t actually come from this lust to parody American superheroes in an Italian context at all. It was a far more accidental process.

But once we had the idea, it was always intentionally, more of a spoof on 1960’s De Laurentiis cinema, than American superheroes.

In fact, we basically use no reference from any American superheroes bar a little bit of Adam West’s Batman.

But we never really looked at Spider-Man. I haven’t seen any of the Spider-Man movies. I don’t think I’ve ever read a Spider-Man comic.

So better not to read too much into the Spider-Man part then.

The Spider-Man factor is quite low. It’s enjoyable. People seem to tell that this character has absolutely nothing to do with the American conception of Spider-Man. He’s just an overweight dude, who smokes, drinks a lot of coffee, and could potentially be an alcoholic — except we haven’t delved into that yet.

We get heaps of comments on YouTube saying, (adopting pretentious tone) “Oh, this is way better than the American Spider-Man.” But otherwise, I think people tend to absorb the other elements a bit more than they do the comic book references.

What kind of research went into making the series feel authentically 1960s-ish?

Our main point of reference was 1968. That’s my favorite period of Italian cinema. Myself and the Director of Photography sat down and watched ridiculous amounts of Mario Bava movies, and Dario Argento stuff. And a lot more obscure things from the 60’s that are completely forgettable. I remember one we watched was called French Sex Murders, and that kind of stuck with us for some reason.

So, yeah, everybody on the team was pretty immersed in watching a lot of 60’s cinema. Our sound designer, Will, spent a hell of a lot of time digging through old film soundtracks. Looking for inspiration and excellent samples.

So it was basically just watching a hell of a lot of stuff. I mean, I’ve always been a fan of 1960’s cinema, as is everybody else in the group.

What brought you guys together and how long have you been making films?

We’ve all been making films since high school. We all went to high school together. I decided that filmmaking was the thing to do for the rest of my life. And then we just kept making films.

Then, I went to film school and the third year project ended up being a 16mm film exercise. And ended up became the Spiderman trailer. And, you know, the rest is the rest.

But yeah, we’ve been making films together — at least one serious film a year — for the last five-six years.

How old are you, if you don’t mind me asking?

We’re all 21.

Oh, wow. I’m 25. What have I ben doing with my life?

(Laughs)

Italian Spiderman started as a trailer, now it’s a full film being released episodically. While watching the episodes, I got the sense that maybe you both had a larger sense of the narrative from the beginning. Am I wrong in assuming that?

You know… (clears throat) I’m not gonna say if it was intentional or not. We managed to weave in many sections of the trailer quite seamlessly.

But, I have to say that we didn’t actually contemplate making the full film to start off with. The trailer was the trailer for its own sake.

But the once it became so popular, we thought, ‘Hey, maybe people like this character enough that he can do a lot more things than just dance around and play a trumpet.’ And that turned out to be right.

It’s funny, because we had heaps and heaps of ideas that we didn’t put into the trailer and we actually got to realize a lot of them in the rest of it. For instance, in one of the latest episodes, Spiderman tortures a snake that comes out a toaster. That was supposed to be in the trailer but we literally just ran out of time.

The trailer is up to 2 million views now. Whenever a video goes viral like this, I think the question always is, ‘What did you do to bring this much attention to it?’

It’s a bizarre phenomenon, to say the least.

I mean, we put a ton of our older videos up, I think a year ago now. And I attempted to do this model with another one we made called, ‘Time that time forgot’ — which was longer, about 7 minutes. Really more of a short film, than a trailer. And that only got about 2,000 views in three months or something.

But Spiderman just ignited immediately. I was really shocked when it had gotten to 1,000 views three days after I posted it. Then within that week it was at 50,000, and then it kept snowballing.

I think in March it got featured on the front page. At that point it had done about 500,000, but that doubled in a period of three days.

I think its a combination of the fact that it had Spider-Man in the title — which may have gotten it into the bloodstream of the viewership — because that’s something that people are searching for. But we never thought about it that way, because that was just our concept: Italian Spiderman.

And then it got into the hands of the bloggers. People really did start sharing it furiously. It was just an idea that people connected with and thought was different. And also, the fact that many people actually believed it was from the 60’s helped us a lot too.

It was a real discovery. Lots of people felt they were discovering something amazing on the net.

I mean, there’s a lot of detail to appreciate. For instance, you guys really nailed the lighting from that era.

Thank you. Most of that is our Director of Photography, Sam King, who studied Mario Bava lightening techniques. We sat down and pretty much deconstructed how the hell they lit their films. And we shot it all with hot-wax. There were no sophisticated lighting rigs here. They were all 800 and 2000 W redheads and blondies. Pretty much the type of lighting they would have used in the 60's.

Essentially, it’s all about hair lights, back lights, inconsistent rim lights and colors. It’s kind of achieving as much of a technicolor, pastel-y color scheme as possible.

The color-schemes where pretty carefully monitored as well. Sam always made sure there was a certain amount of colors used per scene. I completely forbid the use of red and green at the same time because I think it looks stupid.

Are you still shooting on film, or have you moved to digital?

We shot the first ten episodes on HD. But the trailer was on 16mm, and we may be going back to 16mm for the rest of it.

Are you both paying for this out of pocket, or has the response opened up new avenues of financing?

After the trailer, we got funding from a government funding body called, the South Australian Film Corporation. So it was a tiny amount of money to do it. It was enough to get it on the screen, but none of us got paid. It was, like, seven months from pre-production to post-production. Now we’re talking about more money to do it, the production values are going to stay exactly the same, except we’re gonna be able to get paid to keep going, potentially.

Of course, there’ll be a lot more cocaine involved then. A lot more Peruvian pool girls wandering around on set.

Tell me more about the actor who plays Italian Spiderman?

Officially his name is Franco Fanchetti, and that’s the way it’s going to stay. You know, he’s one of Italy’s most respected performers. So, interviews with him are out of the question. But he’s spectacular.

Have you heard anything from Marvel yet?

No, nothing yet. Which is good. There’s no way they don’t know it exists, because I’m pretty sure they pay people to search out Spider-Man on the net and see what’s happening. There’s no way of searching Spider-Man and not ending up with this pretty rapidly. So we haven’t had any response from them yet, but again, we’re not making any money out of it yet.

Last few questions, how long does it take to write an episode?

It’s developed out of a sense of humor that we kind of just all have as a group of friends. Like, the original concept just grew out of a joke, and then we kinda snowballed it. We get together and we brainstorm stories, ya know? It’s basically just throwing around ridiculous ideas: Wouldn’t it be wicked if Spiderman did this. Wouldn’t it be ridiculously cool if he did that. And then, I take the script, and hammer it into a shootable format: joining the dots and add in the dialogue.

It’s an interesting process. It starts off with collaboration, basically sitting around and making jokes. And that’s the best way to start writing comedy, is if you’re all laughing about something at the beginning, you’ll probably be laughing about it in the end.

Are you guys working on anything beyond Italian Spiderman?

At the moment its pretty Spiderman centric, but we have other TV series ideas, other feature ideas that we’re itching to get out there. You can check out the videos on YouTube prior to Italian Spiderman, you might get some hints to the direction we’re going.

This interview was originally broadcast in August 2008. It has been edited and condensed.

Dario Russo was originally published in the Offline on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When Duncan Jones set out to make ‘Moon’, his first feature film released in the summer of 2009, he was doing so in a vacuum. Science-fiction, particularly the kind that spawned ‘Blade Runner’ and ‘2001: A Space Odyssey,’ had become a second-thought compared to bombastic spectacles like ‘Avatar’ and J.J. Abram’s gritty ‘Star Trek’ reboot.

“I wanted to make a film which would be appreciated by people like myself who loved those films,” he told Wired. And so, channeling the loneliness from a recent break-up, Jones drafted the story for ‘Moon.’ He cast Sam Rockwell as the film’s protagonist: a lunar-based helium miner awaiting the end of his contract, and Kevin Spacey as Rockwell’s only point of contact: a robot-assistant named Gerty. Things, however, take a turn when Rockwell discovers a clone of himself during a routine maintenance run.

‘Moon,’ and his Alfred Hitchcock-inspired follow up ‘Source Code,’ cemented Jones as the cinephile’s filmmaker: smartly adapting and subverting what came before for modern audiences. His third film was to be a period-piece about the life of James Bond creator Ian Fleming, until 2013 when Jones was announced as the director of the ‘Warcraft’ film adaptation.

That film, the largest project Jones had taken to date, became infamous for its negative reviews and insane disparity between domestic and foreign box-office takes. To date, ‘Warcraft’ remains the highest grossing video game adaptation of all time. And yet, in late 2016, Jones announced that he would be returning to the ‘Moon’ universe with his follow-up project, ‘Mute.’ — which he mentions at the end of this interview. A welcome return to form.

I was lucky then to have stumbled onto Jones when I did. The moment the trailer for ‘Moon’ hit the internet, my interest was piqued. One Twitter D.M. later and I had booked the interview. Unsurprisingly, his responses to my questions (submitted via email) depicted a man totally in love with the medium. The exact same impression I got from that trailer.

You graduated from college with a philosophy degree. Now you’re a filmmaker. What went wrong?

The answer is in the question… Philosophy! There are basically two jobs you can get with a philosophy degree: teacher (of philosophy) or crazy, homeless person who stops you on the street to tell you how the world should work. Filmmaking seemed like the only way out.

How did the story of Moon come about? Would it be safe to say your father’s work (David Bowie) from the early 70’s had some influence?

The heart of the story is kind of personal; I was going through a heart-breaking long-distance relationship at the time of writing, and the isolation of the setting and scenario seemed an apt metaphor for how I was feeling at the time.

The other main element of the script, the clones, came out of years of trying to deal with low self-esteem. I used to give myself a pretty hard time growing up, not believing I was capable of anything of real value or merit. As a kid, I needed to give myself a break. Moon was kind of the me of now trying to tell the me of then that I was a good kid; that I was worth something. I wish Moon had been a film I had seen when I was a teenager. I think I would have connected to it.

I guess the inspiration of Moon was simply this question, “What would it be like if you met yourself in person? Would you like yourself, or would you only see the faults?”

I’m kind of proud of that. It’s a universal, human question and that makes it perfect for sci-fi.

As far as my dad goes, everyone is the sum of their experience. I’m the sum of mine and I wouldn’t try to deny that. But hopefully, you can see that there were other things at work while writing Moon.

How did you get involved with screenwriter, Nathan Parker?

My usual collaborator is a writer called Mike Johnson, who I went to film school with. We had done a few scripts together already and had a bit of a system that worked well for us. I was busy working on a commercial, hoping we could slip into our natural pattern of me handing him one of my epic 30-page treatments for him to knock into some kind of draft for us to work on together. Unfortunately for me, the boy had caught a break into the big time and was busy at Warner Brothers penning the Sherlock Holmes script that Guy Ritchie has just directed.

With a monstrous special effects beer commercial keeping me too busy to write it myself, and time pressing, I asked my agent to help me find a writer. After meeting a few, Nathan and I clicked, and the rest is history. Nathan wrote the first two drafts based on my treatment, and when the commercial was over, I took it over from there. As the whole thing revolved around Sam [Rockwell], it was really important he felt comfortable with everything. So I went to New York for a week of rehearsals with him. We broke [the script] down, improv’d and improved the script over that week, and I had to do some rewriting when I got back to London.

Would you classify Moon as hard-science fiction? Did you research the possibilities of man living on the moon?

There was a book by Robert Zubrin called Entering Space that was a great starting place for understanding some of the [scientific]and financial justifications behind proposed lunar habitation. I think that was the book that first got me interested in Helium 3 mining on the Moon. After that, I just became a bit of an academic magpie on the subject. An article here, a google there.

One of the most exciting things to happen with the film, so far, is that we were invited to do a screening of the film for members of N.A.S.A. at the N.A.S.A. Space Centre in Houston, Texas. It was an amazing experience, showing N.A.S.A. employees and an actual, active astronaut the film, and then doing a Q&A where I got to ask almost as many questions as they asked me. There were people in the audience who actually worked on the science for creating something called “mooncrete,” a concrete created using elements found on the Moon itself. The most edifying thing about the Q&A was how supportive they were of the film. We filmed the event, and it will be on the DVD. Does that qualify the film as hard science-fiction? Maybe. But I don’t think any audience would appreciate the film if that was all it is. What makes it work is it’s a strong, human story.

The robot in your film is fairly reminiscent of Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Was Gerty an intentional homage to that film?

Yes. But there are many homages in the film, to many sci-fi films. Maybe more than the casual observer will pick up on!

The thing is, people who haven’t seen the film, but viewed the trailer, pick up on the 2001 vibe much more than people who have seen it. Mainly because Gerty, our robot, has a single lens eye, and a soothing voice. When you see the film though, you understand that this is a very different story, and Gerty is a very different robot than Hal. The aesthetic similarities are purely a loving homage.

What was your approach to this film from a directorial standpoint?

Terror, followed by extreme stress and finally exhaustion. Actually, I felt a bit like a goalie at an ice hockey practice. It was my job to try and stop as many of the problems shooting at us from getting into the net. And they were flying thick and fast. There is a reason there are so few independent science fiction movies made. Science fiction is hard to pull off at an indie budget. And we had time against us too. We shot the film in 33 days, which is absurd, considering how technical it was.

Danny Boyle’s film Sunshine is considered an indie science fiction film. It was done for $50 million. Moon came in at under 10 percent of that budget, so you can imagine the strain we were under.

“Never again!” is what I told myself… until I was happy with the script for the next film! Now I’m raring to get back in there and battle with the beast for a second time!

One striking visual from the trailer is the moonscapes. They look as if they were ripped straight out of N.A.S.A.’s photography archive. Was it difficult to replicate that look?

The visuals of the Moon’s surface were very much inspired by the lunar photography of Michael Light’s photo-book, Full Moon. He took the 70mm images the Apollo astronauts had taken, cleaned them up and presented them in such a beautiful way. That became our visual bible for the exteriors, so you are bang on.

Basically, for budget reasons, we knew early on we wanted to try and use model miniatures to shoot the exteriors, but a lot of the techniques used by the guys in the ’70s and early ’80s were becoming a bit of a dying art. We were incredibly fortunate to dig up a couple of old timers in model maker Bill Pearson and miniatures cinematographer Peter Talbot.

Let me give you some pedigree here; Bill built the Nostromo model. For Alien. The first Alien. So he knows his shit. Peter did visual effects and miniatures photography on Batman Begins and Casino Royale. Enough said. Without these two guys, I would have been a quivering wreck. With all the good work they did, the post production house Cinesite was just as important. Our visual effects supervisor Simon Stanley-Clamp was the guy who brought Oliver Reed back to life in Gladiator. Between these three guys, and my incredibly talented buddy and concept artist Gavin Rothery, who designed the rovers and the harvester itself, the only person left who could have fucked the pooch was me. Fortunately, I must have been having a good day!

Our fascination with space travel has subsided over the years, although projects such as Moon and Star Trek serve as a reminder. Why do you think we’re less gung-ho about exploring the stars?

I think as the world has gotten smaller. Our need for grand gestures of national superiority has diminished. During the Cold War, that was a good enough motivator for the huge expense of space exploration. But it’s not any more. Certainly not in this economy.

There is a ray of hope though: Money! There is money to be made in space. Tourism and our insatiable appetite for energy will, in my humble opinion, reignite the space race as its realized just how much potential wealth (power) is out there. Tourism will start it. Virgin Galactic will be taking off in the next couple of years. Bigger, industrial space exploitation for energy use will happen within a decade or two, and yes, the Moon will be a major part of that plan.

I’m always surprised how underused Sam Rockwell is as a leading man. How did he get involved with the project?

Me too! The man is America’s most undervalued, underused lead actor. If Moon does nothing else, I hope it makes people take note of how amazing Sam is. More than that, I believe Moon could be Sam’s greatest acting performance yet. I hope award givers don’t stick their collective noses in the air because its sci-fi. Sam deserves an award for what he does in Moon. I hope he gets it. I certainly feel no shame in asking people to recognize how good he is in it.

Moon was written for him. We had met to discuss another script I had written with Mike Johnson. Sam loved the script, but wanted to play the lead, and I was looking for him to play a different part. We couldn’t convince each other to change our respective minds, but got on really well, and talked a little about the kind of films we loved growing up. Outland, Silent Running, and Ridley Scott’s Alien all came up. I wanted to know the kind of roles Sam was looking for; something challenging, something blue collar. I told Sam I would write something just for him if he promised to read it. I don’t even know if Sam believed I would at that stage. About nine months later, we delivered the script to his agent.

It took about 3 months for him to read it, because he had his head full of Frost/Nixon at the time. Even after he did read it, I think he was really nervous. A lot rested on his shoulders. Fuck, the whole thing rested on his shoulders! But between my stalking, his agent’s support and his acting buddies telling him he would be crazy to pass up on such a meaty part, he agreed to do it. All I can say is, thank God.

My backup was Gilbert Gottfried. (Joke.)

Have you already started thinking about your next project?

Oh yes. Thought, wrote, polished, sent out to actors. I mentioned at the Sundance Q&A that it was my spiritual sequel to Blade Runner. It’s not got anything to do with Blade Runner. But after you see Moon, and get how I feel about homages, you’ll know what I mean.

It’s a small, intimate thriller based in a big, future Berlin. If Blade Runner is what’s going on in L.A., this next film is what’s going on in Berlin at the same time. And Sammy is going to do a lovely little cameo.

Finally, you’re an avid Twitter user, does its direct line of communication to your fans offer any benefits to you as a filmmaker — or is it simply something to do during your downtime?

Fucking thing is ruining my social life! Who am I kidding, fucking thing is my social life!

To be honest, I started Twittering because Moon is a tiny little indie film and I want it to do well. I am doing everything I can to spread the word. It just so happens, by using Twitter, I have started to meet some cool people. So maybe my mercenary approach has softened a little. Still, I have a love/hate relationship with the thing. It makes me think of the line from the Dread pirate Roberts, “Good night, Twitter. Good work. Sleep well. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.”

What makes you feel sexy?

I’m sorry, Paul. I don’t think that kind of question is appropriate.

(Editor’s Note: Pretty sure he added that last question in… I think.)

This interview was originally published in 2009. It has been edited and condensed

Duncan Jones was originally published in the Offline on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It’s amazing what a difference a decade makes. When I met Cliff Bleszinski in 2008, he was making the rounds for ‘Gears of War 2’, the much anticipated follow-up to the video game that brought him into the big-leagues.

Before Gears, Bleszinski had made his name designing cult titles like ‘Jazz Jackrabbit’ and ‘Unreal Tournament’. Both were hugely influential to the PC gaming scene, but neither attained the blockbuster status of the ‘Gears of War’ franchise.

The original title, released exclusively for the Xbox 360 in 2006, would go on to sell 6 million units worldwide, rocketing Bleszinski — or ‘CliffyB’ as he was known online — to the kind of status normally reserved for musicians and film actors. The New Yorker took notice, profiling him in early 2008. As did Jimmy Fallon’s ‘Late Night’, inviting him on in 2009 to promote Gears of War 3. Fame fit him rather well, allowing him to take his already loud and outspoken personality to the masses — much to their entertainment or annoyance.

By 2012, however, Bleszinski had burnt out. Crushed by the toxic environment of big-budget gaming, he cashed out from Epic Games — his home for the last two decades — and retired. However, true to his rock-star persona, he eventually found himself itching to get back to work. In 2014, he launched an independent studio called Boss Key Productions. Their first title, ‘LawBreakers,’ launches later this year for Windows and PlayStation 4. Once again, all eyes are on CliffyB.

So imagine my surprise when in the summer of 2008, I found Bleszinski all alone at an Xbox Press Event in Toronto. A sobering reminder then of how invisible the auteur was (and still is) in the video game development. To me, he was the creator of Jazz Jackrabbit, to the rest of the press wandering the floor, he was just some guy in a hoodie. Little did they know.

I’ve got to ask, you recently dropped the nickname, ‘CliffyB’. I know a lot of people have already asked you this, but why do that?

Just to get free news.

Really?

(Laughing) Honestly!

I ask because in a statement you said, ‘CliffyB doesn’t sound very mature anymore. I want to be taken more seriously.’ Yet, at its core, Gears of War 2 is a game about dudes… killing bugs… with chainsaws

I don’t know if I’d call them bugs, so much as lizard men from hell. The locust are mean and the game, yeah, it’s about the blood and the chainsaw and everything. But this time around I’d like to think there’s a little bit of heart there. ’Cause it’s a more epic war, but its also a personal story — especially for Dominic Santiago.

Do you play games still? Is there time to be a gamer when working on a massive project like Gears of War?

I do play games. I was recently playing Braid on Xbox Live, which reminded me of how stupid I am apparently, since I couldn’t figure out level 3. It’s extremely challenging. But, I think this holiday there’s gonna be some great games coming out. Fable II looks tight. I also wanna play Dead Space and Mirror’s Edge.

The original Gears of War is highly regarded, how do you approach a sequel to something like that?

Well, as much as we love the first game, the second we ship a product we always think there’s something we could be doing better. So we put our heads together, the leads all got in one room, and we essentially hashed out all the cool stuff we could add. It turns out the list went on and on and on. We have tons of improvements to the cover system. We’ve got bots for the multiplayer. We’ve added a party system for the multiplayer. We’ve got seven multiplayer modes this time around, five-player co-op, and a mode called Horde. I mean, the list just goes on and on and on. Also, the campaign’s longer too. So, it’s just a bigger, tighter, more fun experience overall.

How do you respond to criticism that the new game looks a lot like Gears of War 1.5?

I think, when people get hands-on with the game, they’ll clearly see its Gears 2. Those who feel it’s Gears 1.5… maybe they’re expecting us to put a jump button in, or unicorns, or rainbows, or something like that. But we’re honestly not gonna do that. It still has to be Gears. And we have to deliver what Gears fans want.

You don’t think an ending featuring [series protagonist] Marcus Fenix shooting rainbows at a giant Unicorn would be very good?

I mean, maybe if they were rainbows that were completely red and made of blood. And maybe if it’s head opened up like in the movie, The Thing. I think that would be cool. But, other than that, I don’t know if there’s any room for it.

Where do your sensibilities for creating games come from?

Personally, as far as what I like to do, is put in a lot of that Nintendo-ness. The responsiveness of the controls, and just moving your character should feel good before anything else feels good. And then shooting your weapon should feel good. Then we start moving outward from there and give the game, almost a little bit of a classic Mortal Kombat-edge, as far as the content and the grittiness that’s in there. When you wrap that up with a big sci-fi wrapper, as far as the narrative and having an excellent writer and excellent musician on board, then hopefully we have a Triple-A Blockbuster that feels like you’re playing a summer action movie.

So… “Bigger, Better and more Badass?”

Well yeah, it’s more badass. We’re kind of retiring that phrase ’cause it’s a little played out now. I’d just like to say the game is more epic and more intimate. Just a larger scale. But it’s also a more personal story for the guys involved.

Do you hate getting hammered by the community for phrases like ‘Bigger, Better and more Badass?’ Or when they start calling you ‘Dude Huge?’

Honestly, I’m just glad people are talking. You can call me whatever the heck you want as long as you play Gears of War 2.

This article originally appeared on the Spacecast Blog in 2008. It has been edited and condensed

Cliff Bleszinski was originally published in the Offline on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.