'Galaxy Quest', Director, Dean Parisot

0:07Jawad MirDude, I love Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad and…

0:11Dean ParisotYeah. I've, I've known Vin… Vince,... And I made the, his first movie and my first movie together. So, I had known Tom, through Vince maybe for about 10 years, met him about 10 years ago. So it's, it's been f…

0:30Jawad MirYeah

0:30Dean Parisot... It's fun. He's, he's fun. I... He was up for an Emmy last night, but he didn't, he didn't win. He should have.

0:35Jawad MirYeah. Yeah, I saw. It's funny, you mentioned Better Call Saul. I was having a conversation yesterday, two days ago with somebody that how you cannot imagine Breaking Bad without Better Call Saul, at least for me. Like, it's just so interconnected and so seamlessly, that it's absolutely…

0:54Dean ParisotIt's kind of amazing, yeah.

0:55Jawad MirYeah. It's incredible.

0:57Dean ParisotYeah.

0:58Jawad MirAbsolutely. Wonderful. So let's get cracking, Dean. I wanted to sort of start off by asking you how your film career started, you know, the early days.

1:09Dean ParisotWell, I guess I'm sort of a somewhat traditional from my era. I like… I started making little movies when I was about 16, 17. I had a, you know one of those windup Bolex cameras?

1:28Jawad MirYeah.

1:30Dean ParisotAnd, then, ended up going to NYU film school. And, all of us coming out of NYU all started taking any job we possibly could, 'cause there weren't that many, this would be in the, eight… '80s, late '70s or early '80s. So I started shooting a lot of, rock and roll, a lot of, industrial films for, chemicals will give you cancer, and, for, corporations and then documentaries and a… as a cameraman, meanwhile trying to make my own little films. And, so, I s… the first little film I made was a little short called, Tom Goes to the Bar.

2:24Dean ParisotAnd it's, it's... It was in... Because I, all my friends, we all sort of helped each other, you know. We all lived in the Lower East Side at that time, in New York. And, so we all helped each other with each other's movies, so everybody came and helped, and we shot it over two days. And then, I... It's funny, when I shot it, I was saying this to somebody else the other day, I wasn't thinking anyone would actually see it. I thought, "Oh, this is something I just wanted to make", you know? My friend, who was a stand-up comedian c… say, calls it the play… the tree house theory. Goes, oh, you get a bunch of friends together, they wanna build a tree house, and it's really fun, and, you know, you're not... There's no pressure. You're not thinking anyone's ever gonna judge you for it or see it or, there's just something you wanna do. And I think that's how I made that film because I was... My w… my w… my girlfriend, who I married later, was Sally Menke, who was an editor, who edited all, Quentin Tarantino's movies, and sadly…

3:34Dean Parisot... Passed away about 10 years ago. Sally, said, "No, we should send this to a film festival." And I said, "Oh, what's that?" And so the first one was, that was, that was happening when we finished the film, and we could barely afford to make prints. We only made, two prints of the, of this little short film, was Telluride. And so it, we sent it to Telluride, and we didn't know what Tellu… whether Tellu… what Telluride was really. And it got into Telluride, and they gave me a, and Sally and I, a plane ticket to come there. And I was like, really? For an eight-minute short? It was out… outrageous. We couldn't believe it. And then I go to Telluride, and it's opening the festival, and I, and I sit down, and I'm sitting next to Roger Ebert, and I'm terrified.

4:31Jawad MirWow.

4:32Dean ParisotI mean, just terrified. And, 'cause it... We went from, you know, a little, living in the Lower East Side in a, in a, what used to be a sweatshop, to Telluride, so it was, it was, trial by fire. I still remember, introducing it. They said you had to introduce it, and I said, "No, I don't wanna do that. I'm too nervous." And they said, "No, come o… you have to." So I got up and I said, "I hope you like the film," and then I sat down again. And Roger Ebert turns to me and goes, "Wow, that was, an incredible speech. What was that? Four letters?" But he was very sweet and gave me a great review, afterwards. And then it's went through the film festival circuit, and I was lucky enough to sort of travel with it, for a bit. And, because of that, I me… I met a stand-up comedian named Steven Wright.

5:41Dean ParisotI don't know if you know who Steven was.

5:42Jawad MirNo, I don't. No, I don't.

5:43Dean ParisotSteven at the time had been, very successful. He ha… he was, he was about to do, an HBO special, or no, he'd done an HBO special, and, he had a very s… similar... I mean, we're still great friends

6:01Jawad MirYeah

6:01Dean Parisot... All these years later. He had a very sort of absurdist sense of humor, which I, which we shared. And, He asked me to do his, a little short film with him. And so we did that, and that won an Academy Award, so we ended up, I ended up here, and then

6:23Jawad MirOh

6:24Dean Parisot... You know, things started happening.

6:27Jawad MirThat's... It's al… it always takes one thing, right, just to have a ball rolling.

6:32Dean ParisotY… you just have to keep, I think you just have to keep ma… you have to make something. You can't just talk about making it.

6:39Jawad MirNo, it…

6:39Dean ParisotYou have to actually make something

6:40Jawad Mir... It's so true because I think I'm going through that phase right now, where probably you were with your second film, obviously not to the Academy Award level, but y… you make a film, people see it, and then you gotta move on, and you gotta make another film, and then you gotta make... You just gotta keep going. You just have to k… you can't think of, "Oh, this will give me a break," right? Like, you just…

7:04Dean ParisotNo

7:05Jawad Mir... Gotta keep at it. Keep at it.

7:07Dean ParisotWell, in fact, also I think you have to, you have to like it.

7:12Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

7:13Dean ParisotYou have to, you have to like what you're doing enough to put everything into it. And, I think, it's hard now where I am in my career not to think of it going to an audience, but back then I really didn't. I just thought, "I wanna make something I love," right? I, it's, "Oh, this is cool. I like this thing." And I think, to make it with a career or an audience in mind is actually, it's, a lot of pressure. And it's, i… in some ways I always feared that it limited what you, the chances you took, you know? Because if you don't take chances, you don't, you don't really succeed. You have to go out there and…

7:54Jawad MirAbsolutely

7:54Dean Parisot... Do things that…

7:55Jawad MirBut it's interesting…

7:56Dean Parisot... That oftentimes people are telling you is crazy.

7:59Jawad MirIt, I do think people i… in our field or any other art creative field, when you're doing what you love, especially I'm, I'm gonna speak about film because that's what I know, we're delusional. We're completely delusional.

8:09Dean ParisotOh, absolutely. Yeah.

8:10Jawad MirRight?

8:11Dean ParisotAbsolutely agree. We are delusional, yes.

8:14Jawad MirLike, nobody…

8:14Dean ParisotBecause…

8:14Jawad Mir... Understands us. Nobody gets us.

8:17Dean ParisotAnd really what you're facing is no.

8:20Jawad MirAll the time, if not absolutely.

8:21Dean ParisotYeah. So it's, it is, it is a, it is a profession for the insane. Yeah.

8:28Jawad MirYes. You bring up an interesting point, and I'm gonna get to Galaxy Quest, but I'm really enjoying this conversation. You know, this theory of or school of thought of do you make a film for yourself or do you make a film for the audience, where do you stand on that? I know everybody has different say on that, but where do you stand on that?

8:47Dean ParisotWell, I'm the audience.

8:49Jawad MirBut where do you, when you make a film, do you keep that in mind that this is how the audience is gonna react? Or do you just kind of…

8:56Dean ParisotNo.

8:56Jawad MirNo. Okay. That's better.

8:57Dean ParisotNot at all. No, I'm just trying to, amuse myself, or entertain myself or, get invested myself. I'm tr… I'm trusting that, I'm a good, a good audience, so I don't have to think of... I mean, the danger is, if you start thinking about, oh, no one, this is too controversial, or this is too weird, then you've, it's sort of you don't do things. You're…

9:32Jawad MirYeah

9:32Dean Parisot... You're staying in the middle.

9:34Jawad MirYeah

9:35Dean Parisot... I mean, the f… my first short, it starts with a guy,.. This woman comes into the bar and asks to use a payphone, and then the bartender points over there, and then this guy floats in upside down from frame and just is hanging upside down and you never say anything about it. And he's having a discussion with the bartender and then with the audience, and he's upside down the whole time. And the camera turns to adjust to him…

10:07Jawad MirYeah

10:07Dean Parisot... So everything else... And, if I thought about that for a second, I'd go, "No one could..."

10:14Jawad MirAnyway.

10:15Dean Parisot"Why would anybody see that," right? But that's…

10:18Jawad MirYeah

10:18Dean Parisot... Too weird. That's too odd. But it was, you know, it was a, it was a movie about, befuddlement and confusion anyway.

10:25Jawad MirYeah

10:25Dean Parisot... And, but, yeah, it's... I mean, as you, as you go into it farther, obviously the things you're getting are being mitigated for an audience, in a sense, without you having to do it. In fact, I always feel like I'm bringing it, trying to bring it someplace, less, predictable or, trying to shake it up somehow. It's a, it's a, it's a very strange, as you said, business for the insane. 'cause you'd, you'd, there's this push and pull all the time. I do think that, you know, it is a team sport. And when you build something with a bunch of pe… like-minded people who are all…

11:16Jawad MirYeah

11:16Dean Parisot... Together on something, that's also incredibly fun, is building, well, building the tree house. You keep building this thing and someone goes, "Well, maybe you should try this." And you're going, "No." And then, "What about this?" "Oh, that's good. But, yeah, we could do that." And now everybody's sort of, you know, adding pieces to this thing that you've, you've, you've built probably for months. They start adding to it. And to be open to that, I think a lot, m… many directors talk about this.

11:49Dean Parisot... That collaboration is about putting together a group of people who are all on the same page with you, or at least, the same sensibility, maybe not the same page. In fact, sometimes it's great when they're not on the same page.

12:04Jawad MirYeah

12:05Dean Parisot... 'cause it shake, it shakes you up. It also mitigates your indulgence, right?

12:10Jawad MirYeah. I agree with that, comment. And not just in film business, but any business. You need to surround yourself people with who obviously are at the same, if not higher par than you, but at the same time who disagree with you, because that's where…

12:23Dean ParisotYeah

12:24Jawad Mir... The best decisions are made, you know, you have that collaborative effort. And I learned that myself too on my first film, which I did completely, you know, on my own, a feature documentary. I decided to edit it myself. It was okay, but then I learned that after I, you know, hired an editor for my second and third doc, I realized, you know, how important it is to have all these different minds and different ideas come in.

12:50Dean ParisotIt's, it's absolutely true.

12:51Jawad MirYeah.

12:51Dean ParisotAnd the other thing is, I think at my age now is you're gonna fail too. And those failures actually bring you to new places, and there's something valuable often in that as well. ... And you're, you know, the struggle to get something doesn't always work. And you can't always get around the obstacles that are in your way. But, years ago, years ago I was introduced to Robert Downey Sr., who was Robert Downey Jr.'s dad, who made really, just out there, crazy independent movies. Putney Swope and Greaser's Palace, and all these insane movies. And he's, he's... I was young and he said, "Oh, you're, you're, you want… you're making films?" He goes, he goes, "Directing a film is like getting pecked to death by chickens."

13:48Jawad MirThat's a great analogy. I love it.

13:50Dean ParisotYeah. That's, that is the closest analogy I've heard to what it is to direct a movie. Yeah, it's a gauntlet.

13:59Jawad MirIt is. I wanna go back to your, you mentioned about your wife, Sally. I'm sorry for your loss, first of all.

14:07Dean ParisotThank you. Thank you very much

14:08Jawad Mir... She, I obv… I, like a lot of people, I love Quentin Tarantino films. I didn't even know he had a designated editor. Would love to hear, like, h… w… did you ever work with her, like, in terms of on your own project, or you try to separate the f… personal versus professional?

14:27Dean ParisotWe had met in, you know, when we were in college. So, we grew up together side by side. And it became pretty clear to both of us that if we worked together, not only would we not be able to have a family, but we'd probably get into some kind of battle. And so the only thing Sally ever cut for me was my very first eight-minute short. And then we decided, that we would support each other. It's like I would look at her edits, she'd look at…

15:04Jawad MirSure

15:04Dean Parisot... At my films. But that we would sort of, not do it again. We almost did it once, and we went to a marriage counselor to see if it was a good idea.

15:16Jawad MirThat's awesome.

15:16Dean ParisotBut we didn't do it. And it wor… it worked out great because Sally had this, phenomenal career with Quentin, I mean, with other, directors as well, but, also we were able to checkerboard our jobs and be with the kids, so we could, you know…

15:35Jawad MirYeah

15:35Dean Parisot... It was really a way to figure out how to have a family and also do this crazy job, which often has long hours. And, so we were able to figure that out. Now I have a daughter who's, just graduated AFI. Oh my God.

15:50Jawad MirOh, congratulations.

15:52Dean ParisotThanks.

15:53Jawad MirYeah, that's awesome.

15:53Dean ParisotThank you.

15:55Jawad MirAn… another delusional, right, to the family.

15:58Dean ParisotAnother delusional. Yeah. My other, my son went into, you know, he's, he's, he's in aerospace, so it's a completely different…

16:10Jawad MirOh, yeah

16:10Dean Parisot... Thing.

16:11Jawad MirYeah.

16:11Dean ParisotBut, go figure.

16:15Jawad MirThat's awesome. Well, it's good to have diversity, you know, of careers and stuff.

16:18Dean ParisotYeah. No, it's great. They're both great kids.

16:21Jawad MirOne last bit about, Sally, your wife, and her editing work before I jump onto Galaxy Quest. Did she edit all of Quentin Tarantino's films?

16:31Dean ParisotShe started with Reservoir Dogs, and she passed away after Inglourious Basterds.

16:36Jawad MirOkay. But she did up to that point?

16:38Dean ParisotYeah, she did all of them.

16:39Jawad MirYeah. Which one was your favorite and why? As an audience member.

16:45Dean ParisotYou know, I mean, obviously, I love Pulp Fiction, but I like Jackie Brown a lot.

16:51Jawad MirThat's a great movie, isn't it?

16:53Dean ParisotYeah. But also there's two or three scenes in Inglourious Basterds that are just in… incredible, that are really s… that I just love, and it was, it was, it's just, you could see Sally. Sally was just brilliant at, and so is Quentin, at holding tension, you know? And, that opening scene, and also that scene…

17:16Jawad MirOh, my God

17:16Dean Parisot... In the bar, when they're all, have the cards on their…

17:20Jawad MirYeah

17:20Dean Parisot... Foreheads.

17:21Jawad MirYeah.

17:21Dean ParisotI mean, that original cut to that scene, one scene, before it got, it got condensed, it worked brilliantly, maybe even a little better. But it was almost 30 minutes, one scene…

17:35Jawad MirWhoa

17:36Dean Parisot... In the, in the bar. And, it was an amazing, thing just to see, just as a piece of filmmaking in one location. One scene being able to have that much, tension to it. And then of course it erupts, which was something they were both really great at. You know, with holding it, and then it goes crazy. But strangely unviolent, right? Until the last, really 30 seconds.

18:13Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

18:13Dean ParisotThe rest of that scene has no violence in it at all. Nor does the one with the, you know, the milk… or him getting the strudel in the, in that, in that cafe when he's talking to, what's-her-name. Anyway, it's, it's, it's, it's... They're... Th… they accomplished it. Qu… Quentin's an amazing filmmaker. Just an amazing filmmaker.

18:42Jawad MirOh, yeah.

18:42Dean ParisotI mean, it's just…

18:43Jawad MirYeah

18:43Dean Parisot... From Re… from Reservoir Dogs, I was just like, "Oh, my God." Like, just like…

18:47Jawad MirYeah. It was incredible. And I find... I mean, this is with pretty much every good or great filmmaker, like, when you make a film, each scene should stand out on its own s… as a short film, so when you watch it separately.

19:02Dean ParisotYeah. Yeah.

19:02Jawad MirBut that's... With Quentin, and obviously your, wife, Sally, if you look at the opening of Inglorious Bastard, as you said, you can take away everything after that scene and it will look like a short film.

19:16Dean ParisotYeah.

19:16Jawad MirLike, that's amazing, and I've learned a lot from that editing, you know, technique, that you have to have a short film with full of, you know, beginning, middle, and end.

19:28Dean ParisotWell, Quentin is also writing that way. I mean, he's…

19:30Jawad MirYeah. Yeah

19:31Dean Parisot... Those scripts are just incredible. And, they're, they're... Yeah, they're little mini films in themselves almost.

19:39Jawad MirYeah.

19:39Dean ParisotIt's, it's,... He's, he's, he's kind of brilliant, I have to say. And they, and they were... You know, they had fun together, too. I mean, you... I'd go to visit Sal in the edit room, and you'd just hear them laughing together.

19:56Jawad MirThat's sweet. That's really sweet. Awesome. Thank you so much for that personal, insight. I appreciate it. Moving on to Galaxy Quest, I mean, I've seen... It's been a while since I've seen the making of and all that, but I did see the film recently again after a long time.

20:13Dean ParisotRight.

20:13Jawad MirAnd it, and it still holds so much heart and so much warmth and, you know, it's hilarious. It's one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. I mean, there's a lot of great stuff out there. But the c… the humor in it and all that stuff was absolutely tremendous. And how did you get involved in Galaxy? Like, what's the evolution of Galaxy Quest?

20:35Dean ParisotWell, it was an accident. Like everything.

20:39Jawad MirYeah.

20:39Dean ParisotNot quite. Mark Johnson, who I, adore, gave me a chance to,... I met him after I made my sh… first little short film.

20:54Jawad MirSure.

20:54Dean ParisotAnd then, and Mark is somebody, you know, who b… basically, has shepherded all these filmmakers and, Vince being, you know, one of them. I mean, Mark did, Breaking Bad with Vince. I mean, if it wasn't for Mark, you know, standing by Vince, I don't know if Vince would've gotten that up and going. But, Mark and I did, Home Fries together, which was written by Vince Gilligan, and, Mark would do something. He would, he would sort of, if he had s… a, if he found a script or he developed a script, he would sort of give it to, first to the sort of his fr… his friends to see how they responded to it and if they had…

21:41Jawad MirYeah

21:41Dean Parisot... Like most people, he was, he's kind of workshopping it with his group of people, and he sent me a copy of Galaxy Quest, the first draft that Bob Gordon wrote, which was pretty close to what we shot.

21:55Jawad MirYes.

21:55Dean ParisotAnd I said to him, "Oh, my God. That's, that's a, that's fantastic." I mean, it's, I think the interesting thing about that script and about how I approached it, I think, is that I saw it as a drama that happens to be funny rather than a comedy.

22:21Jawad MirRight.

22:22Dean ParisotWhich is how I sort of described it later s… because I love, at least pushing, the c… the comedy towards a very grounded, place where it's, it's played, as real be… as much real behavior as possible, and then you bend it a little, rather than approaching it like a big, broad thing. I like to look at it first as a drama, as how it plays as a drama.

22:55Jawad MirSure.

22:56Dean ParisotHow it... And to have it be absolutely rooted in its characters and in their dilemma. And the comedy comes from the ludicrousness or the misplaced, anxiety of those people, you know? And so when I read that, I thought I could see it. I c… I could see the movie, and he said, he said, "How do you like it?" I said, "I think it's phenomenal." And he said, "Well, you can't direct." You don't... You know, it's a, it's a big movie. It's a big science fiction. I've only done a little, tiny independent movie.

23:36Dean ParisotAnd I said, "Okay," which I knew anyway after reading it. It's like a…

23:41Jawad MirYeah

23:42Dean Parisot... It's gonna be a big, Gal… it was gonna be a big, expensive movie at DreamWorks, and, Harold was gonna dir… direct it, right?

23:57Jawad MirOh, okay. I didn't know that.

23:59Dean ParisotYeah. Why did Harold's last name just jump out of my head? You know,...

24:10Jawad MirOh, I thought you said Sam Raimi for some reason when you said Harold.

24:14Dean ParisotNo. No. God. Where's my brain gone? That George…

24:20Jawad MirHarold

24:20Dean ParisotHal Ramis.

24:21Jawad MirRamis, yes. Yeah

24:22Dean Parisot... Har… Harold Ramis was directing it. He was attached to it, and, So, they, Harold had, was just starting, pre-production to cast, and, so they had already committed to making it, and Harold, didn't wanna make it with Tim Allen. And they got into a little thing, and Harold left the project. So Mark, who's kind of brilliant at this, kept the, you know, trying to hire people or trying to put an office together and very sweetly, because I didn't... He said, "Now you might be able to be able to do this 'cause we just lost our director." "so come in and meet, and meet Tim, and we'll talk, and we'll talk about it." And so, I came in, it was I think seven or eight weeks, before production.

25:31Dean ParisotWow. And we... I went back to the, I went back actually to the, to a little bit backwards to the script I had liked. We changed the ending, to some degree, and we changed it a little bit, but I loved Bob Gordon. I'm still great friends with Bob. I thought he was just a brilliant writer also, and that he's one of those people who dots every I. It's like everything comes back, right? So I grabbed Thor's hammer, which he hates to say,... Alan Rickman's character. Now that comes back as something incredibly dramatic, that he's saying to his dying, Yeah... Friend who's, who's a fan… Gordon, who, yeah... Who is now, you know, basically is like his son. So all of that writing of Bob's is sort of brilliantly constructed, I thought.

26:37Dean ParisotAnd, so we st… I s… I jumped in. The first... There was nobody else cast. It was just Tim. And, so I went and talked to Tim, met Tim, and said, you know, "I look at this as a drama." And he's like, "Oh, yeah, right." He's like laughing at me like, "Yeah, sure you do." And I'm like, "No, it's like, because... Well, I mean, there's… there are little moments in it that might be dramatic." And I'm like, "No, I'm gonna approach it that way." And he's like, looking at me weirdly. I go, "Okay." and, then I started casting. The first person I went after was Alan Rickman, who I just adore and love. Wow, he's amazing. And then, and then Sigourney, who apparently had been, wanted to do it, and I thought was pr… was brilliant for the part. I just, I didn't think she would ever say yes. Yeah... But Mark and I met Sigourney in New York, and she immediately said yes. And then I, then I started casting everybody else. And, Sam… Sammy Rockwell, I'd known a little bit, in New York.

27:42Dean ParisotHe'd done a little independent with John Turturro called Box of Moonlight. And he's just brilliant. I knew, Tony Shalhoub. He was actually a neighbor of mine, and he, also brilliant. And we just, you know, just kept up the, that entire cast. Chill came from, Home Fries, Daryl Chill Mitchell., ... And, so, I just started assembling cast, and, we quickly built and rebuilt one of the sets that Harold had started, which I, which was in, was in Harold's tone and not in mine. And so I bent it back into my direction. And, I remember Tim for the first week, he's like, "Oh, this is going straight to video."

28:43Dean ParisotAnd then he started seeing what I was doing, and then, to his credit, he absolutely rose to that occasion. He really... It turned out that, Tim was a r… really qu… well, which I find in a lot of people who started in s… standup or come from comedy, was a wonderful actor. Absolutely wonderful. There's a, there's a scene at the end of Galaxy Quest where he has to tell, Mathesar that he's, he's a, he's a liar, he's a fake. Yeah... And, that, even on the set, that was incredibly emotional, although Alan Rickman would give Tim, you know, crap all the time. "Oh, God, you just discovered acting," he said. And then… But he was, he really, I thought, worked very hard, as did everybody, and then they all became a great little...

29:43Dean Parisot... Which is the trick, I think, on any movie… Yeah... Is everybody gets on the train, and they all got on the train together, and they all... Most of the time when we weren't working, they were somewhere laughing., ... And they all, stayed friends. That whole group of actors stayed friends for years, a… as did I with them. We all... I think also DreamWorks at that time was trying to make Gladiator, and Gladiator was having all kinds of problems, so they ignored me. So I was, I was running wild. We, you know, we basically stayed on budget, but we,... You know, I think they were worried at first 'cause I was an unknown. So we s… we sent them, I sent them one scene cut together and they went, th… it seemed to calm everybody down that I was making the movie.

30:41Jawad MirYeah.

30:41Dean ParisotAnd then they went off and dealt with Gladiator. When they came back, it was mostly,.. I remember Steven, Spielberg showing up during that scene, and he'd, you know, he'd only shown up once or twice before, 'cause, because he's, he was an incredibly generous filmmaker, and he understood that if he was there, I would be intimidated by it.

31:06Jawad MirOh, yeah.

31:07Dean ParisotAnd, he was incredibly supportive by not, in… injecting himself into the process. He was there if I... It's like, "Anything you need, just come and talk to me." But he was not... I mean, he was also busy doing a lot of other things.

31:24Jawad MirYeah.

31:24Dean ParisotHe's Steven Spielberg, so what does he wanna do on my set? But he was incredibly sweet and generous, and when I... I remember when I first met him, it was like, oh my God, I'm meeting Steven Spielberg. And then, like, in about five minutes, I'm just, we're just hanging out talking about movies, and having fun and laughing about things. And, he was, he was, it was, it was... It's different working for a studio that's run by a filmmaker.

31:55Jawad MirYeah.

31:56Dean ParisotIt's dif… much different.

31:57Jawad MirYeah.

31:57Dean ParisotFor, that was the best experience of making a movie and being able to make the movie that was in my brain, that I imagined. That was the closest I've gotten, and it was, it was, a lot of that was 'cause of DreamWorks, and Mark Johnson and that group of people.

32:13Jawad MirSure.

32:13Dean ParisotIt was just also the luck of that moment, you know?

32:17Jawad MirYeah. It's a, it's, it's, it's, it's interesting you mention that. I mean, I don't know if you know Vadim Perelman, who directed House of Sand and Fog.

32:25Dean ParisotI know of, I know of him.

32:26Jawad MirYeah.

32:26Dean ParisotI don't know him.

32:27Jawad MirI was speaking to him too.

32:29Dean ParisotBrilliant.

32:30Jawad MirAmazing movie, like an amazing movie.

32:32Dean ParisotYeah, absolutely brilliant.

32:33Jawad MirAnd that, he was in a similar shoe as you were. That was his, he was first film, too. And that's the thing that I always hear, and I remember even when I was running the website, the reason DreamWorks succeeded, among many other things, was there was less, I shouldn't say less, but it was like you said, like made by filmmakers, so they understood, run by filmmakers, so they understood what filmmakers go through, right?

32:56Dean ParisotYeah, they understood the process.

32:58Jawad MirYeah.

32:58Dean ParisotYeah.

32:58Jawad MirI mean, to a studio, like, you know, you're sitting in the office. I don't know if you've ever seen that new series that came out a few months ago. What is it called? The Godfather one, the one they made about how The Godfather was made.

33:11Dean ParisotOh, yeah.

33:13Jawad MirYeah. So they showed the Paramount executive and how people… Yeah. In the, in the office, how they just have no clue what's going on the set, but it's all about numbers, right? I mean, that's their job.

33:24Dean ParisotRight.

33:25Jawad MirBut going back to Galaxy Quest, Dean, what I loved about that film, I think you mentioned that, is that the characters were so opposite of each other and so well-written that they just worked. Like, you know, you look at the guy ran by, played by Sam Rockwell, and then you look at, Tony, who, I don't remember his c… character. I think it was Fred that he played.

33:53Dean ParisotYeah, Fred Kwan.

33:54Jawad MirYeah. They were complete opposite. Like, you know, he was just calm and cool while all the chaos was going on, and when there was nothing bad going on, you know, Sam's character was all over the place. And there was that chemistry that you could tell, like you mentioned, right? It was just so evident. And I, and the humor that I was talking about was not necessarily like humor, like for example, you know, like, Dumb and Dumber type humor. It was a very intellectual, smart humor. So I g… I just wanna say that, what I'm trying to say was fabulous that you did that, I guess.

34:29Dean ParisotOh, thanks. That's very kind. I was trying.

34:34Jawad MirNo, it, I'm a, I'm not an original Star Trek fan, but I grew up watching Star Trek: The Next Generation.

34:40Dean ParisotRight.

34:40Jawad MirSo when I saw the trailer, I still remember how I reacted, and when I showed it to my wife and my kids just, like, a few weeks ago, they didn't get it because they have not seen Star… Star Trek, for that matter. But it's, it, how much inspiration did you draw from, and yeah, I know there was definitely the older one that was in there a lot, like the way that William Shatner's character was. Were you a fan of Star Trek yourself? If so, which series, and how much of that kinda came in?

35:08Dean ParisotI was, but I also, I was a fan of it when I was a kid, but then as a college student, I re… I also, we also mocked it, right? So it, and yet we loved it at the same time.

35:20Jawad MirYeah.

35:20Dean ParisotSo, because it's, it's, it, the cheesy sets and over the top and yet the ideas in Star Trek were actually quite, sophisticated and, especially for that time. And I loved the writing in Star Trek. I was sucked into all of it. So I was, I was a fan, maybe an odd fan in a weird way.

35:46Jawad MirNot a Trekkie.

35:48Dean ParisotYeah, not a Trekkie, but a…

35:49Jawad MirYeah

35:49Dean Parisot... But a fan of the storytelling and of the ideas behind it especially, and of the idea of science fiction, you know? Of a, of a time when we're exploring, and, learning, you know? So, yeah, I loved all of it. I think, I had seen all those, I'd seen a lot of science fiction by that point 'cause I did love science fiction. So it wasn't, it was in my wheelhouse completely. Also, though, it's a story about actors…

36:25Jawad MirYeah

36:25Dean Parisot... And fans, right? And so I had been to, just for r… research alone, I'd gone to some Star Trek conventions…

36:33Jawad MirSure

36:34Dean Parisot... Before. And also there's that great documentary… About that woman who was cosplaying a Star Trek, character that didn't really exist that she called The Commander, and she was part of, Bill Clinton's, jury for his trial…

37:01Jawad MirOh

37:01Dean Parisot... One of his trials. And she dressed in full Star Trek and s… and wanted to be called The Commander, and was part of the jury, and somehow, ended up in the jury, for a while anyway, before she was, dismissed.

37:15Jawad MirThat's hilarious. That's hilarious.

37:17Dean ParisotSo there's a, there's a lot of s… oddball behavior, oddball fan behavior behind it. But I also... I'm a fan, right? So I loved, I love that quality we have as human beings to suspend disbelief, you know? To immerse ourselves in something to that degree where we not just fall for it, we embrace it and then we l… we love it so much that we wanna live with it all the time and talk about it, you know?

37:55Dean ParisotAnd share it. And that's, that's, that's the quality... It's a quality I think we all have to a certain degree, and, it allows us to make and appreciate movies, right? That quality we have as humans, to lose ourselves in story.

38:15Jawad MirYes.

38:15Dean ParisotAnd

38:16Jawad Mir100%.

38:18Dean ParisotSo I, it, to me, it was a celebration of what we do, that movie.

38:24Jawad MirWonderful. I s… I... One of my favorite lines is, I think you were saying it, obviously the one that, Alan Rickman's character says.

38:32Dean ParisotYeah.

38:32Jawad MirYou know, "By Graf Tharis Hammer." And there was in the beginning when there was a, they were at the convention, and he goes, "What a saving." You know, that whole line.

38:41Dean ParisotOh, yeah. That's Alan. Alan is a genius.

38:45Jawad MirHe is amazing.

38:46Dean ParisotHe said, he said, "Don't, don't, I'm not..." He said, "Don't cut. I'm gonna, I'm gonna wait a really long time because it irks me so much to say this line. Now I'm saying it i… in a, in a crappy electronic store opening with an audience of 10 people, which is as pathetic as you can get as an actor." Right?

39:07Jawad MirIs it, is it true, I was watching it in the making of, I still remember this, there was that scene, when Tony was introduced the first time as the actor in the Galaxy Quest he was. And he has his, like squinting his eyes, and that Tim Allen laughed so much that you guys, it g… it took you guys, like four hours to shoot that take? Is that accurate?

39:26Dean ParisotYeah, that is true. Yeah. Every time, 'cause Tony would never break character, ever. Like, no matter... If everyone, if, even if he thought it was hysterical, he just had this concentration where he would never break character, and Tim would break all the time. 'Cause y… Tim just couldn't hold it in, 'cause he…

39:44Jawad MirYeah

39:44Dean Parisot... It wasn't just Tony, it was like all of them. Yeah, Alan too. I mean, Tim would just die laughing. And then it would get Sigourney going, and then, it would, like, it would fall to bits. But that moment, every time he'd come up and go like this, Tim would just fall to the ground laughing. It was, it took us hours to shoot that.

40:08Jawad MirI wonder if that has to do with the fact, I know Jerry Seinfeld is like that too. I wonder if it has to do with the fact because Tim was obviously on Home Improvement, and, you know, their audience is always, like, you know, reacting, and if that had something to do with that having that TV sitcom background.

40:24Dean ParisotIt might be. I think it's just that Tim knew what was funny, right?

40:33Jawad MirYeah.

40:33Dean ParisotAnd I used to, years ago, when I first got here, we would, there was a table at Orso that, Mel Brooks and all of his friends would sit in for lunch. And I was in Orso with somebody else, and we were overhearing them.

40:53Jawad MirYeah.

40:53Dean ParisotAnd it was the best example of what comedians do, which is you lose if you break.

41:00Jawad MirYes.

41:01Dean ParisotSo you're trying to get everybody to laugh and not, and it…

41:04Jawad MirYeah

41:04Dean Parisot... The longer you hold it, the more tension there is that it's ridiculous and funny. And as soon as somebody laughs, you've won. You, like, you got them, right?

41:15Jawad MirYeah.

41:15Dean ParisotAnd you would listen to them at that table, and they wouldn't, they would, they would say the funniest stuff you've ever heard and not break, the tension, not laugh at their own words.

41:27Jawad MirRight.

41:27Dean ParisotRight?

41:27Jawad MirYeah.

41:28Dean ParisotAnd it was almost like a contest. And I think they, that, there's a little bit of that, but there's also that thing where you get to be a... When you, when it breaks you down, when laughter breaks you down, you become like a child and you can't control yourself anymore.

41:44Jawad MirYes.

41:44Dean ParisotAnd it's, you're like a little kid now, and you're like, and the teacher, you know the teacher is there because there's all these people. It's supposed to be serious, and it's lots of money. And all of a sudden, you're, you can't stop it. It's infectious. You can't. And…

41:58Jawad MirIt's finished

41:59Dean Parisot... It, Tim couldn't, couldn't control himself. But really, Sigourney too. Sigourney's very, funny, silly, often goofy person. Not the Sigourney you think.

42:12Jawad MirThe R… the Ripley, right, that we all know.

42:13Dean ParisotYeah. She would, she would just crack up all the time.

42:19Jawad MirIs it? And one thing I really enjoyed, I've, I, at that time I didn't realize it, but being a filmmaker now, I notice it a little bit more differently, the character Brendan and Guy Fleegman, played by Sam and Justin, for me, watching it at just recently, they were actually the audience, members in a way. Like, they were our win…

42:41Dean ParisotThat's right

42:41Jawad Mir... They were our window into that world, right?

42:44Dean ParisotYeah. Yeah. Justin is the, represents all the fans, and

42:47Jawad MirYeah

42:48Dean Parisot... And

42:49Jawad MirSam is gonna…

42:50Dean ParisotThe audience. Yeah

42:51Jawad MirAnd h… but how, was there, when you were filming, I know the script obviously, you know, there was some scripts locked and everything, but how much improvisation or on the spot, not changes, but semi changes that were made, like, in the heat of the moment, or if any, can you give me an example of that?

43:08Dean ParisotWell, the first thing I will always do is shoot the script, right?

43:12Jawad MirOkay.

43:12Dean ParisotUntil I think I've gotten it to work. And then I would always, and I've done this to this day, if I'm working with an actor who has that facility, I'll then throw out possibilities and see if we can find something out, find an improv that works. 'Cause you, very often you see improv and it feels... It doesn't, it doesn't fit sometimes.

43:32Jawad MirYeah.

43:32Dean ParisotYou know? You can feel the improv, but if you're in character, and how you react to something is in character, very often it's, it's wonderful. It's hysterical. And Sam especially, Sam and Tony, were really great at improv. Alan would just, Alan would study everything, and all of that was him working it before he got there, right?

44:00Dean ParisotAlan would study every gesture, or like that beat you're talking about. And so with Alan, it would just stand back and wait. And maybe with Alan you could throw things. You could throw things at Tim as well. Tim was improvving half the time, and I was actually dialing him back into the script.

44:20Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

44:20Dean ParisotBut Sam Rockwell, you could just go, "Sam, you know, you've got, you've got an itch on your back that you can't reach during this scene, right?" And then he would just go into it, right? And, you could throw stuff at Sam. And so, but I would say Galaxy Quest, there's a, maybe it's a, it's a, there's improv moments in there. But for the most, I would say 90% of it is not, is Bob's script.

44:48Jawad MirYeah.

44:48Dean ParisotI mean, we really were... Bob's script was wonderful. So we were, we were, if we could, if we could better it somehow or up it, w… we would try, but we rarely did. Sam, you know, I mean, like when Sam sees, Tony, Fred Kwan and Laliari sink down out of frame where the octopus comes out…

45:12Jawad MirYeah. Really

45:12Dean Parisot... Where they're obviously having some kind of weird sex down there, those, Sam just kept throwing out different lines, and that line is a, is an improv, as an example. Like, "Oh, that's not right." because I was just, you know, going, "This is something horrible that you've never seen before is happening on the floor. It's not sex, it's something else, right? It's sex with an octopus. So what is that, right?" Just imagine seeing that and he's like, he would keep throwing out, "Oh, right." But it's, I would... It's, it's a small, I, you know, 10% maybe is improv. Maybe less. I can't, I really don't know.

45:50Jawad MirNo, I was just, making, trying to see if there was any particular scene. But I think, what I was watching, the interview of Sam's and he mentioned, and then, and I looked back at him like, "Yeah, it makes sense." He said he actually ripped it, his character's fear from, Bill Paxton's character in Aliens.

46:08Dean ParisotYes. Yeah.

46:09Jawad MirRight?

46:09Dean ParisotYeah.

46:09Jawad MirAnd I saw Aliens again recently, and it was ditto. It was, like, very similar, only the Aliens was not obviously, you know, like a slight comedy. It was obviously a sci-fi, horror. But yeah, absolutely.

46:22Dean ParisotI mean, the thing about that was that all of those characters, were, had unique character flaws, right?

46:31Jawad MirYeah.

46:31Dean ParisotWhich made them

46:34Jawad MirYeah

46:34Dean Parisot... The contrast you're talking about, the differences between those characters is because those character flaws are their story, right? And so they're unique characters because they have particular problems. Sam is, I… is incredibly insecure, wants to be important, and is a coward. And Tony is a burnout, right?

47:05Jawad MirYeah.

47:05Dean ParisotTony's a complete burnout. We based him on, David Carradine from Kung Fu, which was this series in the '60s you would never have seen, where David Carradine is playing, a half-Asian man by squinting, which is so wrong, right?

47:26Jawad MirYeah.

47:26Dean ParisotOn every level. And…

47:28Jawad MirEspecially nowadays.

47:29Dean ParisotYeah. So that was, that was us mocking, that environment. And Carradine apparently was always stoned. He was a huge, pothead, and so he would often forget his lines and just wander off and say things that made no sense. So we never mention that. It's never dealt with. It's never defined. But that's, Tony is playing somebody who kind of burned himself out in the '60s. That's who he i… that's who that character is, and lost his confidence and his, you know, is just kind of drifting aimlessly, through life, I think. And that, you know, he for a while, he just carried a bag of munchies with him, a little... We came up with a... We sort of invented Tony's character, before we started 'cause he didn't, there wasn't that big a character for Fred Kwan.

48:34Dean ParisotAnd then Fred Kwan grew, and that was a Spielberg suggestion because he must have been watching dailies and he saw, how, Missy Pyle and Tony were working together.

48:49Jawad MirYeah.

48:49Dean ParisotAnd Missy Pyle was fantastic and clearly a g… a great character.

48:53Jawad MirYeah.

48:53Dean ParisotAnd he said, "Well, maybe they should have a love affair." And then so we wr…, we wrote that in while we were making it. That was invented, and that was, that was, Steven Spielberg's idea.

49:08Jawad MirFantastic.

49:08Dean ParisotBut then he had another idea that I didn't use, and I was so nervous about telling him I didn't wanna use it. And I finally called him and I said, "I don't know how to tell you this." He's like, "What?" I goes, "I don't think that idea works." He goes, "You're the filmmaker. That's what you're supposed to do."

49:26Jawad MirWow.

49:26Dean Parisot"So don't... Of course, of course, don't worry about it. It's your, it's your movie. You're making it. You're in the... I'm just throwing it out if, in case it works." It was like it just another moment of wonderful,.. You know, he was, generous. He was generous. And he…

49:45Jawad MirYeah

49:46Dean Parisot... And he understood, as you said before, the filmmaking experience, right? I mean, he'd been…

49:52Jawad MirYeah

49:52Dean Parisot... Through that himself millions of times, I'm sure.

49:55Jawad MirAnd that's why we, I mean, we love obviously his work, but I mean, you keep hearing about his personality and his in… you know. It's just amazing that where he, where he is now, you know, with almost 50 years, right? Over 50 years of filmmaking.

50:11Dean ParisotYeah.

50:11Jawad MirAnd he's still at it and he's still grounded. Like, he's so grounded, and that's…

50:16Dean ParisotYeah

50:16Jawad Mir... That's very impressive.

50:16Dean ParisotNo, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's... You have to work at it.

50:21Jawad MirYeah. It's, it's, it's, it's, it can be difficult, I'm, I'm sure. I'm sure.

50:24Dean ParisotYeah.

50:25Jawad MirBut w… what, I just wanna make a comment. What I really loved, one other thing I loved is that a lot of films, I'm, I'm not gonna name names because I'm not trying to put down any films. You know, when they have like a multi set, like, really immense amount of characters, like, if it's like an alien invasion or end of the world or whatever.

50:43Dean ParisotRight.

50:44Jawad MirIf those characters, a lot of them get lost. Like, they don't have an objective, right? Like, you have to have, obviously, a beginning, middle, and end for each character. With Galaxy Quest, like, you know, each character, each character had a mission.

50:58Dean ParisotYeah.

50:58Jawad MirAnd it was done so tastefully in such a little amount of time that you didn't feel that it was done overly or, you know, in any way it was, like, gone over or under. It was just spot on. I just wanna make a comment on that. It was perfect. It was just…

51:13Dean ParisotOh, thanks

51:14Jawad Mir... Bravo to you.

51:14Dean ParisotI... That's something I love. If, I mean, even if someone's walking across the back of the set and you never see them again, I usually give them something, that they're there for, a reason, that they're, they're going, right?

51:29Jawad MirRight.

51:29Dean ParisotIt's like, you just left your cell phone in the grocery store, right?

51:34Jawad MirYeah.

51:34Dean ParisotAnd your mother's in the hospital, right? So it's like you... If everyone, if everyone on screen has a little tiny, mini story…

51:47Jawad MirYeah

51:47Dean Parisot... Has a reason to be, actively, moving forward, then, you, I think you notice it. I think that's what, changes it up. And it also, it also gives you, it gives you all these moments you wouldn't have had, that you can... Like, Missy Pyle, right?

52:14Dean ParisotShe was, playing this character who was, who had never been loved, right?

52:24Jawad MirYeah.

52:24Dean ParisotAnd that, and who was alone. And, for whatever reason, she just is falling in love with Tony. We built that in because she was kind of playing that. Sorry about that.

52:40Jawad MirNo, that's okay.

52:41Dean ParisotShe was, she's... You know, when we were talking about it's like those were some of the things that were, that were being thrown out there. And once that was... I guess what I'm trying to say is that when you start to work on, at it that way, I'm not always coming up with these ideas. Usually…

52:59Jawad MirYeah

52:59Dean Parisot... Brilliant actors are coming up with, those character traits, especially if you let someone, build it, right? And we did something that I, that doesn't happen that much anymore. We rehearsed Galaxy Quest. Most movies now just jump right in, and we had, two and a half weeks of rehearsal beforehand where we created alien school. And every day we'd have alien school for about, two hours, and I'd work with all the actors who were playing, Thermians.

53:36Jawad MirYes.

53:36Dean ParisotAnd we'd, we'd start to find traits. So we'd... That or… that original voice came from Enrico Colantoni, who came in and gave it in a, in a audition.

53:49Jawad MirYeah.

53:49Dean ParisotWhich I thought was brilliant for him to take that chance, right? Because at first he wasn't gonna, he wasn't gonna do it.

53:56Jawad MirRight.

53:56Dean ParisotAnd then he showed me that voice, and it was a, it came from a, an actor's exercise. Of course, he's also a brilliant actor. He'd gone through Yale Drama, and it was, it's still incredible. I see, we see each other for breakfast every year for a l… for a little bit of bacon and eggs. But the, but he also, you know, that, without that voice, without my hearing that voice and saying, "Oh, wait, that's unique," he brought it to the table, and then my job is to go, "Oh, maybe we can use that." And now we all start to get together, and then all the other actors that are playing, Thermians start bringing things to the table, and I'm bringing things to the table. And we're all in this group, in alien school, trying to come up with qualities for all of them, you know? And, I think the first one we came up with is we, when we walk… We bring our ar… we swing our arms, right?

55:01Jawad MirYeah.

55:01Dean ParisotWe, but we swing them with our, against our legs, the opposite direction.

55:06Jawad MirThat's right. That's right.

55:07Dean ParisotSo I, so the first thing, I don't, I don't, I... Once again, I'm, who came up with it? I might have or they might have. It was like, well, let's try putting the arm with the leg because they're not really humans. They're, you know, big calamari. So let's try that. And it's like, oh yeah, that looks great. That's just odd when they walk that way, right?

55:30Jawad MirYeah.

55:30Dean ParisotWhen they, when they laugh, they can't control themselves, so they start sounding like their real selves, right?

55:40Jawad MirYeah.

55:40Dean ParisotYou know, the voice they're using and their mannerisms, everything. A… and they also are trying to be... They're actors. They're trying to be the characters they saw in the historical documents, which was the original television show. So they're trying to be like those characters as much as they can…

56:02Jawad MirYeah

56:02Dean Parisot... With the, with those, you know, TV safe Beatle haircuts that they gave them in the, in the '60s. Because back then, Star Trek was a, was a show for kids, right?

56:15Jawad MirYeah.

56:15Dean ParisotSo we gotta have some... Spock had a Beatle haircut. Of course it was ridiculous, but, so we created those Beatle haircuts, and those suits and everything else, but also in Alien School, I guess where I'm going with this long-winded thing is the fun thing for me is building these characters and building their little stories, and, all of us getting together makes this fun energy where we're all trying to add things to it. What if we do this? What if we do that?

56:57Jawad MirYeah.

56:58Dean ParisotLet's try that. Then we try it, and we all start laughing, and then it's like, "Yeah, that's great. Let's do that." and that's the, that's infectiously fun, I think, for people who are working on it, rather than looking at it like, you know, you have 10 hours, and it's $300,000 a day, and get this shot, and, let's make sure the effects look great. It's always, for me, those, it's those characters, it's those people.

57:26Jawad MirYeah.

57:26Dean ParisotAnd how do you, how do you bring all that stuff forward? Obviously, you have to put it in context of something that's, a believable universe. We were trying to make, I was trying to make the best Star Trek movie world that I could create with that amount of money at that moment in history, because I wanted it to be a little more grounded

57:51Jawad MirYeah

57:51Dean Parisot... Than it was.

57:52Jawad MirAnd it, and it wasn't a spoof in any way, right? Like, that's one of the things I loved about it. It was just…

57:57Dean ParisotYeah, no, I didn't treat it that way

57:58Jawad Mir... Yeah, and it was fabulous because to me it felt like, and I'm sure to a lot of others, it literally felt like there was a show called Galaxy Quest, and that's what they were going through, and that's what made it so real, right? And…

58:08Dean ParisotYeah, it's not a s… it's not a spoof at all. It's a story about actors who were in a TV show. Yeah.

58:14Jawad MirNow, which brings me to my next point. It was a hard film to sell.

58:19Dean ParisotYes, it was.

58:21Jawad MirFrom a marketing standpoint. And, I mean, it did, it did reasonably well. I think if my memory serves me right, it made 70 million, then it ge… generated this, all this massive cult following. But where do you think the miss was? Was it because it was a lot of competition, or was it because it wasn't something that was understood by the audience when they were watching the trailers, or?

58:42Dean ParisotI'm, I'm... I loved working at DreamWorks, but, DreamWorks missed the ball. They... It was a tone I don't think they understood. I don't think they understood, fanboy culture at that moment. They were behind the eight ball with fanboy culture.

59:01Jawad MirRight.

59:01Dean ParisotOr, which is now fan person culture.

59:05Jawad MirRight.

59:05Dean ParisotBut, it, so I don't, I don't... They didn't think... They thought they were making a movie for kids. And, Terry Press came with Katzenberg from Disney, and they'd, she had marketed Tim Allen in a Christmas movie, and that's, that's what they were marketing. They were marketing a movie for 12-year-olds.

59:30Jawad MirOh, The Santa Clause is the one I think.

59:33Dean ParisotYeah. And we got... It… that's the only time I, it got contentious with Mark Johnson and I both, and Mark even, later on in an article with Terry Press talking about it. But here's the difference between DreamWorks and another studio. Two weeks into it, what was happening was adults were showing up, not kids.

59:58Jawad MirYeah.

59:58Dean ParisotAnd it was staying the same amount each week…

1:00:01Jawad MirYeah

1:00:01Dean Parisot... Not dipping…

1:00:02Jawad MirYeah

1:00:02Dean Parisot... Which meant that it was only, that it was, it was successful from word of mouth, not from advertising…

1:00:11Jawad MirSure

1:00:11Dean Parisot... Is what that meant.

1:00:13Jawad MirYeah.

1:00:13Dean Parisot'cause it wasn't the audience they targeted, and they were, it was strong enough where people were saying, "You gotta go see this." And so, Katzenberg called me personally two weeks in and said, "I'm calling to apologize. We blew the advertising on this. We didn't understand who the audience was." who does that? And I said…

1:00:38Jawad MirWow

1:00:38Dean Parisot... "Well," you know, he said, "We're doing what we can, but it's really the ship's already sailed. We can't really do it." It's doing, it's doing fine, right? It's doing well. But yeah, he called and apologized. So yeah, go figure.

1:00:56Jawad MirYeah.

1:00:56Dean ParisotBut that's, that's what happened. It, you know, it, they were looking at kids, a matinee audience, and those kinds of theaters, and that kind of advertising. And, we were getting, we were getting huge, results from adults. Kids loved it too, but adults were loving it. And I think…

1:01:18Jawad MirYeah

1:01:18Dean Parisot... That moment in history, that didn't work, it didn't work that way, right?

1:01:23Jawad MirYeah.

1:01:23Dean ParisotYou're a kids movie or you're an adult movie.

1:01:26Jawad MirYeah. Katzenberg, I mean, that's a great, gesture by him. He's a, he's a very, another humble guy. Like, I reached out to him for my first episode when nobody was saying yes, and I just literally thought I would never hear back from him, and he responded me back within 10 minutes.

1:01:43Dean ParisotNo, he was…

1:01:44Jawad MirAnd…

1:01:44Dean ParisotHe was kind of a amazing…

1:01:46Jawad MirAmazing guy

1:01:47Dean Parisot... Yeah.

1:01:47Jawad MirAmazing guy. Y… the music in the film, one thing obviously I... There was al… there was a lot of similarities being a Star Trek fan. I don't consider myself Trekkie, but that, you know, the tempo and all that stuff. But one thing that really stuck out for me, it was the first time, I think it was when Tim Allen's character is about to leave the spaceship, like the first time he visits it, thinking that it's all, like an acting gig. And then when the doors open, you see like, you know, a planet and space, you hear those drums from 2001: Space Odyssey.

1:02:24Dean ParisotYes.

1:02:25Jawad MirWas, that was phenomenal. It was very subtle. I loved it. Was that intentional?

1:02:29Dean ParisotBut David Newman also, David Newman is just…

1:02:31Jawad MirYeah

1:02:31Dean Parisot... Was just genius. I wanted it to be, you know, to hold onto the absurdity, you can't play goofy comedy music.

1:02:40Jawad MirYeah.

1:02:40Dean ParisotRight? You have to play, you have to play it straight. So he was playing it straight for one of those big Star Trek movies, but also he's adding things and bending it just enough where it goes a little bit too big sometimes or…

1:02:55Jawad MirYeah

1:02:56Dean Parisot... Or when the music happens, it's, it's hitting a moment and rendering it ridiculous because it's asking you to have something, else, you know? So yeah, he's... Also, the huge mistake we made in that shot, well, it wasn't a mistake really, it was just, we didn't think it through. I shot the movie in all the aspect ratios that existed. It starts in television aspect ratio, which is 4:3, which is almost square.

1:03:28Jawad MirYeah. Yep. Yep.

1:03:29Dean ParisotAnd then when, because it starts in the TV show, and then, the curtains on the TV show, you pull back and as you're pulling back, you're actually pulling back…

1:03:44Jawad MirYeah

1:03:44Dean Parisot... Into 185, which is 35 millimeter…

1:03:47Jawad MirRight

1:03:48Dean Parisot... Aspect ratio for a movie.

1:03:50Jawad MirRight.

1:03:50Dean ParisotBut when Tim, that shot you just described, when those doors open on the spaceship, it opens into widescreen. But that's 10 minutes almost into the movie. All of a sudden, the rest of the movie is now in widescreen. So what I, what I thought, "Oh, this is a good idea," when he, when he actually finds himself in outer space, we changed the entire view and it's now, 235, which is a huge widescreen, right?

1:04:17Jawad MirYeah.

1:04:17Dean ParisotCinema scope. But you need to tell the projectionist in the movie theater that's actually what happens because they open the scr… the, for many of those screenings, they open the curtains to 185, which is, which is like that. And so that when it, 10 minutes in, it goes to the wider screen, it was projecting into the curtains.

1:04:42Dean ParisotSo oh, great idea, Dean. Yeah. Oh, how filmic, right? Oh, you're gonna open up into wide screen. But they had to, they had to send all these letters out to the theaters that they need to open up the curtains all the way…

1:04:58Jawad MirYeah

1:04:58Dean Parisot... For it to be, 'cause we shot in anamorphic, right?

1:05:02Jawad MirThat makes sense. That makes sense. That's, that's pretty cool. And I absolutely love the 2001: Space Odyssey reference. I'm pretty sure a lot of people picked that up. One thing I really like…

1:05:12Dean ParisotActually, nobody has. You're the, you're the only person that's ever mentioned that to me.

1:05:15Jawad MirReally?

1:05:16Dean ParisotYeah. Yep.

1:05:18Jawad MirThe sets, I didn't know this, I just learned this recently when I was watching just bits and pieces of the making of. I mean, in the Star Trek days, you know, when there were, there was an attack on the ship, they will shake the cameras, right?

1:05:33Dean ParisotYeah.

1:05:33Jawad MirAnd that's what I thought with Galaxy Quest. But you guys actually built a hydraulic set, like where it would shake. How did that come about? Was that, like, wasn't that like against the budget of the film from a producer standpoint? Like…

1:05:45Dean ParisotYeah, it was, but... Well, we talked about it 'cause, 'cause I was going to mock, in the, in the TV show, the, in other words, in Galaxy Quest, the TV show that we shot…

1:06:00Jawad MirYeah

1:06:00Dean Parisot... We have them running from one side to the other, right?

1:06:04Jawad MirRight.

1:06:05Dean ParisotBut we have them, I tried to do it s… so I didn't practice them too much, so they'd be total off, so you could absolutely tell how fake and stupid it was.

1:06:15Jawad MirRight.

1:06:16Dean ParisotThat they're, you know, they're trying to all do it at the same time, which they would try to do in the original Star Trek. And you could always see that, you know, it was just so fake.

1:06:29Jawad MirYeah. Yeah. It was.

1:06:31Dean ParisotSo I th… I thought, "Well, these guys had done that. What happens when they really get terrorized, and it's really moving, right?" In retrospect, we could have just taken the camera and shook it.

1:06:44Jawad MirYeah.

1:06:44Dean ParisotBut it sends them all at the same time. But that thing, when we first started it up, 'cause it was on these giant shock absorbers…

1:06:53Jawad MirYeah

1:06:53Dean Parisot... St… it was pneumatic, and I had a little controller. It tore the captain's chair right off the deck, and sent it flying. It was, it was pretty violent. And when, 'cause I was operating it, when we're, we were filming, and, I had to, I had to be careful 'cause they've… to s… start it slowly so they would not get too freaked out by it. But yeah, it was kinda crazy. Y… you wouldn't do that nowadays

1:07:26Jawad MirNo, I was gonna say, I mean, even at that time, just, I, yeah. But it makes sense though from a filmmaker standpoint that, you know, when you're shaking the camera, yeah, the actors are moving around, but they're not experiencing that sheer terror. Like, it's not coming…

1:07:41Dean ParisotYeah

1:07:41Jawad Mir... Across on their faces.

1:07:43Dean ParisotYeah.

1:07:43Jawad MirBut in this one it does, especially, and it makes it even worse because these guys are actors, and then they're in the real spaceship, you know, from this film standpoint.

1:07:51Dean ParisotThat's what I, that was my theory. Yeah.

1:07:54Jawad MirYeah. That's great.

1:07:54Dean ParisotBut also Mark Johnson and Charles Newirth, who was, line producing, they all, they all thought it was, it was an idea if we could pull it off, and we were able to pull it off. It wasn't... We're still building a set which we're gonna shoot on.

1:08:10Jawad MirYeah.

1:08:11Dean ParisotIt's just, it's just elevated, and it has, it's on a gimbal, which people do now, you know, a lot.

1:08:17Jawad MirYeah.

1:08:17Dean ParisotThat, before. The thing that was different about it was the pneumatic shocks because, it's the same thing that makes a car jump, right?

1:08:27Jawad MirYeah.

1:08:27Dean ParisotYou're, you're adding all this air pressure and it just goes. So it was a little, it was a little strong at first. We had to calm it down.

1:08:36Jawad MirCool. Even the visual effects like, s… the space, and then obviously the costumes and the sets, especially the computer effects, the VFX. Even in this day and age, some of those, like, it looks so real. It was what, 23 years ago? 22 years ago. You know? And it…

1:08:59Dean ParisotYeah

1:08:59Jawad Mir... It was incredible the amount of detail, especially when you're, when the spaceship is being taken out, you know? And then it's kinda like go swindling away across the corner and it's hitting the station, and you can see the debris flying out, and I just gotta give kudos on that. Obviously, was it ILM that did that?

1:09:18Dean ParisotYeah, that's why.

1:09:20Jawad MirAmazing.

1:09:20Dean ParisotBut we were right at that juncture between, practical and…

1:09:26Jawad MirYes

1:09:27Dean Parisot... VFX. We were right in the middle of that. So I've got Stan Winston doing monsters, right?

1:09:32Jawad MirYeah.

1:09:33Dean ParisotBut then some of the monsters are CGI, like the rock monster.

1:09:36Jawad MirYeah.

1:09:36Dean ParisotWe've got practical effects because that's a model, right? That's a practical model of that thing. But it's being animated, and we're adding CGI to it. So, it was right, it was in the learning curve, right? Of…

1:09:55Jawad MirYeah

1:09:55Dean Parisot... Of all of that stuff. So, yeah. It, but a lot of it is practical, because the CG was so expensive.

1:10:06Jawad MirYeah. No, definitely. But do you think... So the actor, so in the movie, you know, all these actors are playing, all these p… actors are playing actors obviously, and then they have, you know, you have Tim Allen's charac… character who's, like, full of himself. At least that's what the perception was in the beginning of the film. And everybody brought their own qualities as actors in the film that you made. How relevant is that in the real world or was, whereas, did the re… did those actors like Tim Allen and Alan Rickman brought those things with them to showcase in that movie? I'm not saying that actors are, you know, egotistical or full of themselves, but at the same time they're celebrities. There is that little bit of element of, you know, a… as a natural human being. How much was that transitioned over, if anything, in your opinion?

1:11:00Dean ParisotI think you're talking about, typecasting.

1:11:05Jawad MirYes. Thank you.

1:11:07Dean ParisotAnd I, and it's, I think that's true a certain percentage of the time for me at casting, and maybe in general also. You know, you br… you, to completely chameleon yourself into somebody else…

1:11:28Jawad MirYeah

1:11:28Dean Parisot... There's very few people that are able to do that, where you just meet someone that does not exist in their personality. I mean, you, the personality is part of it, I think. And, which is why some people are right for some parts and not right for other parts, right?

1:11:47Dean ParisotNo matter what happens, you're still seeing that person somewhere in there, or a quality of that person. Or, but, in this case, I would say, yeah, Alan Rickman is a Shakespearean actor, classically trained…

1:12:09Jawad MirYeah

1:12:09Dean Parisot... British actor. Tim Allen is a standup comedian who, is basically flying by the seat of his pants mostly, right?

1:12:18Jawad MirYeah.

1:12:18Dean ParisotAnd those two are oil and water in person in some ways as well. So they have those qualities. They, so y… I would say yes, to a certain extent, those qualities that they have as people, become, assets if they're utilized for the, for the characters that have been written, if they, if... But there are certainly actors who, fly in the face of that. I mean, Meryl Streep, you know, it's, it's, you watch her become somebody else right in front of you.

1:12:59Jawad MirYeah. Yeah. Or another one was Philip Seymour Hoffman.

1:13:03Dean ParisotPhilip Seymour Hoffman, yeah.

1:13:04Jawad MirYeah. He was amazing.

1:13:05Dean ParisotAl… although you might say that they have those people in them, but they also might or might be so incredible at this that they're able to, Almost absorb another personality, you know?

1:13:19Jawad MirYeah. No, yeah.

1:13:20Dean ParisotI…

1:13:20Jawad MirTrue.

1:13:21Dean ParisotI mean, I started out learning, you know, acting a little bit myself, and going through and taking acting classes, and, it's, you know, all of those things that you bring to the fore are tools to bring things, that happen to you in your experience forward. But the next level of it is something else that I... If I was good at it, I might still be an actor, but I wasn't.

1:13:53Jawad MirYeah

1:13:53Dean Parisot... But it's a, it's a... Yeah, it's an i… interesting process, but I think, yeah, for the most part, a lot of those actors have those qualities.

1:14:03Jawad MirSure

1:14:03Dean Parisot... And for me, I'm trying to create distinct characters that have distinct character flaws and qualities, and e… and emotional, capacities. And so, the more, you know, e… especially in older comedy, I mean, you had the straight man, you had the, you know, the idiot, right? That's, that's that way for a reason. You, they work off one another, right?

1:14:32Jawad MirYeah.

1:14:33Dean ParisotAnd, the comedy comes from that relationship of those two people that are oil and water.

1:14:40Jawad MirSure. Yeah, no, that... Y… you're a 100%. I mean, that's similar with protagonist and antagonist, right? Like…

1:14:48Dean ParisotExactly, yeah

1:14:49Jawad Mir... Right? Like, I think probably, maybe I'm wrong, to my knowledge the first film that kind of showed a bad guy as a main character or antagonist was The Godfather. At least to my knowledge, maybe there was one before that.

1:15:03Dean ParisotYeah.

1:15:03Jawad MirYou know? And that really works really well because... And then the anti-hero, you know…

1:15:08Dean ParisotYeah

1:15:08Jawad Mir... Approach. And same thing with Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad.

1:15:12Dean ParisotWell, what's, what I love is that there are, there's no absolutes, right?

1:15:16Jawad MirYeah.

1:15:17Dean ParisotThere's no absolutes when you, when you understand how someone got to be that way.

1:15:21Jawad MirYeah.

1:15:22Dean ParisotSo the, watching that character become that as a result of things that happened to him…

1:15:29Jawad MirYeah

1:15:29Dean Parisot... Or her, w… in other words, watching, being privy to their vulnerability, right?

1:15:43Jawad MirI 100%, and I will attest to that, and I was having this conversation with somebody. We were screening one of my films at a, at an event. It's called Citizen of Moria, and it's about an Afghan filmmaker whose life, comes under threat by Taliban because he made a film about them. So he, to save his own life, he fled Afghanistan without saying goodbye to his pregnant wife and his kids.

1:16:11Dean ParisotOh.

1:16:12Jawad MirAnd he ends up in Europe's worst refugee detention center, where he secretly films, and I kinda team up with him. We both directed this film. And I played on that part of that guilt that he had to live with…

1:16:23Dean ParisotHuh

1:16:23Jawad Mir... In that he didn't, he didn't say goodbye.

1:16:25Dean ParisotYes, we're, we're sadists, actually. Yeah.

1:16:33Jawad MirProbably. And, but, I mean, it's, it's, it's... But that's, that's human, right? Like, we all, I think, I genuinely feel we all have guilty episodes, you know, so many vulnerabilities. It's just some people show it, some people don't. Maybe people like us put it out in our films, in a, in a very discreet way. But yeah, you're so right, the vulnerabilities, and that's what, again, with Galaxy Quest, I keep coming back to it, is that those vulnerabilities of each of those character that connects the audiences to the film.

1:17:06Dean ParisotYeah, I mean, that's, those are the people I love. I love people who…

1:17:10Jawad MirSame. Same

1:17:11Dean Parisot... Are, who let their guard down and who sh… you know, who I c… I can em… empathy is the result of that, right?

1:17:20Jawad MirYeah.

1:17:21Dean Parisot... And so, y… you know, I wanna, I wanna care about everyone, within the first seconds of meeting them somehow, and that's the trick, is how do you, how do you do that, you know? How do you, how do you invest i… in these characters that you're telling a story about? The same way you do in reality, right? It's like…

1:17:48Jawad MirYeah

1:17:48Dean Parisot... You learn, you start talking and you start learning about what their experience was and what they're afraid of or what they're not afraid of and who you, who they love and who they hate, and you find out s… about them, and in that process you start to, associate w… with their story. You start to, feel for them i… in some way, and hope for things for them. And, it's a, it's, it's a, the, it's the hardest thing as a writer to pull off.

1:18:24Jawad MirYeah.

1:18:24Dean ParisotBecause it has to be so succinct, and sometimes it's not dialogue. Sometimes it's behavior. It's subtext. It's all of those things that we... All those signals that we read that aren't necessarily dialogue, that make you invest i… in a character, in their vulnerability. And I think, that's the struggle constantly in storytelling.

1:18:57Jawad MirWhat I loved you had just said, and I wish all of us, including myself, we all, we're all guilty of this, but you all understand that, you know, in the world that we live in today, which is so divided, like, I think it's divided. You know, people say United States is divided. I think every country now is like that.

1:19:13Dean ParisotEverything, yeah.

1:19:14Jawad MirAnd it's, we are so easy to judge one side to the other and the other side to the other.

1:19:20Dean ParisotYeah.

1:19:21Jawad MirBut until we s… if, it's amazing when you sit down with someone with an opposing view… You will find that you have so... I know this is very cliche, but you…

1:19:29Dean ParisotSo much, no, it's true.

1:19:30Jawad MirSo much.

1:19:30Dean ParisotSo much in common. Yeah.

1:19:31Jawad MirYeah. It's incred… But we don't do that. We're always just jumping the gun, you know, like, making assumptions about people. And I…

1:19:37Dean ParisotYeah

1:19:37Jawad Mir... Have to, I don't wanna blame media 100%. I mean, we're guilty too, but m… we kind of get all that information from media, and we just start making these assumptions. But I hope what you just said is something that we start looking towards more seriously.

1:19:50Dean ParisotWell, it's actually cheap drama, right?

1:19:53Jawad MirYeah.

1:19:54Dean ParisotMedia has become cheap drama.

1:19:56Jawad MirYeah.

1:19:56Dean ParisotIt's sensationalism, which means that you're just preying on good guy, bad guy fear.

1:20:02Jawad MirThat's it. There's always, there's always a boogeyman.

1:20:05Dean ParisotYeah.

1:20:05Jawad MirThere's always a boogeyman.

1:20:06Dean ParisotAnd so if that's what you're, you're hearing all day long, you start to, you start to look at this in black and white and absolutes.

1:20:14Jawad MirYeah.

1:20:14Dean ParisotAnd I'm interested in the gray, you know?

1:20:18Jawad MirDefinitely. Definitely. Tell me, Dean, about the first public screening or premiere that you went to for Galaxy Quest, and your mindset getting in there and throughout the film screening and then afterwards. What was that like? Do you remember?

1:20:33Dean ParisotWell, I'm... That's the moment where I'm, I'm, I'm most uncomfortable, is once it's, it's finished and it's not your friends looking at it anymore.

1:20:43Jawad MirYeah.

1:20:44Dean ParisotIn this case, we had a screening. I s… I had a, I had a friends and family screening that w… went really well. W… and we didn't even have finished effects in it. And so I had gotten some confidence from that screening.

1:21:03Jawad MirSure.

1:21:03Dean ParisotI'd, I'd, I'd met and was friendly with, a lot of different filmmakers. But I still remember, when I started out with the film festival circuit, I'd gotten to know, Steven Soderbergh. And, Steven, who I remember came to the Galaxy Quest thing, he wasn't... He was still more of an independent filmmaker at that time. He wasn't, big Steven. And, he said,.. You know, I had a question and answer afterwards, and he said, "Don't..." He just said, "Don't do anything. Just keep doing whatever you're doing." He was like, "It's sc… It's..." It was a wonderful screening, and then the next day I screened it for the studio, and it wasn't as good. So you have these, you know, it's like I come out of that screening, and you go, "Oh, everybody's saying it was terrific."

1:21:59Jawad MirYeah.

1:21:59Dean ParisotAnd then the next day, "Yeah, not so good." Then we start screening it for, testing, right? So the first testing audience is, because they were marketing it for kids, it was all kids, and the... And I was like, "What is this? Why are we screening..." Well, that's, you know, I'm talking to Terry Press, who was, who was setting all this stuff up for, who was running, DreamWorks'

1:22:25Jawad MirYep

1:22:25Dean Parisot... Publicity, you know, distribution and, said, "Well, it's, it's kids." And that audience didn't go well. And parents were angry 'cause there was initially there were one or two bad words.

1:22:39Jawad MirYeah.

1:22:40Dean ParisotAnd so, those screenings kept going back and forth, where one would be incredible, and one would be, like, off. Part of that was 'cause the s… the visual effects took so long back then.

1:22:55Jawad MirYeah.

1:22:55Dean ParisotThere were just chunks where there's just blue screen, right? There's nothing. Right? Or there's, blank, just black, right?

1:23:06Jawad MirYeah.

1:23:06Dean ParisotAnd the music wasn't mixed or in yet. But once we f… we screened it for a big audience on the, when it opened, 'cause we'd opened it at the, at the Chinese Man Theater in Hollywood…

1:23:18Jawad MirYeah

1:23:19Dean Parisot... That was a fantastic audience. It was terrific. And I was so nervous, I don't think I realized it for about 15 minutes, that everybody was laughing and clapping and then it, I went to a few other screenings. It screened really well from that moment on, but it didn't always screen well. You know, it kept going back and forth. It depended on the audience. The sort of, the fandom audience, the movie fandom audience would…

1:23:52Jawad MirYeah

1:23:52Dean Parisot... Go nuts for it. And then, but the, but the parents with kids audience, "Eh, yeah, it was fu… it was fun," but it wasn't like w… They weren't la… They weren't laughing at anything, right? They were…

1:24:05Jawad MirYeah

1:24:06Dean Parisot... They weren't getting the intention of it. But it changed. It ju… it's ju… it was a strange experience. It was m… stranger than anything else I've made because it was, it was missing, and it should have hit. And then it would hit big, and then it somehow that wouldn't affect what was... It was odd, very odd. But it did, as I said earlier, it did keep making... It made about 10 million every weekend…

1:24:42Jawad MirYeah

1:24:42Dean Parisot... In a row for, like, I can't remember how many weekends, three or four.

1:24:46Jawad MirIt was four or five or six weekends. It did, it did r… I remember the legs. Like, it had those legs that Titanic…

1:24:51Dean ParisotHad legs, yeah.

1:24:53Jawad MirYeah.

1:24:53Dean ParisotWhich is, which is why, Jeffrey Ca… Katzenberg called, for that reason. It's like that's what be…

1:25:01Jawad MirYeah

1:25:01Dean Parisot... Became apparent that,.. I mean, Mark Johnson said they accused them of leaving their cards on the table, which I think is what they did. But I can't, at this point I can't be ang… I wasn't even angry about it then.

1:25:14Jawad MirYeah.

1:25:14Dean ParisotIt was like, I don't know how to sell a movie.

1:25:18Jawad MirYeah, exactly.

1:25:20Dean ParisotI could guess that it w… that they were limiting the audience and that they were selling it, they were downselling it, right? To make it look goofy and silly for kids. But I… I didn't know any better. I didn't… I couldn't…

1:25:34Jawad MirYeah

1:25:34Dean Parisot... I couldn't say, "Well, I've sold all these movies," or, "I've made all these movies and you're wrong." I could just argue for the, for the aesthetic of it, you know, for the, for who it was targeting.

1:25:47Jawad MirI wonder, I wonder if that was, the case would be different if it wasn't released during Christmas.

1:25:53Dean ParisotIt would've been different, yeah.

1:25:54Jawad MirYeah.

1:25:54Dean ParisotBut they saw it, I think they saw it that way, as a Christmas movie with Tim Allen. But I…

1:26:01Jawad MirAnother... Sorry, go on.

1:26:03Dean ParisotNo, I was gonna say, but there are a lot of movies that have suffered from this, right?

1:26:07Jawad MirI was gonna tell… say that. Yeah.

1:26:08Dean ParisotThroughout history. And it, and it, and most filmmakers would go, "Screw that studio," right? Or blah. I don't feel that way anymore. It's really hard to do this, right? It's a, it's about what an… what a culture is ready for at that moment.

1:26:27Jawad MirYeah.

1:26:28Dean ParisotWhat else is going on in the world. How you, do the research to try and find what audience is your audience. And it's, it's a reason why the selling of movies is normally boring and, middle of the road. You start, you're seeing the same poster with the same phrase and the same voice in the trailer, and it seems like they're selling the same movie over and over again…

1:27:02Jawad MirYeah

1:27:02Dean Parisot... For the last 30 years in general. But then when something really sticks out, you go, "Oh, that. I wanna go see that." But that's a dangerous move to make, right, for them. They just spent all this money, and it's a, it's a hard thing to figure out. There are not very many people that are that good at it.

1:27:22Jawad Mir100%. And I think the similar fate happened with, Michael Bay also DreamWorks film, The Island.

1:27:29Dean ParisotYeah.

1:27:29Jawad MirWith, Scarlett Johansson and it... I mean, a Michael Bay movie, right? It opened up, I think, with 11 million or 12 million box office. Like, it was just a disaster. And I think Michael Bay also had a similar thought process as you did, but he had a very bold one as opposed to you as to…

1:27:48Dean ParisotWell, it's... Yeah, but it's, you know... The other thing is you're try… they're trying to make as much profit as they can. They just spent a load of money, right?

1:27:55Jawad MirYeah.

1:27:56Dean ParisotSo they're trying to get every person in every seat. In the process of doing that, you sell, you don't sell the movie you made. You're, you're selling a version of what you think…

1:28:11Jawad MirYeah

1:28:11Dean Parisot... Will bring those people in. So, in a, in a sense, I think there was an article in the Times maybe 10 years ago that talked about the most successful movies were the result of the ones that had, word of mouth. Because eventually those people are telling their friends…

1:28:34Jawad MirYeah

1:28:34Dean Parisot... They enjoyed it. Now they're telling their friends who they think will also enjoy it, versus trying to get every last person on the planet Earth to sit in the theater. And in effect, they're selling it properly.

1:28:49Jawad MirYeah. But…

1:28:49Dean ParisotWord of mouth is selling the movie properly.

1:28:52Jawad MirBut do you think, this is just a thought process you just mentioned. Do you think…

1:28:56Dean ParisotOf course, who's gonna rely on that? Yeah

1:28:59Jawad Mir... It's also a testament to the film itself? So if the word of mouth is strong, like it was for Titanic, The Godfather, Sixth Sense, Blair Witch Project, I mean, there are tons of them. Do you think that is a testament to the film being unique and great? And where the word of mouth is not that strong, it's the opposite effect, or there are exceptions?

1:29:22Dean ParisotI don't know the answer to that question. I, my instinct is that it's because the movies were great and maybe slightly ahead of their time, in some way.

1:29:34Jawad MirYeah.

1:29:34Dean ParisotOr that they're, they got the wrong audience is possible as well. But there are also movies that, a lot of movies that are popular for us now that were ahead of their time, that were not the zeitgeist was off. You know, it's just, it was, they were not, they were not in their, in their moment. And so, there are also movies that get better as you watch them. This happens to me with the Coen Brothers movies all the time. It's like…

1:30:07Jawad Mir100%, I hear you

1:30:08Dean Parisot... I see a Coen Brothers the first time and it's like, "Ah, I love that movie." And then I go back a second time, I go, "Oh my God, that's so much better than I even thought the first time." it's, it's, because you're getting more out of it, you know. Because, hopefully because it's... Well, 'cause they're brilliant movies, 'cause they're smart and 'cause there are layers.

1:30:28Jawad MirYeah. Exactly

1:30:30Dean Parisot... There's more to be found there. Once you get through the story, there's more than just the story, right? There's, there's theme, there's, there's weird character traits. There are things you love seeing over and over again, how somebody reacted to something. I was watching a documentary on Paul Newman recently and I remember thinking that, and I still think The Sting was kind of corny, right, as a movie. It's like that music area, it's like not really my… Yeah. It's not my thing. But I still remember a moment where Robert Redford has gotten Newman to come and play this con because Newman is the best there is. And Robert Redford comes in and Newman is doing these card tricks, and all of a sudden the cards go everywhere. And Redford has this look like, "Oh my God, this guy's a fake. What have I done?" Right?

1:31:25Jawad MirYeah.

1:31:25Dean ParisotIt's just a piece of behavior. And I remember, I still remember that, and I was a little kid when I saw that, right? It was like, that made me laugh, and it made me laugh again. Because it's, it's, they were both on their game, but also it was a great…... Little moment, you know? So yeah, who knows. We like to revisit those things, I think

1:31:48Jawad MirOh, yeah.

1:31:49Dean ParisotBut

1:31:50Jawad MirI, yeah

1:31:51Dean Parisot... But I think there are movies that got lost. I mean, there are movies that got lost…

1:31:55Jawad MirI mean…

1:31:55Dean Parisot... That no… nobody ever saw that were brilliant. And they get ba… they get brought back sometimes, but it's hard to bring something back, too. Yeah. Well, what's a movie that you, that you thought was absolutely genius that just never got…

1:32:15Jawad MirThat's a good question. I don't know. I mean, there's so many, nothing comes to mind. I remember when Shawshank Redemption came out.

1:32:26Dean ParisotRight.

1:32:26Jawad MirIt tanked. It…

1:32:28Dean ParisotThat's right, it tanked. Yeah

1:32:29Jawad Mir... It tanked, but it got nominated, and it won a lot of awards. I don't know if it did get a, win awards, but it w… it became, like, one of those films that everybody talks about to this day.

1:32:39Dean ParisotOne of those films that I thought, actually just came to mind, that y… you just jarred my memory is Badlands. Do you remember Badlands, Terrence Malick's first film?

1:32:47Jawad MirYes.

1:32:50Dean ParisotIt…

1:32:50Jawad MirAmazing

1:32:51Dean Parisot... Beautiful.

1:32:51Jawad MirYeah.

1:32:51Dean ParisotBeautiful, and ahe… way ahead of its time. I mean

1:32:56Jawad MirThere's so many great films out there that go unnoticed. I just saw one recently, and I highly recommend that you watch it. I think it's on iTunes. No studio wanna pick it up. It's a Spike Lee joint production. It's, I won't even tell you what it's about bec… Don't even watch the trailer, just watch the film. It's called American Skin.

1:33:16Dean ParisotOh, wow.

1:33:16Jawad MirIt's really good. That's all I will say. It's really good.

1:33:21Dean ParisotYeah. But…

1:33:22Jawad MirBut again, not many people saw it.

1:33:25Dean ParisotYeah. So who knows? I mean, Galaxy Quest, having legs was a surprise to me.

1:33:30Jawad MirYeah

1:33:30Dean Parisot... It was a surprise. Hello. Oh, look, girlfriend.

1:33:33Jawad MirHi.

1:33:33Dean ParisotI'm sorry to interrupt. We're on a podcast.

1:33:34Jawad MirThat's okay.

1:33:35Dean ParisotOh. Sorry.

1:33:38Jawad MirThat's okay. You can ask him that.

1:33:40Dean ParisotOh, all right.

1:33:40Jawad MirGo ahead. Go ahead. No, she can talk to you for a second. I'll wait.

1:33:42Dean ParisotOh, that's all right. She's, she's, that's, that's my, partner, Chesney. The, 'cause I'm usually in here on some Zoom meeting, right? So it's, it's funny. But, yeah, the, it's, Galaxy Quest was a surprising... I saw it happening, at the time a little bit, mostly because of fan culture. But I... You know, it's odd because you finish a movie, it goes out, it does whatever it does, and that's it.

1:34:19Jawad MirYeah.

1:34:20Dean ParisotIt's over. You never think about it aga… I don't even s… I never see them again.

1:34:23Jawad MirYeah.

1:34:23Dean ParisotI don't think about 'em again, and I'm moving on to the next thing, and this keeps coming back. So…

1:34:30Jawad MirYeah

1:34:30Dean Parisot... And it's a, it's a strange, it's a, it's a, an, it's a great feeling. It's rewarding. It's, it's great. But it's also surprising. To me it feels like it's a... You know, I would, I would do something different. I mean, there are things I would change in it, right? I would

1:34:50Jawad MirOh, yeah, that's, that's always the case, though. And I think now that you mention it, I mean, I don't, I'm sure there are more, but Galaxy Quest is one of those films that I don't think that did well as it was supposed to do. I mean, it still, it still makes me laugh, not because it's hilarious, but because smart and hilarious, right? It's just very properly, every... Like, you know, just like a musical track, like, when every note works and you have an amazing theme like Jaws or ET, like, that's what Galaxy Quest is, and it just didn't work.

1:35:21Dean ParisotWow. Gee.

1:35:21Jawad MirYeah. I genuinely…

1:35:23Dean ParisotThank you. Very sweet

1:35:24Jawad Mir... You know, I really, I really admire that film a lot. I mean, that, and this is out of being biased for Dreamworks. I mean, Dreamworks made some not so great movies, but films like, you know, especially in that era of 1998 and 2002, like American Beauty…

1:35:38Dean ParisotAmazing crowd

1:35:38Jawad Mir... Saving Private Ryan, Almost Famous, Gladiator, Galaxy Quest. I mean, there are so many more. Shrek.

1:35:45Dean ParisotYeah.

1:35:45Jawad MirBut yeah, no, it was, it just has something in it. And film is psychology, right? Like, it's all about…

1:35:52Dean ParisotYeah

1:35:52Jawad Mir... Psycho… And it triggers something with us that we don't even know what it is, but we just like it. We admire it.

1:36:01Dean ParisotWell, I'm flattered, and thank you very much.

1:36:05Jawad MirYou're welcome. You're welcome.

1:36:06Dean ParisotIt's, it was fun. All I can say is, it's the closest I got to making what I imagined, and it was really f… actually incredible fun making that movie. And we all, we all enjoyed each other, and I…

1:36:21Jawad MirSure.

1:36:21Dean ParisotAnd so I think that I keep trying to recapture that. I mean, I do to some degree…

1:36:27Jawad MirYeah

1:36:28Dean Parisot... Because I think it also eventually, hopefully translates to an audience at some point.

1:36:33Jawad MirAbsolutely. I'll leave you with, I'll ask you one more question then I'll let you go, sir. There's always been, there's always talks about sequels, right? And… I mean, it's been 23 years, but has there ever been, like, a serious consideration? Because it's such a, has a strong fan base.

1:36:50Dean ParisotThere, we had a serious consideration. Bob Gordon came up with an idea which was even more meta, like three levels of meta farther, than Galaxy Quest was ... In absurdity. And we were gonna make a limited series, and we were in talks with Amazon, and Alan died, and, it just took the wind out of our sails.

1:37:28Jawad MirYeah.

1:37:29Dean ParisotAnd, we couldn't figure it out without him, and so we all just went, "okay, never mind." that idea is still there. Bob still has it. Mark Johnson is still trying to keep it alive. Other people, I think, have tried. I think Simon Pegg... Tried. There's some other writers that have tried, but it somehow it ju… it just didn't, it didn't work.

1:37:57Jawad MirYeah.

1:37:57Dean ParisotI think it, I think also the farther away from it I get, the more I don't want to do it. Just because I don't want it... That it seems to have done as well as we could have expected.

1:38:15Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

1:38:16Dean ParisotWhy start

1:38:18Jawad MirExactly. I'm glad you said that.

1:38:21Dean ParisotYou know, and that, I mean, I've been involved in things that were, you know, number two or three, r… and it's very difficult

1:38:30Jawad MirYeah

1:38:30Dean Parisot... To get that spirit back again to re… r… to do what you did the first time. It's just somehow it's the result of that moment, that time, those people, that screenplay, and when you keep trying to... I mean, people have done it, for sure. I mean, I think I may have almost done it once. But, this recent Time of, Bill and Ted, I think we discovered…

1:38:57Jawad MirOh, right. The... Yeah

1:38:57Dean Parisot... We discovered a m… a mid, a midlife version of Bill and Ted. But it's dif… much different than the first two, and, you couldn't have... That, even that tone was not my tone. S… and I don't know, it just feels, it feels like it's, you're really... I mean, you do have Godfather I and II.

1:39:18Jawad MirI was gonna say that, yeah.

1:39:20Dean ParisotRight? So there are... This has been pulled off, and there, it's really tempting to do it all the time because…

1:39:26Jawad MirYeah

1:39:26Dean Parisot... You love those characters. But I'm not sure, I'm not sure this is the one to do it with. But there seems to be a lot of people keep trying. There's somebody now who's trying, who's called me and said, you know, "We have this idea. Would you be on board?" I was like, I always will entertain it, and who knows? I don't know. I know it would have to be,.. I don't know. I think it'd have to be much different.

1:39:49Jawad MirYeah. I genuinely believe, I'm maybe, you realize this too, I think because Alan Rickman is no more, I think that has sort of taken the interest level down on your part, right?

1:40:00Dean ParisotYeah. It was like we couldn't rec… we couldn't recover from that. Getting them all back together again and doing this, it would've been 10 years later, and they all, they all were actually in worse shape.

1:40:14Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

1:40:15Dean ParisotBecause they had this secret that they couldn't betray. So, it was, it was actually a fun idea. But I think, yeah, probably not.

1:40:29Jawad MirWell, thank you so much, Dean, for your time. I've loved…

1:40:33Dean ParisotYou're very, you're very welcome. I

1:40:34Jawad MirThank you so much

1:40:35Dean Parisot... Please edit out all the boring stuff.... And all the stuff that sounds like, a lawyer's notification.

1:40:44Jawad MirNo, it was all fun. I'll, I'll edit out your partner walking in, but other than that, all is staying in.

1:40:48Dean ParisotOh, she'd probably like to be in. Yeah.

1:40:50Jawad MirOkay. I will leave it in then. That's fine.

1:40:52Dean ParisotYeah.

1:40:52Jawad MirI'll leave it in. But thank you, Dean. It was... I had a ple… it was fun. It was really fun. I thank you so much for your time.

1:40:57Dean ParisotWell, you were g… you were great. I mean, this is, this is fantastic. Do more.

1:41:01Jawad MirI am... I will email you about that. I probably will seek your guidance on that. I…

1:41:06Dean ParisotNo, you're, you're great at it. It's really... You're, you're incredibly, you're fun to talk to and you're really, smart about, filmmaking and moviemaking, being when you're a filmmaker yourself, so…

1:41:18Jawad MirThank you so much. That's very amazing of you

1:41:19Dean Parisot... It makes it makes it so much easier than telling some funny anecdotes.

1:41:23Jawad MirNo, that's a very generous comment. I appreciate it. Thank you so much, Dean. I think…

1:41:27Dean ParisotAll right. You take care.

1:41:28Jawad MirAll right.

1:41:28Dean ParisotBye-bye.

1:41:29Jawad 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.