'Jurassic Park', Author, James Mottram

0:09Jawad MirWe're here to talk about this.

0:11James MottramYou've got it in your hands. Yes, the J…

0:12Jawad MirI've got it in my hand. I was actually surprised about the size, because I was expecting the bigger size, the ones that you normally write. So

0:18James MottramI must admit, I was surprised about the size…... 'cause I've, I only recently, got ahold of my copies that were sent to me, and yeah, I was surprised because I didn't know it was, it was that. I gotta admit, we should probably say what it is, 'cause we didn't just say what it was.

0:33Jawad MirYes, I did. It is…

0:34James MottramIt's the J… the Jurassic Park script book. So yeah. I was surpri… I didn't really... You know, 'cause it's, sort of when you work on these things on page, when you get sent, you know, PDFs and all the text is laid out and all the photographs are laid out, I guess you have no idea, yeah, what size it's gonna be.

0:54Jawad MirRight. Yeah.

0:54James MottramI never thought it would be smaller. Personally, and this is nothing to do with me... Well, it's partly to do with me writing it, I suppose, but I really love this book. Like, perhaps more than the other two that I worked on. I, you know, in the end, of course, you know, the point of the book is, you know, for those that don't know, it is obviously the script by David Koepp.

1:17Jawad MirYeah

1:17James Mottram... The sort of shooting script that they, that they used. You know, so it's as close as you'll get to the movie. It's that script. It's obviously illustrated with lots of very cool photographs and concept art and so forth. And then my contribution, was to sort of annotate, the book or annotate the script, where possible with little box-outs, you know, wherever. Anything that I thought that would be, you know, kinda cool to talk about. So it's kinda like a miniature version, and you could say, of what I did in the Jurassic Park Ultimate Visual History book, but we tried to make sure, that it doesn't repeat, you know, the information that you got in that book, because obviously that's not much fun for a reader who's already bought that book to then buy this and just to have the same, you know, facts and figures, so to speak, regurgitated. So I had to sort of take a different approach, which, y… you know, at first didn't, you know...

2:20James MottramAt f… at first when I did it, I kind of was a little bit too literal and I had to go back and rewrite, and then I was kind of advised to go and try and speak to David Koepp, which I did. He was incredibly generous with his time, as he was previously when I spoke to him for the, Jurassic Park Ultimate Visual History book. So I got to talk to him. I tried to drill down as much as possible into elements of the script. And then, yeah, it really, it's a sort of... It has, it had to be sort of script based, any of those kind of box-outs that I did. You know, anything that came up, you really had to sort of go, "Okay, there's an element in the..." You know, let's say for example, when John Hammond says, "Welcome to Jurassic Park," that very famous phrase that he uses when he first shows, the Sam Neill and Laura Dern characters the, you know, the, their, it's their first trip into the park. Now, there have been obviously multiple, scripts written before Koepp's, a couple by David...

3:24James MottramSorry, a couple by, Michael Crichton, who obviously wrote the original novel.

3:28Jawad MirYep.

3:29James MottramAnd so what you're trying, what I was trying to do is trace the origins of, I guess the evolution of the script. So taking that Welcome to Jurassic Park line, in o… an early,.. Well, in fact, in Koepp's earlier version, he did two versions as well, it was Ed Regis, the sort of park PR guy, who's not in the final film, is in the, original novel, of course. And he'd given it to Regis, and you... And then obviously that character got cut in a later version, and then you suddenly think, he obviously gave it to John Hammond, and you think how on earth could, that line, you know, is so associated with…

4:12Jawad MirYeah

4:12James Mottram... With Sir Rich… with John Hammond, with Sir Richard Attenborough's, performance. How on earth could that ever have been in someone else's mouth, potentially? But it was at one point or another. So it's really... I sort of dug deep into the previous scripts and tried to look at various, you know, iterations and how things change. So that's, so a lot of the stuff in the book, a lot of these little box-outs are sort of script based rather than, let's say regurgitating how, the visual effects for the dinosaurs came alive, which you can read about in the other book, if you see what I mean. I mean, there's a little bit of that in there, but it's much more sort of text based of going back into the novel, looking at the differences there, going back into these earlier scripts, as I said. So that's basically what the idea of the script book is.

5:05Jawad MirYeah. And one of the things, I mean, going back, thank you for, explaining all that. I think that's fantastic. One of the things I really loved, like I said, I was surprised about the size of this book, 'cause I was, I was traveling and I ordered it, and I was thinking in my head, the package came and I'm thinking in my how, which bag am I gonna put it in? Like, in my backpack, or am I gonna check it in? 'Cause I was assuming the big size, right? And then I open it and it's like this, and it was so great because I try… I was reading it on the plane. I mean, you can't read these books on the plane. I mean, you can, but it's just way too much space for the seat that you have, right? So that was a really great thing about it. And one of the things I noticed in there was there was an original... I don't know if you ever looked at the original Making of Jurassic Park book that came out way back in the '90s. You can even get it on eBay.

5:53James MottramI'm looki… I'm looking at it down there on my floor. I have that book.

5:56Jawad MirOkay, so you have it. Which I need to get, because I somehow lost it. I need to get it again. And, it has some of the…

6:02James MottramAnd it is, I might add, sorry, just to interrupt, but it is…

6:05Jawad MirYeah

6:05James Mottram... I will say this Pa… partly because it was a sort of Bible when I was writing The Ultimate Visual History Jurassic Park book. And I would genuinely say it's one of the greatest making of books I've ever read in a... There's that one and there's also one for The Lost World as well. But the Jurassic Park one, it shows you how well these books can be written if you've had fantastic access, which the writers on that book did, and but they turned it into something, you know, it's a brilliant, you know, a brilliant sort of text to kind of really capture how th… that film came to... You know, that film was obviously such a groundbreaking movie, and they were there, those writers, on the front lines, basically, and I can't, I can't speak highly enough about that book.

6:50Jawad MirAnd I think that book actually started the trend of all the books that have followed after that. Like, all the books that you see here, I mean, these are just a small percentage of it. Like, the shooting scripts, the making of, you know, all these things. And I think there was this magazine, what was it called? Cinefex? Cinefex?

7:09James MottramYes.

7:09Jawad MirLike, you know, I…

7:10James MottramAnd, you know, Jody Duncan, who co-wrote that making of book, is a regular, and possibly even editor, I'm not sure, but definitely a regular writer at Cinefex, and covered all of those Jurassic movies for Cinefex as well. Obviously there going into the special effects and the visual effects.

7:26Jawad MirYeah.

7:26James MottramAnd again, those articles were y… you know, absolutely fundamental to me in terms of research and brilliant, brilliantly written articles and, you know, J… Jody spoke to hundreds of people it feels like and yeah, cataloged those films absolutely brilliantly.

7:43Jawad MirYeah, I have some of those magazines still. Here we go. They're not on Jurassic Park, but there is the AI one.

7:53James MottramWow. Yeah.

7:54Jawad MirAnd then War of the Worlds.

7:58James MottramI think I only ever saw…

7:59Jawad MirOh

7:59James Mottram... The, like, the digital versions of those. I don't think I've ever actually seen the magazine in the flesh.

8:05Jawad Mir2001: Space Odyssey. They're great. And, Minority Report. I mean, they've been around for a long time, but I think I got a whole bunch in the '90s. But yeah, I mean, they're, they're kind of, like, going... What we were talking about, like the books that you worked on, but more from the effects standpoint.

8:22James MottramYeah.

8:22Jawad MirBut you know, one thing that I was wondering when this book was announced or when you told me about the book, I'm like, "Why are they coming out with a book when the films are all done?" Right? And then this big announcement happens with Jurassic World, another film that's coming out, on July 2nd, 2025, with David Koepp, writing the script. And then they announced the director or kind of said that this guy might be the director who might be directing it. I forget his name, but he had directed something really fast-paced

9:00James MottramOh, you're thinking of, I think you're thinking of David Leitch, I think.

9:03Jawad MirYes. Yes

9:04James Mottram... But he's now not connected to it.

9:06Jawad MirI did, 100%.

9:07James MottramYou, I'm assuming you know who is connected to it now.

9:10Jawad MirYeah. Yeah. So when I, when I first read David Leitch, I'm like, "Eh, w… why are we going in that direction?" And then all of a sudden there was an announcement he may not be involved, and then the Gareth Edwards thing happened. And you and I have talked about Gareth Edwards…

9:22James MottramYeah

9:22Jawad Mir... About The Creator, and I could not think of anyone better…

9:27James MottramI who…

9:27Jawad Mir... To helm on Jurassic World.

9:29James MottramI wholeheartedly agree. It's like, it's almost the film he was built to make on some level, having done obviously Godzilla and, well, having, I guess, having done The Creator, too. It feels absolutely perfect. I can't... And you know, Gareth and David Koepp back from writing, you know, this is Koepp's first, I suppose you'd say first original Jurassic script because he adapted the Jurassic Park and The Lost World, and then he's kind of been involved in the background consulting on some of the later films. He's been around, but he's never had a credit. But this would be his first original take on the franchise, and yeah, I have to admit, I'm thoroughly excited about this whole, you know, this whole enterprise. It, I haven't really talked to that many Jurassic fans about it, but I can imagine they're all stoked that this could be the combination.

10:26Jawad MirIt, I'm part of some Facebook groups and Reddit, threads and everything, and it is, the response has been incredible on Gareth Edwards. And he, I mean, the only thing, I was like, "Where are they gonna go with this?" But then again, there's no official confirmation on this, but there have been some rumors that this could be a prequel to Jurassic Park. So they may do a trilogy to the original thing, which again, there is no confirmation. This is just speculation and rumors. But I, yeah, I just cannot wait, and the fact that it's coming out next year, I mean, would mean that they probably are going to get into production any time as we speak. 'Cause, you know, there's also obviously special effects and marketing and all that stuff. So it would be something incredible to witness. And Gareth being a huge fan of Spielberg himself, like growing up with his movies and making his first film, Monsters, which is one of the best movies an independent director has ever made from a story standpoint, from a visual effects standpoint.

11:26Jawad MirAnd he knows, and you and I talked about this, about that how he's one of the very few directors who know how to merge the story in such a way with the visual effects where visual effects are the story. And he's just perfect for this film. The, just ca… I cannot wait for it. I cannot wait for it.

11:41James MottramYeah, I have to say, I hadn't heard the rumor about the prequels, and now you say that makes kind of more sense in a way that he would be beginning a new franchise rather than, say, let's call it Jurassic World 4, which might have a bunch of new characters in it.

12:00Jawad MirYeah.

12:00James MottramBut, and okay, that would be the beginning of a new franchise, but in a way just feels like a continuation of what we've seen with Dominion, i.e. The dinosaurs out in the world. Now, that's fine. You could, you can, you know, come up with a new story. But the idea of a prequel leading up to Jurassic Park does sound very interesting. So presumably, a young John Hammond, et cetera, et cetera.

12:26Jawad MirYeah. Yeah. And I think that would be really good because that's, that... If they do Jurassic World story onwards, it's kinda like been done, I mean, in my view. It's just gonna seem, feel the same. But having like a small scale... I don't know if you've ever seen that movie, Bumblebee?

12:42James MottramYes, I've seen that

12:43Jawad Mir... Like, the Transformers spinoff, the early... It was a very grounded film. And…

12:47James MottramIt was actually one of the better Transformers…

12:49Jawad MirYeah, I agree

12:49James Mottram... Well, in this case, spinoff, like you said. But yeah.

12:51Jawad MirYeah. And I think if they kinda take that approach, but obviously with dinosaurs of some s… in some capacity, just exploring who John Hammond was, because h… his character was amazing in the first Jurassic Park, right? Like, he was like the playing God and how he kinda turns around and realizes what a big mistake he's made. Exploring that, and obviously with the dinosaurs and everything, and getting it to the park, and those incidents happened in, at the, in the, where the way the first film opens up, I'm not sure if you remember, where they're trying to contain a raptor.

13:25James MottramYes

13:25Jawad Mir... You know, and leading up to that. That would be really cool. But we'll see. I mean, I'm assuming if the release date is July 22nd, July 2nd, 2025, they're probably gonna release something of synopsis or a teaser this summer, just to kind of get the, you know, the people ex… fans excited.

13:45James MottramBut it'll probably just be a raptor in a cage, you know, shaking a cage…

13:49Jawad MirYeah

13:49James Mottram... Or something, and growling. And, just to, just to tease us a little bit more. But yeah, that'll be, it will be fascinating to see what direction it goes in. I mean, I can't wait to find that out. I mean, it's just, it's, it's, I mean, it makes complete sense they are doing another one, given Dominion made a billion dollars. You sort of think, "Well, they're not gonna just stop now, are they?" But…

14:11Jawad MirYeah

14:11James Mottram... Like you said, w… Dominion, you know, you could carry on that story, but you have to come up with a really good one. It can't just be dinosaurs escaping and running amok, 'cause they're, they're out there now in the world. So, I mean, you know, I did enjoy Camp Cretaceous, the Netflix, animated show.

14:30Jawad MirOh, the kids'... Yeah.

14:30James MottramYeah. And that was very clever in the way that it ran parallel in the timelines to the Jurassic films, and that was cleverly done. I did wonder if maybe they would, they would bring some of those kids, if they were gonna do a continuation of Jurassic World, if they were gonna bring some of those kids as in, you know, flesh them out with, in, you know, human form, not animated form. But, yeah, but a prequel idea, that's pretty good too.

14:54Jawad MirYeah. Going back to your book, James, I mean, you kinda touched upon it, but this obviously was... Not to take away any of the work that, you know, you and David did on this, but it was a smaller scale book. And working with David, what was that experience like? Were you on phone with him all the, most of the time? Was it just few calls? Just…

15:18James MottramIt…

15:18Jawad Mir... Sort of working with him.

15:20James MottramYeah. It, to be honest, it was, it was one call, one interview.

15:23Jawad MirOkay.

15:23James MottramI mean, he was in the middle of shooting something, and as I said earlier, very graciously gave me some time, to talk to him. So but there were three people in the end that I interviewed. And I should at this point pay a little tribute to Derek Davis, who, was a great assistance on the book. He's a, you know, very knowledgeable in the Jurassic universe, and it was him that pointed out, that... So just to sort of backtrack, basically, so you had the Crichton novel. Crichton wrote a couple of adapt… Cr… a couple of scripts himself, then he sort of said to Spielberg, "I've done my bit. I'm stepping back. You take the scripts and do what you will." Now, at this point, of course, they're, they're trying to figure out what they can even, how they can even bring these dinosaurs to life. So they're having meetings with, you know, all the special, the visual effects guys, the special effects guys. And so you then have Rick Carter, the production designer, who's obviously central to all of these kind of meetings.

16:26James MottramAnd at a certain point, Rick comes up with his own script, basically.

16:31Jawad MirYeah.

16:31James MottramWhich is not an official script. It was never meant to be an official script. So, in this, in this book that I did, we kinda refer to it as a kinda working document. And it was Derek that sort of was, that had pointed this out to me. So he,.. And so I went back to Rick and talked to him about his, version. And there are little subtle differences in what he did to, say, what Crichton did, and then what Koepp did later on. So again, it's all part of that evolution that I was talking about with the scripts. Now, it wasn't really meant as a sort of serious script. It was more a way for Rick to as… assemble the ideas of the storyline in his mind as he was kinda putting this together. But it's still a sort of fascinating step in the chain of scripts. So we talked about his, as I say, I call it working document. And then I suppose the one I'm proudest of, if that's the right word, is I got to talk to Malia Scotch Marmo, who'd worked on Hook, the Spielberg film before Jurassic Park.

17:35Jawad MirJurassic, yeah.

17:36James MottramNow, yeah, so now Malia, adapted, you know, worked on the script for that. And after the Crichton ones, I think after the... Well, the Carter one was sort of, as I say, unofficial, but after Carter had done his work, Malia was brought on to do a version herself. And you mentioned the making of book earlier, that was produced at the time of the film. Malia is quoted in that book about her work on the script. And then, you know, in the end, Spielberg decided to go in another direction, and that's the point that he brought David Koepp in. Excuse me. But, Malia, si… since sort of b… talking to the writers for that Making Of book, Malia ha… hasn't really talked about her Jurassic experience, so I managed to sort of find her and sort of persuade her to talk. And so there's some, there are some quotes in there from Malia which I was, you know…

18:31Jawad MirYeah

18:31James Mottram... I'm delighted to have in there because there really isn't much material from her out in the world about her experience on writing Jurassic Park. And it, you know, it's really difficult I'm sure for a screenwriter to talk about a film that they worked on that ultimately they're not credited for. But I think, you know, all the Jurassic fans, the hardcore fans know that she was involved and that she, again, was a part of this evolution, part of this chain. And, you know, it's... I guess it's nice to give her a little bit of credit, where it's due because, as, you know, she's a very important part of that process.

19:08Jawad MirYeah, 100%. And thank you for sharing such detailed breakdown of the process that you went through. I think, like I said earlier, it's just amazing that all this stuff on Jurassic Park keeps coming out. You know, the books, the Camp Cretaceous series. I think there's another season if I read, if I'm not mistaken, that I read. And I saw the other day, I think it was, Sony that released, the Jurassic Park games from the beginning of time, like since the first PlayStation, on a disc so you can play on, you know, PlayStation 5 or 4. So it kind of shows you the evolution not just of the technology, but also kind of like reliving, you know, the '90s and all that stuff. Again, all this stuff is really fun. And I keep checking on, you know, sometimes on Facebook and eBay, the ridiculous amount of merchandise there is on, out there on Jurassic Park, and it's just, again, it's... If the film made $1 billion, just imagine the merchandise, what that would do.

20:09James MottramWell, quite. I mean, I think there's a new video game coming out as well. I think it's Jurassic Park…

20:13Jawad MirYeah

20:13James Mottram... Survivor, is it?

20:14Jawad MirSurvival, yeah

20:15James Mottram... Yeah, Survival, and which looks amazing. It looks great. I mean, that's kinda like, that looks good enough to buy a, you know, console or whatever it's on. I'm not sure what format it's on. But, yeah, it's, it's, I mean, second only to Star Wars, isn't it really, in terms of like the nature of this franchise, this enormous beast, and it just keeps on giving. I am amazed. I mean, since I wrote or got into starting to research that first book, which now takes me back to, well, almost four years ago, I don't think I quite realized back then how big, how, i… crazy the fandom was for it and how vast this franchise... Well, I mean, you know, this franchise has evolved even since I, you know, started on that book, as you've just described, with, you know, video games and animated series and, well, an… another film that was released in, 2022, and now, you know, the one that's coming in 2025.

21:19James MottramYeah, it's just go, it just goes on and on. And the fandom and the fervor for it just doesn't stop.

21:28Jawad MirI actually wonder, and I think about this, because the first Jurassic Park obviously created such a big, you know... It just created something brand new, and then Lost World did something to add to it. It wasn't as amazing, but people still enjoyed it. I enjoyed the experience of watching it on the opening, like the pre-opening day. And, the third one was, disappointing to a lot of fans, but I still enjoyed it. And then between the third one and Jurassic World, there was a gap of at least 11, 10, 11 years. So I think the fandom kinda did disappear or die, or it was always there. But I think with the ev… with the technology and with social media and then the new film that came out, Jurassic World, everything changed. I think that really changed it. And I think they realized that they waited too long for the new trilogy to start, and that's why they're banking on a new one before they lose that momentum and that s… and that, s… audience, you know, love for these films.

22:32Jawad MirA… as sometimes as bad as they could be, but still people love to go see them.

22:37James MottramWell, I guess that, i… interim period you're referring to, it wasn't for the want of trying. There were a number of attempts to get Jurassic, s… well, let's call it Jurassic World, scripts written or I think they were calling it Jurassic Park 4 at that point.

22:52Jawad MirYeah.

22:52James MottramAnd th… things just never quite happened.

22:56Jawad MirYeah

22:56James Mottram... So…

22:56Jawad MirAnd that's all in your original book, just to…

22:58James MottramYeah

22:58Jawad Mir... Let the audience know. Yeah.

22:59James MottramI mean, to some degree. And I think in some respects, obviously it did, it did die down, the fervor, around that time, but there were always kind of video games or comics or whatever around at that time. So even then, the franchise sort of bubbled away, albeit not on the scale it has been for the last 10 years since Co… since Colin Trevorrow's Jurassic World came out. And yeah, you're right. Now they're not gonna let it go, you know, they're not gonna let it go dormant for another 10 years. E… especially... I mean, you, I suppose you could, and then just there'd be a new generation getting back into it. But really it makes sense while all these players, you know, David Koepp and Gareth, as we were discussing, are all around and making stuff, get it into production. I mean, I, you know, I'll be honest, I was shocked when I sudden… you know, there was sudden, this sudden announcement that David was involved.

23:53Jawad MirSo was I. Yeah.

23:54James MottramI was shocked. But at the same time, it makes complete sense. So, but what format this film will take, as we were just discussing, will, is another matter. But, yeah, I mean, y… you'd be foolish not... I mean, it is Universal's, it's jew… it's their jewel in the crown, isn't it? It's, apart from maybe the Fast and the Furious franchise, which is obviously huge as well, but Jurassic has endured over a much longer period of time. So yeah, y… of course they're gonna, of course they're gonna bring it, put another one into play. But a… at least this new one has such sort of credibility ties back to the original with David Koepp, and obviously Frank Marshall's producing. Patrick Crowley is also producing, and he was kind of... He steered the Jurassic World franchise, you know, onto, into screens. So yeah, to, it, to me it all sounds extremely hopeful.

24:46Jawad MirYeah. And I don't know, I mean, this is kind of going off topic, but it's... I don't know how many years will we... What's the right way of putting this? Have you heard of this new technology by OpenAI called Sora?

24:59James MottramI haven't, no.

25:00Jawad MirOkay. Go to their website and watch it. It hasn't out yet, but they... It's kind of like ChatGPT, and I'll tie it up to Jurassic Park in a second. It's text to video. So basically you can write out a scene, right? Like a girl in a red suit walking down the downtown streets of Japan or et cetera, whatever. And in a matter of seconds it actually produces a photorealistic video that lasts 15 to 20 seconds, and that came out two weeks ago. It's not out public yet. They just released, you know, some of the, tests. And it's... When I saw that, and a lot of people in the industry saw that, it's just... Even Tyler Perry just, said in The Hollywood Reporter the other day that he was gonna start building a new studio, and after seeing that he's holding off, 'cause that's gonna change a lot of stuff. And I... Going t… how to, how to tie that to Jurassic Park is, or Jurassic Park films, is the idea of dinosaurs and CGI and all that stuff, if this is so powerful and so great at this point in the opening era of OpenAI Sora, I don't even know what's gonna happen the next two, three years.

26:16Jawad MirAnd that will affect all the films, it will affect budgets to go down, and it will affect obviously work, but I wonder how that sort of affects films like Jurassic Park. Maybe not in the next four or five years, but down the road it's gonna have a huge impact. But take a look at it. I mean, you'll be blown away. You'll absolutely be blown away.

26:35James MottramWe'll

26:36Jawad MirIt's amazing

26:36James Mottram... We'll all, we'll all be making our own Jurassic Park films basically, and, you know, or at least our own dinosaur films.

26:43Jawad MirYeah. It's, it's insane how technology has... I mean, it's, as a techie person I love it, but it's just going in a direction so fast that I don't know how long we will see what we see the way we see it. It's just gonna change things quite a bit, but we'll see. If they have some sort of massive regulations on them it'd be good. But I would love to explore... It'd be fun to do things by, you know, sitting on the computer and produce all these little videos, but to do it professionally would be interesting to see how Hollywood, adapts to it.

27:20James MottramYeah. I mean, that's, that is cutting edge technology basically. But, we will see. I mean, you know, it, how these things are made is one thing. I'm always much more interested in the story and what story…

27:32Jawad MirYeah, I know

27:33James Mottram... And what story they come up with. And I'm sure most Jurassic fans are too.

27:37Jawad MirBut the problem is how far it's gonna go. And I guess we have to adapt, and I think in that it happens when the tractor came out people were freaking out, when the internet came out people are freaking out, when social media came out people are freaking out. So people find a way to adapt, but this would be interesting to see how we adapt as a, as a, in the industry and as society as a whole. What's next for you?

28:01James MottramWell…

28:01Jawad MirIf that's something you can talk about.

28:02James MottramYeah. Yeah, I think I can talk about this now. So well it's interesting that we were talking about Gareth, 'cause obviously he worked on Godzilla. I've got an art book coming out, again for Insight, on Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, which is obviously Adam Wingard's second film in the Monsterverse, y… you know, universe. So that will be out, well, after the film, which is out…

28:28Jawad MirMay 14th

28:29James Mottram... I think it's March 29th I think now actually.

28:33Jawad MirOkay. Amazon's saying May 14th even though you have the…

28:35James MottramOh, for the, oh, for the book. Sorry. I thought you meant…

28:36Jawad MirBook. Yeah

28:37James Mottram... For the film.

28:37Jawad MirYeah.

28:37James MottramYeah. So it's a c… it's a six weeks or so after the film comes out. And that's mainly looking at the artwork, 'cause it's incredible concept art that those guys did for that. So I got to speak to a lot of concept artists, which is not something I've done a lot of before. And that, so that was fascinating actually. And yeah, if you're, if you're into those films, it, you know, again, the artwork in the book is beautiful, so, yeah, I would definitely check that out.

29:11Jawad MirI saw the trailer for that. Wasn't too crazy about it. I loved Gareth Edwards', Godzilla's, and I also saw the new series that came out on Apple. I don't know if you saw that, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. And, it deals with, like, all these monsters and Godzilla. It's, like, a nine or 10 part series. Kurt Russell is in it. And Kurt Russell's son is in it. I forget his name. But it basically span over, like, three different time periods. So yeah, I mean, I will see the movie no doubt. I did see, what was that one with,.. This came out like five, six years ago where they go in the forest. In I think in Viet… Was it in Vietnam or somewhere? Where…

29:56James MottramAre you thinking, is it, are you thinking of Kong

30:00Jawad MirKingdom of S… Skull or something?

30:02James MottramYeah, Kong: Skull Island you're thinking of I think.

30:04Jawad MirYeah. That I was, I enjoyed. I really liked that movie. I was surprised. This one looks interesting, but we'll see. I mean, I'll still watch it. But I will watch it, and I'm more fascinated with, w… how they make obviously the creatures. And the concept art is something that I really enjoy, because I've spoken to a lot of people over the years when I, even when I used to do my website, like, all these concept artists whose work probably s… never sees the light of the day in the film, but they're just so beautiful to, you know…... See and just kind of, like, absorb, like, this, you know, amazing piece of work. So I'm glad that you did this from this angle because it's, it's totally different than talking to writers and actors and directors. It, they're a just completely different group of people, who have this amazing vision, and some of their vision never sees the light of day.

30:51James MottramYeah, and it, I think they all appreciated having, someone come back to them and talk about their artwork. And a lot of these guys had done a lot of this stuff a long time ago, and then obviously ideas evolve and change. And it was kind of fascinating to... I did a l… lot of Zoom interviews basically, and then I'd just share the images that I'd been given and just say, "You know, tell me about this," and, "Why is it looking like this?" And then, "What was your inspiration for this?" And you'd just get some funny little anecdotes. And A… Adam, who I did get to speak to for the book, was fantastic, so he is, he is a great he's a cr… he's a great guy. So, yeah, I think it'll be a, I think it'll be a fun book. And, yeah, well, we should talk about it, you know, but in May…

31:37Jawad Mir100%

31:38James Mottram... When it comes out.

31:39Jawad Mir100%, would love to. And I'm just curious, I mean, it seems like obviously watching movies and critic… critiquing, reviewing them, and then writing these books, how much of a time does it take you to produce a book? Like, to work on a book like this? Like, you know, obviously you can't measure the hours, but I'm just kind of curious. Like, does it take up a lot of your time on top of your schedule, or…

32:02James MottramYeah

32:02Jawad Mir... Is it just…

32:02James MottramIt do… it certainly... Well, weird… weirdly, the S… Jurassic Park script book was meant as a kind of quick job…

32:11Jawad MirYeah

32:11James Mottram... Effectively.

32:12Jawad MirYeah, and I can tell, yeah.

32:13James MottramAnd yes, it's definitely not got the depth of the Ultimate Visual History books, but, I mean, you know, the honest story of the script book was that I was given a, you know, pretty, you know, short deadline, and, w… was kind of encouraged to sort of, you know, write as quickly as possible and, you know, in a way use anecdotes that weren't in the visual history book, but material that effectively in a way got cut out or never quite made it. And I did that, and then it didn't really work, and we were kind of like, "Ah, it's too close to the visual history book."

32:54Jawad MirYeah.

32:54James MottramAnd that's what I said at the beginning. We didn't want a reader to come and buy that book having bought the other one, and then just think, "Oh, this is just a rip-off of the first book."

33:02Jawad MirYeah.

33:02James MottramSo that's... So basically my second draft, if you like, was then that's when I spoke to David and Rick, and then eventually Malia as well, and that formed the backbone of what you have now read. And so it... But that f… the first draft I think I did it in a week, which was crazy. That was, like, a crazy week. I remember that week very well. But, and then obviously then I went back and did those interviews, and then slowly started weeding out the box-outs that didn't work. Some of them I kept. Some of them did work, but, some of them didn't, and then replaced them with, you know, this sort of new material I got. I mean, obviously as you've seen, the box-outs are sort of 2, 300 words maximum. They d… they don't take long to write…

33:49Jawad MirYeah

33:49James Mottram... Particularly. So that wasn't an exhaustive... You know, compared to the visual history book which took, you know... I mean, that was my sort of pandemic project, if you like. But, and the, and the Godzilla one wasn't too bad because again it's, relatively short bits of text, where you, again, it's more artwork driven. But, you know, I did I don't know how many now, sort of 15, 20 interviews, whatever it was. You know, there was a decent number of interviews in the,.. But it certainly wasn't the longest project. It's strange when you do these things, yeah, you definitely don't wanna think about the hours you put in…

34:25Jawad MirYeah, of course. Yeah

34:25James Mottram... Because then you think, "Oh my God."

34:27Jawad MirYeah.

34:27James MottramI mean, it does take over your weekends and evenings and what have you, as you say, on t… or however you structure your day, but on top of your other, your f… your normal schedule of trying to see movies and do everything else that I'm trying to do. So it all blurs into one basically.

34:44Jawad MirAwesome. Well, that's good to know. A… and I know, and people know that it's a lot of hard work that goes into these books. And, you know, the amount of time that you spent on these books, and the books that you are working on are phenomenal. I mean, I've pretty much gotten everything that you have written in the, since Jurassic Park. So really excited about all your work. The upcoming book, Godzilla and Kong, that would be really exciting just from the standpoint of creativity and h… what went into it. I may... I know I may not enjoy the film as much as I may enjoy the book, so really looking forward to the…

35:20James MottramThat's very kind of you. That's very kind of you.

35:21Jawad MirAnd

35:21James MottramI'm sure you'll enjoy the film too.

35:24Jawad MirI hope so. I hope so. I think I need to sort of sometimes... It becomes hard. Like, now I'm looking into films a little too much from a story standpoint, and some, you know, some of these films don't really have great characters and incredible story. They're just kind of like, you know, fun pieces. But I think I just need to sort of figure out a way in my head how to take that out and just watch it as a form of entertainment, and then go back to the way things were. So I have to figure out a way how to do that, but I'll still watch it anyways. I'll still watch it anyways.

35:57James MottramYeah. No, I think you should. I mean, it's, I think after June it's the next big, you know, blockbuster to come out, isn't it? I think so

36:06Jawad MirYeah

36:07James Mottram... 'cause we're about a month or less than a month away from its release. So, it feels like a good time for it to be released, that sort of springtime before we get into those big summer releases.

36:18Jawad MirYeah.

36:18James MottramYeah, you know, so, I'd say go and see it.

36:22Jawad MirI will. I will. Awesome. Thanks so much, James, for your time, and as always, looking forward to chatting more.

36:27James MottramYeah. Take care. Cheers. Bye-bye.

36:29Jawad MirTake care. Bye-bye.