'TMNT, Mutant Mayhem', Author, Jim Sorenson

0:08Jawad MirHey, everyone. This is your host Jawad at Kingdom of Dreams podcast. In today's conversation, I will have Jim Sorenson, who wrote the book The Art of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. We had a great chat about the book, the art, the film, the series, and everything else in terms of superheroes and comics. So here's my conversation.

0:28Jim SorensonHowdy.

0:28Jawad MirLove your h… howdy.

0:30Jim SorensonI had…

0:30Jawad MirI love your hat.

0:32Jim SorensonYeah, appreciate it.

0:34Jawad MirApologies for being a little late. Just ran into some technical issues, but all good now.

0:40Jim SorensonNo problem. I'm just gonna turn up the volume so I can hear you a bit better.

0:44Jawad MirIs this better?

0:45Jim SorensonYeah, that's good. I j… I just upped the volume on my end.

0:50Jawad MirGreat.

0:50Jim SorensonAm I coming through okay?

0:50Jawad MirWhere are you right now? Yeah, you're g…

0:52Jim SorensonI'm at home

0:52Jawad Mir... You're sounding great. As in, like, which part of the

0:56Jim SorensonIt's my living room.

0:59Jawad MirOkay. I…

1:01Jim SorensonYeah

1:01Jawad Mir... I was more so about, like, which state are you in America? Where

1:04Jim SorensonOh, New Mexico.

1:05Jawad MirNew Mexico. That's what I thought.

1:07Jim SorensonNew Mexico. Yeah.

1:09Jawad MirYeah.

1:09Jim SorensonJust next door to Texas. I got that, I got that vibe going on.

1:14Jawad MirYeah, I mean, New Mexico is very similar in terms of, culture and vibe, to Texas, no? Correct me if I'm wrong.

1:20Jim SorensonIn some ways, yeah. It's, it's a much bluer state. You know, we've been Democratic for quite a while, so, obviously not much to do with Turtles, but, you know, w… we're, we're the, sort of the Southwestern state that's, you know, Democratic, and that's where people in Texas who need an abortion are going to right now, so.

1:42Jawad MirYeah. Yeah. Got it. Got it. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, man, for joining. Appreciate it. It's, it's good to have you on, the podcast. You know, just to kinda give you some context, I... My teen years were defined by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Probably the first show that I ever saw when I migrated to Canada. And, you know, seen the first two films, and then I lost all the films in between. I have no idea when they came out or how they were or how terrible or good they were. And then this new film that came out in the summer definitely excited me with its animation, with its characters, and with its just, you know, humor, just the way it was back in the late '80s and early '90s. So, really a huge fan. I loved the film. I went through your book, really enjoyed that as well. And just to kinda give people more perspective about who you are before we get into the book, what's your journey in life has been, and what do you do?

2:46Jawad MirAre you an author, or is that sort of a side thing? What's, what's Jim's story?

2:52Jim SorensonSo, these days, I am primarily an author. ... I started writing, I s… I got first published in 2007 with a Transformers book of animation models. And, I was a big, I was a big Transformers kiddo. You were saying that, Turtles was one of the first ones that you glommed onto. For me, 1984, it was, it was Transformers. I thought it was amazing. I loved the commercial. I loved the comic. I loved the TV show. And I wound up being really fascinated by some of the production artwork that went into making, the cartoons and, incidentally, the comics as well. They shared the same set of animation models. And I bought off eBay, on the secondary market, a comic book bible which had all the characters' bios and the designs, the turnarounds front s… front and back for most of the characters in their robot and their vehicle or their animal modes. And I thought it was so cool, and I wanted to share it with the world. And a buddy of mine was the art director over at the Intrepid Museum in New York, which is the aircraft carrier, sea air space museum, and, the two of us put together a pitch, and we were able to convince IDW to do a 200-page book of black and white animation models, which was, you know, kind of a, kind of a tough sell, but it was quite successful.

4:16Jim SorensonIt sold really well. And then we did a follow-up volume, and then we did a couple of books for the Transformers animated show that was, contemporary at the time on Cartoon Network, and we did one for Transformers Prime. And I'd just been doing a ton of, different art books. Not just Transformers. I did some G.I. Joe ones. I did the, art book for the Angry Birds movie that came out.

4:41Jim SorensonAnd, that was, that was my first, you know, straight up movie art book that I did. And, later on I did some Transformers books that included the Transformers movies, although that wasn't the exclusive focus. So when they asked me, when my editor over at IDW Publishing asked me if I'd be interested in doing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles art book, you know, for the new film, I said, "Yeah, that sounds fantastic." And I got lucky because, you know, I agreed sort of sight unseen. I don't even think the trailer had dropped at that point. And, you know, when the trailer came out, I got to see, along with the rest of the world, what the art style looked like. I said, "Oh, okay, th… this is gonna be a treat." and then, when I, when I actually got a chance to start talking to the people, yeah, on the production side of things, it was, it was pretty incredible because they really... You know, so… some projects are done, you know, mainly to make a buck, and some projects are done because the people involved really, you know, have some story to tell, have some vision…

5:46Jim Sorenson... That they wanna share, and this was clearly in that latter category. Everybody that I spoke to, and they got, they let me talk to everybody. I had great access. It was fantastic. But everybody that I was able to speak to was so excited to be working on it. Some of them had grown up with it. Some of them just, you know, knew the brand because it was really big. But they were all de… Quite animated, if you'll forgive the pun, by the desire to, tell this deeply teenage story. And it shows in every aspect of the movie, especially the artwork, and that's why, you know, it's fun for me, as someone who mostly makes art books, to be able to showcase that. And, you know, not just their images, which are beautiful and gorgeous, and it's great to see those sort of production, pieces come to life, you know, on film and in the page, but also to hear them talk about what their process is and why they made certain choices and how they did it.

6:52Jim SorensonAnd, it was really gratifying on this one especially because the editorial mandate was very much to put the people who created the art front and center. We were really good about crediting which pieces were from which artists, and we were, we were able to get quotes and anecdotes from those artists and producers right next to their own work. And, you know, that's not something... Every studio and every, production company has their own philosophy about what they want their books to be and what the point of it is. And

7:36Jim Sorenson... This one was very artist-focused. And they're not always. You know, sometimes it's more corporate. You know, the, th… there's an idea that, some art is work for hire. But most of this art was probably work for hire. But, when it's work for hire, you can have, you can assert corporate ownership and then not credit the artists if…

7:57Jawad MirYeah

7:57Jim Sorenson... And that's a choice. It's, it wouldn't be my first choice as an author, but if that's, the publisher's or the licensor's first choice, then you roll with that and you do the best product that you can. But in this case, I was really enthusiastically on board with most of the choices that came, you know, from the licensors, you know, from Paramount. And, it was just a great project to work on. Sorry, that probably went in a million different directions.

8:25Jawad MirNo. That's great. That's, there's no script or format, so that's awesome. It's, really glad to hear that. I mean, you, as you were talking about Transformers and G.I. Joe, I remember, and you know, when I got into TMNT back in the 1990s, 1990, I remember watching ads for G.I. Joe, and there was obviously series at that time. I remember, with Thundercats, and there was Thunderbirds, there was Transformers, there was Barbie, and you know, all that era of that mid…'80s to, mid…'90s was all those kind of shows. And what I found interesting about the film was, so I had no idea. I just saw, I think, one trailer, or whatever the teaser was, and I don't think, or if they did, I probably wasn't paying attention. And I just saw it once. They showed, they didn't show, I think, Superfly, the villain, whi… which is in the film. Or they did, and I didn't, I didn't catch on to it. Because in the original series, the first episode was, Shredder, and then they showed...

9:29Jawad MirI don't know, have you seen the original series? Just to kind of…

9:32Jim SorensonSure

9:32Jawad Mir... Figure out if…

9:32Jim SorensonI mean, I was…

9:33Jawad MirYeah

9:33Jim Sorenson... I was at the tail end of that. Although my, the Turtle series that I really responded to was the 2003, Fox Kids series. You know… ... The second, well, the third one they did, 'cause they did the live action one from Saban too.

9:50Jawad MirYeah.

9:51Jim SorensonSecond cartoon that they did was kind of, was mine. But you couldn't, you couldn't avoid the Teenage Ninja Turtles cartoon if you were, you know, a kid or a teenager in that timeframe. And then you didn't want to. I mean, it was, it was so, it was so creative, you know? It was clearly following the tradition of, like, Masters of the Universe. You know, that, those kinds of…

10:15Jawad MirYeah

10:15Jim Sorenson... Wacky characters and designs. But sorry, you were saying?

10:20Jawad MirYeah, no, I found that, you know, Shredder being in the original series, the first episode, I, if I remember correctly, it was episode 11 or 12, or maybe 13, when the character of Superfly came in. I remember that episode was called "Enter the Fly." That was in the original series. So having seen that, I mean, when I first started watching the film, I was like, "Where's Shredder?" Right? But then the way they d… the way they did the characters, and th… they changed some things to how Splinter became Splinter. I mean, in the s… original series it's a lot different. But which was fine. I mean, I wasn't too, you know, turned off by it. But the way they developed, Superfly and Ice Cube, how he pulled that off, I thought that was phenomenal. And then as the credits rolled, which, I mean, the film has been out, so I will just say it, I'm sure people have seen it by now. You know, after the credits or halfway into the credits you see Shredder. Like, they kinda give introduction to Shredder in the post-credits, setting up the sequel or a bunch of other films and whatnot, which was fantastic.

11:21Jawad MirSo I thought, you know, the artwork and the characters, and I wasn't too crazy in the trailer when I saw, when I found out or when I heard that they were little kids playing teenagers. But when I saw the film, which is the way it should be, because they're teenagers, it made perfect sense, and it worked so well. And it was probably for me the original series and then the first film that came out where the Jim Henson, Muppet shop did all the puppeteer work. That and then this particular film in the TMNT world stand out, very much. And yeah, that's just a little bit about what my context is. But, you know, in terms of the book and access that you had, obviously the person who was really behind this film, was Seth Rogen. I mean, he's a big fan of the original series, as much as, you know, probably yourself, me, and a whole millions of other people. And what was speaking to him like about in terms of the, you know, your, the book that you worked on?

12:21Jim SorensonIt was a real treat for me because, you know, you... He's a, he's a bonafide movie star, and, you know, I don't get to chat with them too often. But they had, they had set up an interview with him, and it was, it was just half an hour. And they, th… they had warned me ahead of time, you know, like, you know, "Please don't go long 'cause he's not gonna cut you off, so, you know, you cut him off, you know, at the half-hour mark 'cause he's, he's, he's got places to go." I said, "Yeah, fine. I can, I can do that." And, it just flowed from him. You know, I prepared a list of questions, and I barely had to use them, you know, 'cause I would, I'd give him a half of a prompt, and before I could finish the prompt, he would be rolling with an anecdote. He was e… everything you'd expect, you know? He was witty, he was insightful, but he also was deeply passionate about the project.

13:22Jim SorensonYou know, he... Yeah, I mean, you could, you can and hopefully will read the interview in there 'cause we didn't have to cut…

13:29Jawad MirYeah, I did. I did

13:30Jim Sorenson... You know? It wasn't... I… I mean, that's more or less how the conversation went. I think I had one or two other, like, really short questions that may have, shown up elsewhere in the book, but it was just a real free-flowing conversation. I'm... If anything, we had, i… in the editing process, you know, I had to, you know, edit back in, like, my sentences because I didn't quite get to the end of them and, you know, it was clear from context, but, a conversation w… in writing has a different rhythm than a conversation that is spoken, so it... To the extent that we had to tweak it, that was what we had to do. But it w… it was just a delight, especially because he knew, he knew what he was talking. You know, he wasn't bullshitting, you know? He…

14:14Jawad MirYeah

14:14Jim Sorenson... He clearly was deeply interested in Turtles, and happy to be working on Turtles, and enthusiastic, and he gave great, funny answers. And it's, you know, th… those sort of elements really level up the, a book, and you can see how it's leveling up the film from what it could be. I mean, there have been seven Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies, you know, theatrically, yeah, plus a couple on TV. So…

14:44Jawad MirYeah

14:44Jim Sorenson... And some of them are amazing and, you know, some of them are less so. And this, t… to me, this genuinely was one of the amazing ones, and I feel like he's one of those voices that was always pushing to help, you know, d… to whatever choices need to, needed to be made. You know, it was clear to me, you know, even just from the half-hour conversation that he was one of the ones who's, who's pushing to make those choices the most interesting ones that they could be. You know, not the safe one, but, you know, the bold one that, you know, that might fail but didn't, and isn't it wonderful that it didn't?

15:19Jawad MirYeah, no, his interview with you was, great, and the reason I asked was, I mean, it's just basically for the audience who, you know, who may not have read the book or who may wanna read the book, just to kinda give them, some context, which, you know, which sort of leads me to my next question, is one thing that you said which is so spot on, and it's not just in this project, you can tell whether you're making or you're writing a book on your own, you know, which nobody will read, or making whatever, a movie or a TV series or independent short, whatever that is. You could tell the way a project comes out that it was started and carried through because of the love for that project versus just numbers, right? When it's just numbers, which is important, numbers are important because obviously it's a business at the end of the day, but when it's just numbers for the heck of just, you know, making money, it more or less of the time it doesn't hit the mark.

16:21Jawad MirAnd I think, I mean, I was reading it the other day, the merchandise in TMNT hit over $1 billion. I mean, that's insane.

16:30Jim SorensonI remember, I remember reading that. I remember looking at the box office numbers of the film, and they were fine. You know, I…

16:36Jawad MirYeah

16:36Jim Sorenson... I'm no expert there, but, you know, I looked at them and they said, "Oh, that looks like it's, it's doing, you know, it's not gonna be the number one movie this year, but it looks like it's solid." And then I read an article in Forbes or Business Insider or something that said, you know, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles merchandise hits a billion dollars for the first time." I'm like, "Okay, not first time ever, but, you know, the first time in recent years."

16:55Jawad MirYeah.

16:56Jim SorensonI said, "Oh, well, it, yes, that's, that's part of it." I mean, my son, who's 10, he, this was his first real exposure to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and he said, "Oh, can we, can we get the toys?" I said, "Yeah, su… sure we can." So we got the four Turtles, and then, we wound up getting some of the, some of the classic ones. We got a Krang and a Shredder, so…

17:19Jawad MirYeah

17:19Jim Sorenson... So they'd have some… they could fight. But they're just…

17:21Jawad MirYeah

17:21Jim Sorenson... Fun to fiddle with, you know?

17:24Jawad MirYeah, no, it is. And the good thing about the merchandise making so much money is even if the film didn't do much profit, which I don't know if it did or not, it doesn't matter because they're gonna make another film or two just because the merchandise did so much. I mean, even after their cut and, you know, retail and all that stuff, whatever they're gonna get, it's, it's gonna be a profitable thing in that they g… they will make another film which will generate more merchandise and whatnot. What was the most difficult... I mean, you said you had access, and that's one thing in making films, whether you're writing a book or making a documentary, access is a huge thing aside from telling a great story or writing a great book. What access you... You said you pretty much got all of them. Was there anything, any particular one which was hard to get because of schedule or that you really wanted to get or it didn't work out?

18:15Jim SorensonNo. I'd, I'd say I was able to talk to everybody I wanted to. It took a while to schedule the Seth interview, and it… It might have taken a while to schedule the interview with, Jeff Rowe, who was the director.

18:28Jim SorensonAlthough, I had a second interview. I had two interviews with him, 'cause the first one was really great, but it was done very early in the... He was one of the first people I spoke to, and I think it took a while to set up the second interview, but I really wanted to, ask him some follow-up questions once I had a better sense as to what the movie was and I'd spoken to so many other people, because I could ask, you know, frankly better questions. The Jeff Rowe interview, that's presented in the book is something of a Frankenstein. That was two... A… and I, we may have alluded to that in the book, we may not. Yeah, I mean, I'm not doing hard-hitting journalism, so I don't feel too bad taking two interviews and smooshing them together and cutting out a couple of quotes and putting them elsewhere in the book, because I feel like I'm, I'm accurately and honestly presenting his sentiment and his ideas. You know, it's not a New York Times piece on Israel or anything.

19:27Jawad MirYeah.

19:27Jim SorensonBut it's,.. But so th… that definitely happened, and I think it reads, I think it reads pretty through. And when I was conducting the second interview, I knew that was my plan, and I'd already pulled out some, you know, quite a few quotes from Jeff and used them elsewhere in the book. So I kind of knew, where I needed to add connective tissue and ask a question in a specific way so it would feel like a follow-up to an earlier question, even if it wasn't.

19:53Jawad MirYeah.

19:53Jim SorensonAnd I told at the beginning that I was doing that, so it wasn't a surprise to him. I said, "If I ask you a weird question, like, that's why." And I think, I think I had a question, I don't remember what it was, but there was a specific question that Paramount had said, "Please ask Jeff this." And I, and I had to say, "Okay, I'm gonna ask you a question and it's one that the studio specifically requested, so, I'm sorry if it, if it breaks the flow of our conversation, but, you know."

20:22Jawad MirNo.

20:22Jim SorensonAnd it wasn't even a bad question or anything, it just, y… y… I mean, as an interviewer yourself, again, you know that there are certain conversational rhythms, and if you then interrupt with something that is obviously, that you're verbatim reading some question that someone else had given you, it reads weird. But the challenge wasn't access to people. The challenge with this one was, getting access to the designs, because we were working on the book while the movie was still in production.

20:59Jim SorensonSo, you know, we were... A… and I don't mean this in any kind of a negative way, we were an afterthought, as we should have been. The priority…

21:09Jawad MirYeah

21:09Jim Sorenson... Must always be to create a great movie. But I had a vision early on that we would, maybe give each mutant, and there's, there's 14 mutants in the book, you know, the four turtles, and there's Splinter, and there's Superfly, and then eight more mutants. And I had, I had thought that maybe we could get, give each mutant in the book their own chapter or maybe a mini chapter. And they wound up getting a page each, which, is sort of the minimum that you'd want to do them justice. But I would have loved to give them, like, four pages each, but they just didn't have that level of material created and avail... Like, it's not even like they weren't giving it to us. I don't even know if it necessarily existed. So, you know, we wound up using the material that we had to craft the book. And very late in the process, when the book was all starting to come together, it would be more apparent where the gaps were. And, filling those gaps could be an issue just because everyone, you know, on the, on the art side of the production of the movie was so busy trying to hit the deadlines of the movie.

22:19Jim SorensonAnd here I am, the fly buzzing in the ear saying, "Well, can you give me, like, a, an early design sketch? Maybe something that got rejected?" And, you know, that's not their priority. So that was where the challenge came in. But, there were a lot of people who were willing to step in and fill that gap. Yashar Kassai, who's the production director, and, Kent Seki, who was the head of cinematography, were both people who were obviously very interested, not just in making the movie, but in the fact that an art book was getting made, and they were always good for me to send them a direct message or an email and say, "Hey, does this exist?" And they would usually, you know, on their lunch break, you know, you know, go ahead and shoot me a file that we could then, we could then... We'd then we'd have to go clear through, you know, legal and the studio to make sure it was okay to use, 'cause it didn't, it didn't come from their art department. But then, they mostly did clear, and then we could use them in the book. So that was, that was more the kind of access challenges that we faced.

23:19Jawad MirSure. No, thanks for sharing that.

23:21Jim SorensonAnd most…

23:21Jawad MirAnd sorry, go on.

23:22Jim SorensonWell, yeah, a lot of times, a lot of the books I've done are very retrospect. You know, when I'm working on a cartoon from 1984, everything was made decades ago. You know, when you're working on something that is currently being produced, and the challenges there is just finding it, because, you know, did people save it? It's, it's a different set of challenges when you're, you're working on something that hasn't come out yet.

23:46Jawad Mir100%. I mean, most of the books, that have been coming out, and I've spoken to quite a few authors, James Mottram, who's done, the Jurassic World and Jurassic Park trilogy books, and a bunch of others on different books, like Tenant. I mean, I have some of them here. Star Trek, your book, Prince of Egypt, and all this stuff. They don't have access to that artwork, which is very challenging, especially because, you know, a film like this, it came out in 2023. I'm guessing it probably started working on it in 2018, 2019. You know, roughly an animation project takes four to five years from conception to delivery. And even in the first few years, you're doing all these…... Concepts work, just of trying to figure out what the feel would be, what the characters would look like, what the artwork, the backdrop, all the city and everything would look like. And then you kinda kick into production. So was there a particular artwork that didn't make to the film, or a series of artwork that you really liked, that you thought should be in there?

24:55Jawad MirAnd if so, what would that be?

24:58Jim SorensonThe piece that I wanted and I don't wanna say I fought for it, because I thought the answer might be no, and I was, I was emotionally prepared for that, so when they said no, I let it drop. But the one that I wanted to get in the book and didn't was, you mentioned it was that Shredder concept art. You know, you just get a flash…

25:20Jim Sorenson... What the Shredder silhouette basically looks like. And I kinda wanted just that. Like, not even necessarily production side of that. Like, just almost a still from the film to be in it. I had proposed that as the last page, you know? Like, you know, right before the end. So what wound up being this, I said, you know, "This is where I would put Shredder." And I said, "And look, our book's not coming out till..." You know, w… originally we were targeting…

25:49Jawad MirYeah

25:49Jim Sorenson... Late August, but it still would've been about two or three weeks after the film was out, and it wound up coming out in October. So you, it's, it's coming out around the same time as streaming and home video and stuff. So I said, you know, "It, we're, we're not gonna give away the surprise, you know? A… anybody who's picking up the art book, you know, either has seen the movie…

26:07Jawad Mir100%

26:07Jim Sorenson... Or at the very least has had every opportunity to see the movie." And they turned around and said, "no, we don't wanna do that." I said, "Okay, I understand." But that's, that's the one that I thought would've really ni… literally book-ended the project. You know, start at the beginning and end right at the end. 'Cause I thought it would... I knew it would be a cool moment in the film, and I thought, you know, we can, we can pretty much capture that moment in the book, 'cause it's, again, it's just a still image. So mu… so much of the film is the motion, but that one wasn't, so you could really do it justice in print.

26:41Jawad MirYeah, and, you're so right about that anybody who would pick up the book or even would know about the existence of the book has either seen the film or is planning on seeing it, and if they haven't seen it, they will more than likely watch the film first, then they'll pick up the book, you know? Be… it's kinda like how they made the film, right? They're, nobody's gonna read it before they watch the film anyways. Highly unlikely.

27:02Jim SorensonAnd although, you know, having said that, I remember, my mom, who's a big Star Wars fan, you know, OG Star Wars fan, being in a comic sto… telling me the story of how she was in a comic store in, like, 1980, and like, saw, oh, Star Wars, this is interesting, like right before Empire Strikes Back came out, and spoiling herself for the big reveal about Darth Vader being Luke's father because of a comic book adaptation. So i… it's not an unreasonable concern. I just think in this case it, you know, we, it probably would've been worth the risk.

27:37Jawad MirYeah, I mean, it's, it…

27:37Jim SorensonAnd obviously the culture is different in 2023 versus 1980. I mean…

27:42Jawad MirYeah

27:42Jim Sorenson... It…

27:42Jawad MirAnd Ninja Turtles, if you follow Ninja Turtles, you would know who Shredder is. If you have never seen Ninja Turtles and if they saw a silhouette, they'd be like, "What is this?" Like, they wouldn't put the t… the two together. But I guess, I mean, I know how these in, how things work, like in studio and publishing houses. Like, there's, there's a lot of bureaucracy and there's too many people making decisions, and they're trying to come up with the best decision possible, and they might be like, you know, kinda going seesaw, so I get that. And I, hey, if it was my film, I probably would've done the same thing. So, you know, no, completely understood, and I'm just speaking as a fan right now. And you know, I'm gonna go off-topic from the book. What, b… before you started writing the book or e… even right now, what it is that you're, y… you know, your line of work, has it also always been creative side? If not, where, how did you transform into this world?

28:36Jim SorensonPun intended. So before I was doing... And I started writing full time around, maybe 2013 or so. And before that it was, it was freelance. So I'd been doing, consulting and data analytics. I went to school for mathematics, and I big fan of it and I like the, that sort of, puzzle solving. And, my first real job, I did, I did, I taught E… English in Japan for a couple years. But, my first real job was doing, consulting type work, and I did that for a few years, and then I transitioned to being in-house over at Yahoo.

29:20Jim SorensonAnd then, I did that for a bit and I did the same thing at, an internet startup. And, that was, that was where I was, when the first book came out. In fact, I remember, signing a clause in, when I was at the startups, that was saying, "Well, you know, if you hi… make any patents or anything, you know, you know, we get a piece of that." And I remember specifically negotiating a clause that said, "I have a book that's coming out that I've already contracted, so I want my writing career totally separate. You guys don't get a piece of that." And they were fine with it. That wasn't what the authorship clause in my contract was about. They were targeting engineers who were coming up with interesting bits of code.

30:06Jawad MirRight.

30:06Jim SorensonBut I do remember specifically negotiating that. And the dot com, the guy who had founded it also had founded a movie studio, so we, so he was somewhat interested in the writing side of things, so we had, like, scripts lying around in, like, a back room in the office. I remember, oh, wh… what was that one with, Robert Downey Jr. And Tom Cruise? Thunder something.

30:35Jawad MirOh, Tropic Thunder. It's Tropic Thunder. You want to make…

30:37Jim SorensonTropic Thunder. Yeah, we had, we had a script for that was just floating around the office for years before the movie came out. And we didn't produce it. They, there was something that had been pitched to us, but…

30:47Jawad MirYeah

30:47Jim Sorenson... Or to his production side.

30:48Jawad MirI mean, Ben St… Ben St… Ben Stiller directed it, and, DreamWorks ended up distributing it. So yeah, I mean, th… that's the thing about it.

30:55Jim SorensonAnd the one that we did was, Thank You for Smoking. That was, that was the one that…

31:00Jawad MirOh, right. With Miles,.. Is it Miles, the guy who was in Top Gun? The new Top Gun. I think so. The young guy. I… I'm just kinda curious now because I always mix up actors.

31:16Jim SorensonYeah, it's, it's been a while since I've seen that one.

31:19Jawad MirNo, it wasn't, it wasn't him. It was Aaron, Eck… Eckhart and Rob Lowe, and it was, it was 20... It was 18 years ago. It's that long? Wow. Time flies.

31:31Jim SorensonYeah, time flies.

31:34Jawad MirBut yeah, no, actually Tropic Thunder is an incredible film. I mean, I…

31:38Jim SorensonOh, yeah, that was fantastic. I don't, I don't know why we had the script floating around. I don't know if we passed on it or if we bid on it and we got outbid. I don't, I don't know what the deal was. I just, I just remember there was, like, four or five copies of the script lying around.

31:51Jawad MirYeah.

31:51Jim SorensonAnd then the movie... Said, "Oh, this is quite good."

31:54Jawad MirWhat... You said your f… your, the C… Was it the CEO of the startup, he founded a studio? What studio did he launch?

32:01Jim SorensonIt was, David Sacks. You can find him on Twitter now talking about Ukraine mostly. But, one of, one of Elon Musk's friends. He... In fact, I used to... When I did data analytics for the company, it was Genie.com, you know, he was on our board, so I'd, I'd be pitching to him, you know, whatever our latest numbers were. But yeah, David Sacks, produced, was one of the producers on the Thank You for Smoking.

32:25Jawad MirSacks as in S-A-C-K-S?

32:27Jim SorensonS-A-C-K-S, I think.

32:30Jawad MirYeah, he's an entrepreneur, investor, an internet technology firm craft. He's a, he's a VC basically…

32:36Jim SorensonYeah

32:36Jawad Mir... A venture capitalist. So do you miss,.. Are you still part of that world, the mathematical an… analytical part of your…

32:48Jim SorensonNot so much. I'm mostly full-time writing. I,.. My wife got a job out in Albuquerque. That was... I was in Los Angeles when we were doing all the consulting stuff and data analytics. And then my wife got a job in Albuquerque, and it was right around when my writing career was really, kinda taking off, so it seemed like a good time to just transition out of that, you know, rather than try and do remote work, which was, you know, harder in, you know, 2013.

33:14Jawad MirYeah.

33:14Jim SorensonAnd then we, you know, we had our first kid, so it made sense to have a full-time dad around, 'cause I can... You know, my wife's a surgeon, so she's…

33:24Jawad MirOh, she's a

33:25Jim Sorenson... Her schedule is very…

33:26Jawad MirYeah

33:26Jim Sorenson... Demanding, and when she's at work, she's really at work. Whereas, you know, if I'm writing something and then something comes up, family-wise, it's really easy for me to, you know, hit pause for the most part. So, that was, that was... The stars kind of just aligned.

33:44Jawad MirMakes sense. And Albuquerque is obviously, if you moved in 2013, that's where all the action happened with Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.

33:52Jim SorensonYeah, there was... I remember my brother was a big fan, and, he said, "Oh, will you give me the Breaking Bad tour?" And I said, "Sure." So I did a little bit of research, and I was taking him around the house, and when we got to Walter White's house, there was an RV out front and a guy in the hazmat suit who was doing a, you know, a more formal paid tour. But he was a good sport, and he let us take pictures with him, and my brother's like, "Wow." I'm like, "Yeah, I did that. I meant to do that."

34:17Jawad MirThat's awesome. That's... You haven't seen Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul?

34:19Jim SorensonOh, no, I saw it. It was great.

34:21Jawad MirOh, okay. Yeah.

34:22Jim SorensonI was a big fan of that, and then, if anything, I thought Better Call Saul was better.

34:27Jawad MirI agree with you in a, in a very weird way. I don't even know how to explain it, because even though, even though you can't have Break… Better Call Saul without Breaking Bad, I find you can't have Breaking Bad without Better Call Saul. It's just, there was just something about the way that series was, and how they kinda tied it up all to the loose ends in Breaking Bad and the characters. I thought it was phenomenally done. Breaking B…

34:55Jim SorensonI thought Breaking Bad... I thought they were both really good, but I thought if Breaking Bad had a flaw, it was that it wanted to keep escalating, and I thought Better Call Saul kept its stories on a very human level, whereas, you know, Walter White winds up being larger than life, which is a very intentional choice. It's not necessarily a choice I responded to as a viewer.

35:21Jawad MirYeah.

35:21Jim SorensonSo I liked…

35:22Jawad MirThat…

35:22Jim SorensonI liked how grounded, Better Call Saul…

35:25Jawad MirBetter Call Saul, yeah

35:26Jim Sorenson... Was start to finish.

35:28Jawad MirI think that makes sense, but I also think that, again, this is just my point of view. With, Walter White, his character was kinda shown, like, you know, he kinda keeps... When you show his backstory about how he has been, duped by his two friends, and now he wants to prove himself and he wants to keep going, that greed kinda kicks in and he becomes larger than life. With, you know, Saul Goodman, he was always trying to just... His whole thing was, you know, scamming just for the hell of it. You know, just for the... It was, like, a watch or $10 or $100 or a million dollars.

36:02Jim SorensonAnd I think he is... You know, you learn his character is largely defined by his relationship to his brother.

36:09Jawad MirYeah.

36:09Jim SorensonAnd that gave it a very, sort of Greek tragedy…

36:13Jawad MirYeah

36:13Jim Sorenson... Quality to it, because, Chuck was never going to accept Jimmy. Chuck McGill was never gonna accept Jimmy McGill as a lawyer, and if he was able to, Jimmy might've been able to be better. But because he couldn't, Jimmy wasn't, and it becomes this sort of self-fulfilling prophecy that leaves, you know, one brother dead and one brother incarcerated. And it's, it's kind of beautiful in how awful it is.

36:43Jawad MirYeah. I mean, hats off to those, the people who made it, everybody behind it. It was just such an amazing set, you know, set of stories, that they came up with. But, you know, going, back to your career and your work, what particular book are you working on right now that you're able to discuss? If not, what is it that you have finished that's coming out any time soon?

37:10Jim SorensonI can't talk about what I'm working on right now, but I can talk about one that's gonna be coming out, I think it's gonna be April. It's,.. And I'm one of several authors on it, but there is a, the Transformers role-playing game. The Enigma of Combination is coming out in April. And, I got to do all of the lore for that. It's a role-playing supplement, so it's all about the combiners in Transformers. And that was, that was a lot of fun to get to work on. I put... My Transformers stuff, I'm kind of known for doing deep dives, so I was able to, for the, for the real hardcore fans, I was able to put a couple of nods in there for things that, you know, they might be very surprised to see in print.

37:59Jawad MirGot it.

38:00Jim SorensonThat was, that was a lot of fun.

38:02Jawad MirAwesome. Looking forward to that. Speaking of Transformers, I mean, your book came out in 2007. I think that was the year when the first live action film came out too, by Michael Bay.

38:13Jim SorensonYep.

38:13Jawad MirWith Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox. And then since then, I mean, yeah, there has been I don't even know how many, I'm guessing six or seven, live action films.

38:23Jim SorensonAbout... Yeah. So Michael Bay directed five, and then they did, Bumblebee, and then just this year they came out with Rise of the Beasts.

38:31Jawad MirRise of the Beasts.

38:32Jim SorensonSo yeah.

38:33Jawad MirSo I loved…

38:33Jim SorensonSeven of them.

38:34Jawad MirYeah, so I loved the first one. I loved Bumblebee because it was kinda like an '80s vibe, kinda like E.T. You know, it was very low budget, kinda like lower downscale, as opposed to, you know, Michael Bay-directed films. Rise of the Beasts, I saw the trailer. It just looked way too... It just didn't click with me. But then I was gonna speak to the editors of the film, when it came out on, VOD, so I had to see it, and I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't... It was, again, that was more of a grounded film, similar to Bumblebee. But I think from a Michael Bay standpoint, the first and maybe the second one had some elements, and then for me, kind of, you know, went off the radar. I don't even... I can't, I can't distinguish between three, four, and five. I have no idea what, which one is which. Because…

39:23Jim SorensonFair enough

39:23Jawad Mir... It just beca… it became repetitive for me. As a fan, you are, of Transformers, you know, way more than I ever could be. What's your sort of experience has been watching these films? H… has it been, like, a treat for you, one after the other, or not so much?

39:44Jim SorensonI loved the 2007 film when it came out. I got to see, a screening early at a Transformers convention, so that was, that was a lot of fun and a great environment. And I really appreciated, the sort of Spielbergian touches. You know, he was…

40:02Jawad MirYeah. Yeah

40:02Jim Sorenson... An executive producer on the film, and you could really see, his sense of wonder, and it helped to ground the film. You were, you were talking about grounding the films. You know, having that human perspective, you know, the sense that these guys really are big and…

40:23Jawad MirYeah

40:23Jim Sorenson... Magical and alien. I thought that did it really well. I think the second one, The Revenge of the Fallen, suffered because of the writers' strike. And we're just coming out of a, of the 2023 writers' strike.

40:37Jim SorensonBut the... That film was done, without a script for big parts of it. You know, they just, they hadn't…

40:44Jawad MirOh, I didn't know that.

40:46Jim SorensonYeah, no. And, yeah, and they, you know, did some fixing it in post. And, you know, you, it... I understand. Like, I often come at things from the point of view of the writer, and I'm very interested in story structure and character arcs. But I can, I can grok that's not how Michael Bay approaches storytelling. You know, you know, to him, I always get the sense that the plot is a vehicle to, provide a set of experiences, you know, more so than, you know, a more writer-focused film, who… who's more interested in examining the intricacies of how characters interplay and have a clever plot. You know, Michael Bay doesn't seem to me to be very interested in exploring those kind of things, and, which is maybe why he felt he could go ahead and shoot parts of the movie without scripts and without writers on hand.

41:46Jawad MirYeah.

41:47Jim SorensonBut it makes it harder for me as a writer to connect with the second film. And then, you know, you could... I could go through each one in turn. I feel like it wouldn't necessarily…

42:01Jawad MirIt's repetitive

42:01Jim Sorenson... Be the most interesting…

42:02Jawad MirYeah

42:02Jim Sorenson... Exercise. You know, the third one had Leonard Nimoy in it as the villain. You know, that was, as a, as a Star Trek guy, that was kind of a treat. And then, he was, he was the villain in the old 1986 animated Transformers movie as well. So it…

42:19Jawad MirAh

42:19Jim Sorenson... Kind of a weird... Yeah, he was Galva… he was the voice of Galvatron back in the '80s. They had Orson Welles as Planet Unicron. It was this star-studded cast. Nobody cared at the time, but…

42:29Jawad MirYeah

42:29Jim Sorenson... But it was a star-studded cast. So yeah, it was fun for him to come back. And then, you know, Shia was... That was Shia's last movie. And then, you know, the four and five, you introduced your new human prot… protagonist, and, So the story kind of goes in... I don't wanna say the story goes in different directions. What I'm rambling, but what I really appreciate about the later Transformers movies, from the Michael Bay, quintet, is how many ideas he puts into every film. I call it like the idea shotgun. You know, he like, he loads up, you know, 20 or 30 ideas and fires them at the walls and sees what sticks in some way. And again, as a writer who gets to write for Transformers, it can be really interesting for me to sort of like pick out, you know, two or three from this film and say, you know, "Let's maybe explore some of those ideas in greater depth."

43:34Jim SorensonYou know, I, in the fifth film, there was concept art produced for the HMS Victory as a Transformer, so a giant sailing ship of the line turning into a big wooden, you know, kind of Pirates of the Caribbean-y robot. And it's just f… and I got to put that in one of my books, and it's just so creative and interesting. And it's, you know, it's not the kind of thing that the Transformers mainline cartoons are going to produce. And, you know, Michael Bay being able to spend, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars to bring some of those ideas to life is spectacular, even if I'm simultaneously not necessarily connecting with the movies on a, on a script level, if that makes sense.

44:22Jawad MirYeah.

44:22Jim SorensonAnd then, yeah…

44:23Jawad MirYeah

44:23Jim Sorenson... Bumblebee, Bum… was just a delight, you know, to see that smaller scale story. That one felt like one of the comics come to life, you know, which I also appreciated. But it's nice that the franchise is, and Turtles has this too, is so big that it can accommodate so many different styles, so many different ideas. I got, I had a lot of fun putting together the history of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for this book. I mean, and it was brief. I don't remember, you know, 2,000 or 3,000 words maybe. But I didn't have a ton of space to play with to go through a very big franchise. But it's amazing how Turtles started off as a, as a lark, you know, as a parody of Frank Miller and, you know, perfectly threaded the needle by hitting a home run in every media that it was able to get into. I mean, the toys were phenomenally good toys.

45:24Jim SorensonThe cartoon was a phenomenally good cartoon. And then, you know, the Jim Henson movie, I mean, you know, the idea that this comic would just hit it out of the park, you know? It's, it's, it's amazing that it was able to do that, and now there's so many different interpretations. You know, you can…

45:42Jawad MirYeah

45:42Jim Sorenson... Read the IDW Comics version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. You know, there've been four different Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoons on TV. You know, this is not even the first Turtles animated movie theatrically. They had one, I wanna say 2007, they had the, a different, they had TMNT, which was, where Karai, the Karai Shredder was the villain, and it was Leo versus Raph. And, that was, that one was fun for me because a buddy of mine did... I was, I was living in LA at the time. A buddy of mine did the sound design on that movie, so I got to go to the premiere, randomly, and that was, that was a lot of fun to do. But the, there are so many different, you know, there's, there's two different, there's the Michael Bay live action movies, you know, the two of those…

46:27Jawad MirYeah

46:27Jim Sorenson... And the Henson ones. So, you know, and then the TMNT, and that's six, and then this is seven. So seven films, you know, with four different kind of, design philosophies, between the seven films so far. It's wonderful. Like I said, my Turtles cartoon was the 2003 cartoon, which was very rooted, at least initially, in the comics. You know, I remember a buddy of mine saying, "You gotta watch the new Turtles cartoon." I said, "Oh, really? Why?" He said, "Well, they do the Leo versus Shredder where the Shredder's head comes off." I'm like, "In the cartoon?"

47:08Jawad MirThe cartoon.

47:09Jim SorensonOn Fox Kids? They're like, "Yeah." And sure enough, I watch it. Two of them, you know, you know, lightning flashes, they leap up, the silhouettes lands, Shredder's head pops off. It's like, okay, that's straight out of the original, you know, Eastman and Laird comics, you know? I w… I was impressed that they did that, so

47:27Jawad MirYeah

47:27Jim Sorenson... I, it, I like franchises that are big enough to incorporate different visions, you know, where it doesn't have to all just be, you know, focused on one thing.

47:38Jawad MirRight. No, that makes sense.

47:39Jim SorensonTurtles…

47:40Jawad MirAnd 100%. Well, the thing with Michael Bay, you know, that you were talking about the wonderment of, the wonder part of Transformers, I remember when that first sequence of Shia LaBeouf sees the truck changing into, transforming into Optimus Prime, it reminded me of that moment when, Alan Grant, in Ju… Jurassic Park to see, you know, the dinosaur for the first time. It was literally like that kind of comparison that I drew. And with Michael Bay, I think he can make some am… amazing films besides the whole action element. For me, the three of his best work, I don't know if you have seen The 13th Hour?

48:19Jim SorensonI have not, no.

48:20Jawad MirWhich is, oh, it's, it's probably his best film. It's about the Benghazi attack.

48:25Jim SorensonYeah

48:25Jawad Mir... And then, the most recent one, Ambulance, which is a really great movie. I won't give it away. It's an amazing film. And The Rock, the re… the one that came out in the mid '90s.

48:35Jim SorensonYeah, the Rock was kind of my introduction to him.

48:38Jawad MirYeah. I think it was an introduction a lot because before that he had made Bad Boys, which kind of put him on the map, but I think Rock just took him to another level, and then he made the Bad Boys sequel. You know… But i… i… you know, having said all that, I think what's cool about, all these things that you're talking about is that, you know, you, like you said, you can take it into different directions. I think before, I mean, you look at Barbie, the movie that just came out this year, it did, what, over a billion dollars, at the box office. I think it did…

49:09Jim SorensonThe one movie of the year.

49:10Jawad MirYeah. It's not just about picking up a franchise and, you know, retelling it, or picking up a brand or an IP and just putting it out there, but it's, it, and it's not just, I think, als… it's, obviously story's a huge thing. I'm a huge believer in that too. Everything starts and ends with story. But I think giving, people the freedom to m… rotate and move things around, you know, whether it's characters or certain things, just to kinda give it a little fresh approach. I know there will be some fans that might be upset about it, but I think people are looking for fresh approaches and, you know, to kinda take, instead of s… expecting something, what they're expecting, but expecting the unexpected. And I think with TMNT, like I said, when I saw, I didn't see Shredder, yeah, I was kind of like pulled back, but the way they did the job on Superfly, it just made me forget about Shredder until the credits.

50:05Jawad MirA… and I think that's what's fantastic about, like you said, like, just taking it in a different direction, but you obviously have to do it properly and, you know, really well so people can connect to it.

50:16Jim SorensonWell, I mean, with any project, right, the execution matters.

50:20Jawad MirYeah.

50:20Jim SorensonIt matters a lot.

50:21Jawad MirYeah.

50:21Jim SorensonYou could have the best idea in the world, if it's not executed…

50:24Jawad MirExecuted

50:24Jim Sorenson... Well…

50:25Jawad Mir100%

50:25Jim Sorenson... It's gonna catch on. And I think something like Barbie, not only w… were the filmmakers given, permission to really stretch their wings creatively and take the story in, you know, i… in a direction that, you know, is not what we've seen before with licensed, you know, toy movies, you know. I mean, we've seen things like, you know, Transformers, where you just take the fantasy very seriously. Or something like Toy Story where, you know, you say, "Oh, well, let the toys come to life." And then, you know, this, you know, Barbie obviously just went in a totally different direction of, you know, feminism exploration, toxic masculinity, and it was clear that was the story they wanted to tell. And Barbie, as it turns out, was a great vehicle to do that. And it's, it's wonderful that Mattel felt comfortable enough to allow that to happen, you know, with their dolls.

51:27Jim SorensonThat, I really enjoyed seeing that. We did, we did the whole family dress up in pink thing. That was, that was a fun experience to do as well. But, you know, the…

51:40Jawad MirIt's interesting you ment… it's interesting you mentioned that, sorry to interrupt you, it's interesting…

51:45Jim SorensonNo

51:45Jawad Mir... You mentioned that about, the whole feminism thing and all that. And it's funny, I guess its perception, when I started watching the film, that's the vibe that I got, that it was gonna be this one-dimensional film. But as soon as Ken's character kinda kicked in and you start seeing his back end, I found it became a different film, and then it kinda went like this, like, it just kind of like a seesaw or ping pong game where there's questions about feminism and then there's questions about what it is to being a man and, you know, so on and so forth. And that's, by the end of the film…

52:19Jim SorensonIt involves horsemen.

52:20Jawad MirYeah. And, but by the end of the film I really appreciated that because one thing that I, not just in this topic, in anything, it is to me as a, as a, I'm a filmmaker myself, so when I tell stories I'm very much attracted to what, instead of saying that this is the it, why is this it and why is the other way the way it is? So just kinda letting the audience figure out. But this one, you know, Greta really did a great job in doing it in such a meticulous and a comical way where you laugh at a scene but at the same time you feel something really deep down.

52:56Jim SorensonYeah, I really couldn't agree more. I mean, it's, it's, i… i… it's a movie that has a point of view and is interested in exploring it, but without necessarily, without being preachy about it.

53:11Jawad MirYeah. That's, that's the word.

53:12Jim SorensonIt lets you…

53:13Jawad MirYeah

53:13Jim Sorenson... Come to its own, come to your own conclusions. And yeah, I mean, Ken is hilarious. And someone who made the…

53:20Jawad MirOh, he made the film. I think he made the film. I don't think it was Barbie. I think for me at least, he made the film the way w… it came out as a whole. It was, he was just phenomenal in it. The, what's his name? Ugh, I forget his name.

53:34Jim SorensonRyan Gosling.

53:35Jawad MirYes, thank you. He just did a remarkable job in it. I mean, it was, it was amazing. It was amazing. But yeah, no, this has been great, Jim. Sorry we're going off topic, but this is what this whole podcast is.

53:46Jim SorensonNo, it's good.

53:46Jawad MirWe discuss different things. And, really enjoyed chatting with you. Would love to talk to you in future possibly about your past work or upcoming work.

53:57Jim SorensonFor sure.

53:58Jawad MirI, send me, send us links some of the books that you have written in, on Transformers, because I would love to sort of dive into it too and, you know, maybe we can find something and, do another episode.

54:09Jim SorensonYeah. It'd be wonderful. I'd love... I can talk about Transformers till the cows come home, so.

54:14Jawad MirI'm, I'm sure you can. And I would love to learn a lot from you because, my Transformers knowledge is limited to the film and maybe tiny bit to the original series. Nothing significant. I saw, what was it, Thundercats or Thun… whichever it was with Thunderbirds, one of those two I saw growing up a lot, not Transformers. That's the thing, which I think came after Transformers. It was kinda like a…

54:35Jim SorensonYeah.

54:36Jawad MirYeah. Great, yeah, awesome. Thank you so much, man. Appreciate it, and…

54:39Jim SorensonYou're very welcome. Thank you

54:41Jawad Mir... Take care.

54:43Jim SorensonBye.

54:43Jawad MirI hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for watching and listening. Don't forget to subscribe, like, share, and comment, and do come back for another episode. Until then, have a great day.