'E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial', Author, Caseen Gaines

0:08Jawad MirThank you so much for taking the time to do this. Appreciate it.

0:12Caseen GainesNo problem. Thank you for asking. I'm so excited to talk about the book and talk about E.T., and to show the book, just because I…

0:22Jawad MirYeah

0:22Caseen Gaines... Feel like it's very under wraps. It's been very kind of top secret. So I have it in my hand. Well, I have it on my desk, but now it's in my hand. So it's here. Yeah.

0:33Jawad MirThat's wonderful. I'm glad to hear that. Just, a one little a note if you don't mind, I think Samaya may have asked you just to do the audio…

0:40Caseen GainesYes

0:40Jawad Mir... On the phone, just in case as a backup.

0:43Caseen GainesThat's right. Thank you.

0:44Jawad MirAppreciate that.

0:45Caseen GainesNo problem. All right, hold on one second. Chchch-ch-ch-ch. I never, for some reason, I never know where the

0:57Jawad MirAre you on iPhone?

0:58Caseen GainesI have too… The problem is that I have too many, apps. I have too many icons on my... There, I found it. Here you go.

1:04Jawad MirOh, okay. Great.

1:07Caseen GainesAll right. Perfect. It's going now. All right. So it's there…

1:11Jawad MirYeah

1:11Caseen Gaines... As a backup. We should be good.

1:13Jawad MirGreat. So let's, let's start with, just a bit about yourself. Who are you, what's your background, and, leading up to what led you to write this book?

1:25Caseen GainesYes. So, my name is Cassine Gaines. I am an author. I am a cultural historian, and also, just a lover of film, television, theater, just the arts in general. And so, I've written several books on sort of these great moments in 1980s pop culture. I wrote a book on Pee-wee's Playhouse, and A Christmas Story, and, Back to the Future, and The Dark Crystal. And there was an opportunity to sort of throw my h… my name in the hat or my hat in the ring, for this great book that Insight Editions was, publishing on E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial for the 40th anniversary. And…

2:12Jawad MirRight

2:13Caseen Gaines... I put my name in for it, and I was hoping that I would get it, and then it seemed like it wasn't going to happen, and then it seemed like it might happen. And, ultimately, I was just so incredibly honored to be chosen, not just by Insight, but by the team at Amblin to write this because, you know, if you, number one, if you are my age, E.T. Is just this amazing cinematic masterpiece that you can't do any better, I think, than E.T. And if you are someone who writes the kinds of books that I write, working on the full history of a film that is as important to just the world, truly the world as E.T. Is, it doesn't get any better. So I'm, I'm so happy to have my name on this and have my words in this, and I'm just, I'm excited by it.

3:15Jawad MirThat's wonderful. And just so for people, including myself, is it, the decision something that comes from the top, people at Amblin, or is it more so from the marketing, or how does it work? Or are you aware of that? What's the process?

3:29Caseen GainesI'm not fully aware, but my understanding of it, which may be a little bit inaccurate, is that, you know, like, most major corporations like that, you know, I think Amblin has a division that works on their publishing side. So, you know, everything from, I know there's like a new, Little Golden Book that is coming out that's an E.T. One. You know, there are all sorts of different publishing projects…

3:54Jawad MirMerchandise

3:54Caseen Gaines... Merchandise and things like that. So I think there's a team… ... That works on that. But it's great because I think when everyone has an opportunity to see the Ultimate Visual History, you'll really appreciate how generous really everyone at Amblin was in terms of the photographs and the ephemera that are in this book. It's not just text, it's also,.. Gosh, I'm trying to, I'm trying to figure out what I can even tease here, but it's like, there are annotated copies of scripts. There are some, actual pages that are reproduced here of meetings betw… of transcripts of meetings between Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, and Melissa Mathison, the screenwriter. There are storyboards, but there are also, some of the pictures in this book are actually from Steven Spielberg's personal Polaroid collection

4:58Jawad MirThat's awesome

4:58Caseen Gaines... That he took on the set. And so it's, it's,.. You know, I think sometimes when there are things like this, especially for a film that is as well-known as E.T., people sort of say, "Well, what new could be in the book? I've heard all of the stories. I've seen all of the pictures." But even myself, like, I have been blown away by what people have been able to find to put in something that is truly,.. I mean, and it's a thick book. It's a coffee table book, but just the size of it, I mean, it's a big book.

5:32Jawad MirYeah.

5:32Caseen GainesSo there's a lot in here, and I think people are truly going to be, very pleasantly surprised.

5:40Jawad MirThat's incredible. And were you, growing up, was it, did you have like a Spielberg, childhood, like, you know, watching not just the directed stuff, like, you know, Amblin produced, like Back to the Future, obviously you wrote a book about it.

5:55Jawad MirJust run that by me a little bit, just your background on that, if any.

6:00Caseen GainesSure. Yeah. I mean, I, you know, I was born in 1986, so I'm a child of the '80s, but in a lot of ways a child of the '90s in a sense.

6:10Jawad MirYeah.

6:10Caseen GainesBut, you know, it's funny because I didn't realize… I saw E.T. When I was very young, and, I didn't realize that E.T., I sort of think of it as like a quintessential Spielberg film, but I didn't really know as a kid that Jaws and Close Encounter, like there were things that came before…

6:34Caseen Gaines... E.T. That were really kind of different. I mean, obviously, as I got older, you can see the similar… not similarities, but the sort of thematic connection…

6:43Jawad MirStyle

6:43Caseen Gaines... Between certainly style and, just I think what Spielberg is always trying to convey through his work through such different stories, you know?

6:56Jawad MirYeah.

6:56Caseen GainesIt's family, it's, it's… I think they're all kind of coming of age stories, and it doesn't matter if they are children. You know, they don't have to be children. It's like these like stories of like self-discovery, I think is what I'm getting at.

7:13Jawad MirAbsolutely

7:14Caseen Gaines... And that rings through in so many… you know, even something like Jaws, which doesn't seem like it's a self-discovery story, but it really is… ... In the same sort of way. So, you know, I just grew up really with Spielberg films being a part of the palate of what I digested as a kid.

7:34Jawad MirYeah.

7:34Caseen GainesAnd I think certainly, definitely Amblin as a filmmaking, company, just having their tentacles in so many films that I loved as a kid.

7:49Jawad MirYeah.

7:49Caseen GainesEven really like small films. They seem to really do very well, especially in the '90s with a lot of like, you know, probably low to mid-budget, you know, like family films that I just inhaled as a kid.

8:03Jawad MirRight. No, that's fantastic. I think my child… well, I shouldn't say my childhood. I'm, I'm the product of late '70s. And I didn't know much about, anything about E.T. Until after Jurassic Park came out.

8:19Caseen GainesOh, okay.

8:19Jawad MirSo in 1993, I didn't even know who Spielberg was, right? I had seen Jaws and Raiders of the Lost Ark, but not knowingly who was behind it as a kid, like maybe when I was like, I don't know, seven, eight years old, nine years old. But I remember my… when Jurassic Park came out, and I'm getting to E.T. In a second. When Jurassic Park came out, I didn't get to go see the movie until it came on VHS 16 months later.

8:47Jawad MirAnd in that process, I came to learn, like I knew that's what I wanna do. I wanna be a filmmaker, and that's what I'm doing, you know, with my career. In that process, I saw everything Spielberg and Amblin related.

8:59Caseen GainesWow.

9:00Jawad MirAnd I remember going to a VHS store, which is a, I think it was… it was, there was no Blockbuster at the time. It was called Rogers Store here in Canada. And I remember there was a kids section, and there was a VHS with a boy on a bike and, you know, with the moon in the background, and it just… I'm like, "What is this?" And it was for 99 cents. I still remember the rental.

9:21Caseen GainesOh.

9:21Jawad MirAnd I picked it up and, it had a, an amazing impact, and it's, you know, such a similar Jurassic Park. A… they're very similar film in my view. They're very personal… ... And about, you know, extraordinary, ordinary people in extraordinary situations. So, yeah, no, E.T. Is incredible, and I have something here. I don't know if you've ever seen this.

9:43Caseen GainesOh, yes. Oh my God, that…

9:47Jawad MirThat's the, that's the 20th anniversary edition. Actually, I've never opened it. I still have the…

9:51Caseen GainesI've only seen it online. I, but I've see… wow, that's beautiful.

9:55Jawad MirI hope so. And then it comes with a certificate, and then this book, which is a screenplay. You've probably seen this for sure.

10:03Caseen GainesYes.

10:05Jawad MirYeah. And

10:07Caseen GainesYes

10:07Jawad Mir... And then obviously there's a soundtrack and then the film and the 20… have you seen the 20th anniversary version?

10:14Caseen GainesI have seen the 20th anniversary version. Yes, I have. And I, and I actually got it on, DVD, I mean, right when it, right when it came out. So yeah, I'm very fam…

10:26Jawad MirYeah.

10:26Caseen GainesI didn't see it in theaters, but I did get it as soon as it came out on DVD for sure.

10:31Jawad MirSo did you… you probably remember the whole thing about the bathtub scene and the CGI and all that stuff. What did you think of that?

10:40Caseen GainesYou know, at, to be honest with you, at the time in 2002, I don't think I…

10:50Jawad MirRegistered that

10:51Caseen Gaines... Minded it as much as I mind now, you know? And I, and I think it was just sort of like, in my mind, I think, you know, I, the big thing that's sort of sticking out to me is like, Spider-Man. You know, I feel like I was just so much more accepting of CGI that now makes me like wince a little bit. Like, I think, you know…

11:15Jawad MirYeah. There's too much of it now, right?

11:16Caseen GainesYeah. We've gotten so much better at, I think, identifying it. So I thought it was kind of an interesting project at the time to go back and just sort of give some digital, Botox to E.T. But i… it's funny, because even in the book, you know, I spoke with, Mr. Spielberg about, and not just him, but I spoke with a lot of people about the 20th anniversary release. And, it's, it's interesting that I think they've all sort of come around to the sense that the 20th release isn't particularly worth watching, except perhaps maybe as like an academic exercise, you know?

12:05Jawad MirYeah. Yeah

12:06Caseen Gaines... You know, and I think there's lots of good reason for that. You know, I'm, I am a firm believer, that film should sort of exist in the Time and space that it was created in.

12:24Jawad MirYeah.

12:24Caseen GainesYou know, I don't mind when they add scene… You know, like, the ba… adding the bathtub scene to me wasn't so much a problem. But that actually was a scene that they… Well, obviously it's a scene that they tried to do for the '82 film…

12:38Jawad MirExactly. Yeah

12:38Caseen Gaines... And it just didn't work.

12:40Jawad MirDidn't work.

12:41Caseen GainesThe puppet didn't work. So, as a result, I understood why that wasn't in the film, of course, the '82 film. But yeah, I don't know. I haven't, I haven't gone back to rewatch the 2002 release.

12:57Jawad MirYeah. I even think if my memory serves me right, I believe, Steven, himself kind of later kind of felt that he… it's something that he shouldn't have touched. I'm not officially sure if that's accurate. I'll have to double-check. But yeah, it… I remember when I went to see it in theaters, it threw me off because the puppet is just so lively and so, what's the word I'm looking for?

13:25Caseen GainesLike, it's practical.

13:25Jawad MirIt's just so tangible. You can feel it even watching it, right? Like the eyes, the movement and everything. But when they had the CGI, it just, it completely threw me off. But I'm actually wondering if the fortieth anniversary edition that's coming into IMAX next month, I think August 12th, if they're gonna have the '82 version or the 2002 version. Do you know?

13:49Caseen GainesThe 2002 version will never be in theaters again.

13:54Jawad MirThat's great.

13:54Caseen GainesI will tell you the, s… you know, Steven Spielberg was incredibly clear, when we spoke that he sort of prefers to pretend that the 2002 version did not exist.

14:10Jawad MirGood.

14:10Caseen GainesAnd so…

14:10Jawad MirI'm glad.

14:11Caseen GainesYeah. And he… it's funny because he said he, You have to remember also, and I can't remember if he said this to me in our phone calls or if this was something that I read, but I remember… or maybe even Kathleen Kennedy might have said this to me. But, you know, this was the time where George Lucas was reopening the Star Wars, the original trilogy.

14:33Jawad MirYes.

14:33Caseen GainesAnd there was sort of a sense that audien… And they also did very big business, you know, those Star Wars film, the special editions of the original trilogy. And so there was sort of this thought that audiences would want to see. If they were gonna go into the theaters and see a re-release, they would need something new. And, you know, obviously, E.T. Kind of got like the George Lucas treatment a little bit.

15:01Jawad MirYeah.

15:01Caseen GainesSo that was… I don't know if that would've even happened if it weren't for those Star Wars releases.

15:10Jawad MirMakes sense. I remember, I remember they had Jabba the, Jabba the Hutt digitally re… inserted in the film. I think it was the Return of Jedi, or maybe Empire Strikes Back.

15:19Caseen GainesHe was in

15:20Jawad MirBut anyways, moving.

15:21Caseen GainesYeah.

15:21Jawad MirGo on. Go on. No, go on. Sorry.

15:22Caseen GainesI was gonna say, I think he was inserted in the first one. I can't… Was it, was it Return of the Jedi, or was it A New Hope? I think… I know that there's a scene that wasn't in the original film.

15:35Jawad MirOh, yeah. It was in New Hope. It was inside…

15:37Caseen GainesIt was in New Hope, right? And…

15:38Jawad Mir... The ship. It was inside a ship. Besides the Millennium Falcon, I think they just showed him sort of, you know, like a worm crawling.

15:45Caseen GainesRight. Han like steps on his tail or something like that.

15:48Jawad MirYeah.

15:48Caseen GainesYeah.

15:48Jawad MirYeah. Yeah. Who did you interview for the book? I know you probably did a lot, but just kind of some names and some experiences, of learning about the film or of the people involved. I know there's so much material on E.T. I'm not sure if you've seen E.T.'s, laser disc documentary, like…

16:09Caseen GainesI did. Yeah

16:10Jawad Mir... There's just so much stuff. So what was the new stuff, aside from what you mentioned and who you interviewed, and what new information they gave you?

16:18Caseen GainesOh, boy. So there was a lot of new information. And so just so you know, my sort of process, you know, I started of course with inhaling those… every documentary that I could find, and not just like the laser discs, but also, on the, probably the 2002 re-release, there was a documentary as well that was different. There were a couple of really great television documentaries…

16:49Jawad MirYes

16:49Caseen Gaines... That had been out. I think some of them, some of the really good ones were from the UK, I think. Pardon me. And I think they're… Yeah. So I just started with reading everything that I could and watching everything that I could and using that as sort of, to sort of create an outline for myself. But then obviously, I did do interviews. I spoke with Steven Spielberg. I spoke with, Kathleen Kennedy. I spoke with Drew Barrymore. I spoke with, Rob MacNaughton. I spoke with, Boy, I spoke with, Carol Littleton.

17:28Jawad MirHenry Thomas.

17:29Caseen GainesOne more time.

17:30Jawad MirHenry Thomas.

17:32Caseen GainesI… Actually, I did not speak with Henry, and only because, he was filming his show. The title is escaping me. It's on Netflix. I think The House on Haunting Hill, I think is the name of it. Ugh, don't, don't…

17:47Jawad MirOh, okay. Oh, okay.

17:47Caseen GainesYeah. Sorry if I've had the wrong title there, but he's… it's a, it's a very successful show. People will know the name of the show. Sorry. Sorry, Henry. But he was in between filming at the time. But I did speak to Dee, pardon me, to Dee Wallace, Peter Coyote. Oh my gosh, I'm just trying to think. And then a lot of the, special effects people, Dennis Muren, who, led the special effects team…

18:12Jawad MirYeah

18:12Caseen Gaines... And a ton of special effects people. I don't want to try and name them all because I will forget people. But a lot of people. I, if I didn't mention Carol Littleton already

18:24Jawad MirYeah

18:24Caseen Gaines... I spoke with her. And also, I do wanna acknowledge that I spoke also with, Mike Fenton, who was one of the casting directors, and he is the person who is reading with Henry in the infamous…

18:39Jawad MirNestor, the dog?

18:40Caseen GainesYes. Yes.

18:41Jawad MirYeah.

18:41Caseen GainesAnd it's, it's great. And Mike, I spoke with him for my Back to the Future book as well, really nice guy, and he's actually since passed away since we did the interview. And so it's, it's really nice to have been able to speak with him about not just that, amazing audition, but, I mean, you know, Mike really chose Henry, you know, or helped choose Hen… He… Mike helped, curate a process that led to Steven choosing Henry, but he really played a very important role in the film. And so, it was great. But then I also spoke with some people who,.. Like, I spoke with the person who built ET's eyes. I spoke with…

19:33Jawad MirOh, the, was it from the, Medical Institute? I can't remember.

19:36Caseen GainesYes. Yep.

19:37Jawad MirYeah.

19:37Caseen GainesI did.

19:39Jawad MirI forgot her name.

19:39Caseen GainesI spoke with, Matt de Merit, who was one of the actors inside of one of the ET, body puppets. So yeah, it was a, it was a really… I'm estimating probably around 50 people or so that I interviewed.

19:55Jawad MirWow.

19:55Caseen GainesAnd that's in addition to obviously pulling from things that had already been out there. And so, there's a lot. And I think what really fascinated me about the interviews was just sort of… It's one thing to know that ET was a film with a small budget, and it ended up doing, you know, amazing business, of course.

20:22Jawad MirYeah.

20:22Caseen GainesBut it's another thing altogether to sort of hear about how that small budget impacted them making the film. And it really led to a lot of really creative decisions because they just didn't have the money to do…

20:38Jawad MirYeah

20:38Caseen Gaines... You know, whatever they wanted.

20:39Jawad MirOr the talent.

20:40Caseen GainesYeah. So it's, it's fascinating. And I think, yeah, it was kind of like really renegade filmmaking. This was a small film. This wasn't, you know, Close Encounters. This wasn't Jaws. This wasn't… You know, this was meant to be a small personal film. And they were all surprised. I can honestly say, I think in speaking with especially, Steven and, Kathy, I think almost in a sense, they're almost still surprised that ET went on to do, you know, the business that it, that it did, even after 40 years.

21:19Jawad MirYeah.

21:19Caseen GainesI should probably also mention, I spoke with, the, person who made the Atari game as well, and there's some really great stuff in the book about the Atari, game…

21:30Jawad MirNice

21:30Caseen Gaines... And how that, how that came to be.

21:33Jawad MirThat's, that's pretty cool. I'm just gonna make some references about the bo… the movie that you were talking about, the Netflix. It's called Hou… The Haunting of Bly Manor, not…

21:41Caseen GainesOkay

21:41Jawad Mir... With Henry Thomas. And for those people who don't know what laser disc is, which probably a lot of people do who's watching this, is a, you know, big version of DVD, essentially, a super high quality audio and video. But going back to the ET's box office, I know… I wonder, you know, sometimes, it's n… this is not just in ET's case, a lot of actors do this, directors, studios. When Spielberg had made Close Encounters of Third Kind, which you probably know, he had ET at Columbia.

22:13Jawad MirAnd then Columbia came back and said, "We're making this film called StarMan." "So you gotta t… you know, we'll give you the rights back and you c… y… you can take it wherever you want." And he took it to Sid Sheinberg at Universal, and then the rest is history. You know, just, it's, it's interesting and fascinating how we all make decisions. And it's not a bad thing. It's just one of those things that changes the course of history. And you wonder if Columbia was doing it, would ET would've been that big? Would you have, would you have Henry Thomas in it? Would you have Drew Barrymore in it and all that stuff? So it's, it's, it's interesting how that works.

22:47Caseen GainesYeah. And it was, there was a very similar situation, with Back to the Future as well. I mean, just…

22:53Jawad MirYes

22:53Caseen Gaines... In the same exact way that you're describing. And I think it's, that was a little surprising to me in terms of, you know, obviously Steven had such incredible success, you know?

23:07Jawad MirYeah.

23:07Caseen GainesBut they, there is no such thing as a sure thing. And I think what was interesting was ET was sort of considered to be, a little bit too Disney and that being, a pejorative sort of thing because Disney at the time was not the Disney of today, where a lot of their films, y… you know, especially their animated films, connect with adults and they're really, you know, films for all ages, not just children's films. But at the time, there was criticism that, like, ET sounded too much like a Bambi sort of film and, people just weren't as interested in that, especially from Steven, who hadn't really made films like that. It was, it was… It's funny because obviously when something works and it's a success, it seems like, well, how did everyone not know that it was gonna be successful?

24:08Jawad MirExactly.

24:09Caseen GainesBut if you look at where Steven was at that point in his sort of filmmaking career, ET was a great departure from the other projects that he had worked on.

24:20Jawad MirYeah.

24:20Caseen GainesAnd yes, obviously there, you know, I like to call Close Encounters sort of like ET's, Sort of like spiritual, like cousin or something like that. You know? They're like, they're not exactly siblings, but they're, they're close. They're related. But those two films are, light years apart, you know, if you can, you know, not, grimace too much at the pun there.

24:45Jawad MirYeah. What was... Just a couple of things if you can remember. When you were interviewing everybody, it doesn't have to be anyone particular, anything that you learned that was like, "Wow, I did not know that. That was so fascinating, and that was so mind-boggling that had occurred." Anything that comes to mind? Without, obviously I know you can't give away too much, but whatever you can.

25:08Caseen GainesI think, what really was mind-boggling was the process of casting the kids, and particularly casting Elliot. It was a really interesting… And again, we've, we've all seen that audition video of Henry. But even before that was, ta… you know, that was the end of a really long process. There was,.. I'm trying to decide how much I wanna say here, but there…

25:43Jawad MirYeah

25:43Caseen Gaines... It was a really interesting, complicated process. And there was another actor who was almost chosen to play Elliot. And they just had a very creative interview proce… or audition process for that. And, Henry definitely earned that part. And I think the film obviously, you know, rests on his shoulders in a lot of ways. But, it's interest… interesting to see that it almost wasn't him, and that was something that I didn't know the full extent of until I started talking to people.

26:22Jawad MirIs this the story where, the parents weren't too keen on it, and there was a financial disagreement? I think Spielberg said that in one of his interview. Or is it a sep… separate story?

26:33Caseen GainesIt's a, it's... I think it's, that's a portion of it. I mean, it, that's a portion of it.

26:38Jawad MirSure.

26:38Caseen GainesBut I think there were, there were other factors as well, that led to... It, just the chemistry wasn't r… right as well, and I think how they sort of helped to determine that was really interesting. So there were a couple of factors. Th… that was a part of it though, for sure.

26:57Jawad MirSure. And how they determined to make that decision, is that in your book, like that whole story?

27:02Caseen GainesYes.

27:03Jawad MirOkay.

27:03Caseen GainesYes.

27:03Jawad MirAll right.

27:03Caseen GainesThe whole story's in there.

27:05Jawad MirWonderful. I, as a filmmaker, as a documentary filmmaker myself, I know the process of interviewing ample amount of people… ... And then going back into editing room or, you know, in your case as well, can be daunting. You know? Okay, well, how do you put all this together? Like, what's the arc? What's the story?

27:25Jawad MirTell us about that. Like, how… Did you interview everybody that you needed to interview first and then went back in and started writing the story? Or was it, you know, at the same time simultaneously essentially?

27:40Caseen GainesYeah, it's a great question. I probably, and to be honest with you, I don't know if I 100% even remember. I'm gonna assume, just because this is the way I normally work, that I probably did about maybe 10 interviews before I started writing. And then I would write simultaneously while I was interviewing. And it's complicated because as you probably would imagine, most of the people that I interviewed weren't sitting around waiting for, you know, me to me to knock on their door and say, "Would you like to talk?" So, you know, everyone that I spoke to was very generous with their time. But it was a, it was a scheduling thing. You know? It was a little tricky. And some people, a lot of people actually, were very active or are very active in the film industry. And you know, I remember when I spoke with Steven, he was literally on his way to come to New York to do, I think, some, location scouting for West Side Story.

28:51Caseen GainesLike he was literally like, we were talking as he was like, you know, leaving to go to the airport in like an hour. Like, so it was sort of like, so I mean, you know, every, we sort of were working in a lot of time constraints, in that regard. So pardon me. I didn't have the ability to like get all the interviews done and then write the book. But, I… It was, it was interesting though pulling it all together, and I think part of it also was when you speak to person A, sometimes they will say, "Oh," and you know, "I was working on this with person B." And person B maybe wasn't on my list of people to speak to, but you realize that they're sort of important to the story. And then you interview person B, and then they'll…

29:39Jawad MirRight

29:39Caseen Gaines... You know, so a lot of it was just sort of pulling at the thread and just seeing how much I could get done in the time that I had because, you know, we wanted to get this out for the 40th. So it also was, you know, really being, you know, racing against the clock a little bit.

29:58Jawad MirSo it's, it's es… essentially like a documentary. Like, you know, you hear someone say, make a reference and you're like, you know, try to wonder if this is something I should interview. And you do sometimes, and then by the end of the completion, that interview is gone in the garbage because it wasn't working.

30:13Caseen GainesRight.

30:14Jawad MirSo i… in the, in the book, like when you were writing it, you know, you, like you said, you had a first draft done. And then was it also a process that you went back to the interviews, all of them or some of them, and then you pick something else and you're like, "Oh, this might go in there." Like, just run that process with us. Like, how much, how many drafts was it that you had to do before it was like... I'm sure a lot, but just for the audience.

30:39Caseen GainesOh, boy. That's a, that's a… Question that triggers, PTSD. How many drafts? Oh, gosh. Oh my gosh. I don't even know if I would wanna admit to how many drafts. I'd never work again. I think there were a lot.

30:53Jawad MirDon't worry about it.

30:54Caseen GainesLook, I'll say this, there… Look, I'll say this, there, we all wanted, definitely myself included, we all wanted this book to be as close to perfect as possible because ET means so much to all of us, and it means so much to, everyone who's seen it, and I think w… w… it also means so much to Steven. You know, this is the film that he still cites as his most personal film, and one of the films that he's most proud of that he's made in his entire career. And so, we… I was very happy to, you know, any time there was a suggestion of something to change or could we add more here, can we find more information, can you go back and re-interview someone and see if they have anything new to offer? Certainly, as you described, where I had transcripts of all of my interviews, and sometimes I had to go back and say, you know, maybe there's something else in here that I can pull.

32:03Caseen GainesAnd then obviously, as you would probably imagine, and I know, you know, as a documentarian, this is true as well, sometimes two people that were in the same room have different memories of what happened in that room, you know? And so, some of it was negotiating that, and, you know, who was the more… who was the better storyteller for that particular story. And so taking all of that, it is daunting, but to me, it's very exciting because I think what, I'm able to do is I'm objective in terms of I wasn't there.

32:42Jawad MirYeah.

32:42Caseen GainesAnd I have no real, I have no real, stake in it besides just trying to capture the best history. And so, I guess by way of example, what I'm getting at here is when I wrote my Back to the Future book, I think probably the best compliment I've ever received maybe on anything is, was from Bob Gale, who was, one of the, creators of Back to the Future, producer, writer.

33:10Jawad MirYep.

33:10Caseen GainesAnd he said, "You know, I'd been told that Back to the Future is a part of cinematic history, but I didn't fully appreciate it until I read the whole history in this book, and that the ability to not just…

33:31Jawad MirWonderful

33:32Caseen Gaines... Know my story, but also while I was working on this, they were working on the DeLorean. They were working on that. Like, everything was sort of happening…

33:41Jawad MirYeah

33:41Caseen Gaines... All at the same time, but I didn't have the ability to see that even though I, you know, I'm a Back… certainly he's a Back to the Future expert, you know? He's say, you know, he was there. It's his baby. But there's always a part of the story that you don't know, and so to be able to sort of put all of those pieces together, I think is great. I'm, I'm hoping, my dream is that, hopefully, you know, Mr. Spielberg will learn something about ET from the book as well, you know? And I think that would be exciting.

34:13Jawad MirI'm sure, I'm sure it would. It's, it's, it's int… interesting, right? Like, when you are reliving your life through someone else's perspective after what, 40 years.

34:23Caseen GainesRight.

34:23Jawad MirSo I'm sure there would be something there that he probably didn't know about, you know, when you interview so many people. People forget stories, and even like when you have the 10th anniversary, 20th anniversary, or 30th anniversary, always new information comes out because people forget stories that they went through and experienced through.

34:44Jawad MirWhen you interviewed all the pe… all the people, and what was it, over the phone or email or in person or combination?

34:50Caseen GainesThey were mostly over the phone. I think a few of them were over Zoom. None of them were in person.

35:01Jawad MirDid you visit Amblin?

35:03Caseen GainesI did not. I'm in New York, and it's funny because some of, a lot of the work on this was being done when we were

35:09Jawad MirCOVID

35:10Caseen Gaines... Locked down. Right.

35:11Jawad MirYeah, that makes sense.

35:12Caseen GainesIt was so… Pardon me. So because of that, yeah, I… there was… I was planning on going out to LA, and there was actually, like, really, you know, working on plane tickets and everything, and then everything just stopped.

35:29Jawad MirOh.

35:29Caseen GainesEverything just stopped. But it was great because then people had time. You know, people had time to sort of…

35:35Jawad MirExactly

35:36Caseen Gaines... Talk, and that was nice. You know, a lot of the filmmakers were continuing to work. You know, I know when I spoke to Kathy, she had literally, she had just gotten off the scoring stage for, The Rise of Skywalker, I think. I mean, she had just… she had literally just, you know, she was actively working. I spoke with John Williams. How could I forget to say I spoke to John Williams? I spoke to John…

35:59Jawad MirI actually, I m… I actually forgot too, and that's such an integral part of it.

36:04Caseen GainesYeah. I spoke to John Williams. That was great. And, yeah, wow, I spoke to a lot of people. Now that I'm just thinking about this, I'm like, "Yeah, I really did speak to a lot of people for this book." but yes. Sorry, that's a real l… long answer to your question about…

36:18Jawad MirSure

36:18Caseen Gaines... How the interviews were conducted. Sorry about that.

36:21Jawad MirNo, it's okay. Did you listen to the score ever when you were writing or in a writer's block?

36:27Caseen GainesDid I? I certainly did. I listened to it on a almost nonstop loop. Yes, I did. A… and I don't really… I'm not big on listening to music when I write, but I do find that when I'm working on… Films that just have, like, amazing score

36:47Jawad MirScore

36:47Caseen GainesYou know? Like the, like, you know, the ET score is just amazingly beautiful. And, I did, I listened to that on an almost constant loop when I was, when I was writing.

37:00Jawad MirYeah. Yeah, no, because it takes you, it literally takes you into that world. Like, you feel that you're actually there, right? And your favorite part in the book without revealing, I don't know how you're gonna tell me this… Without revealing it. Anything that stands out for you in the book that you could talk about at a personal level? Like, something that im… N… okay, let me rephrase that. When you were writing it, there was something… or when you were interviewing people, was there something that gave you goosebumps?

37:40Caseen GainesOh, what a, what an interesting, way of putting that question. Yeah, there were moments. I mean, I, the first thing that comes to my mind, obviously, is speaking to Steven Spielberg, you know, and interviewing him about ET, not just speaking to him, but also about ET. And he was just the most generous, and forthcoming person, you know? And I say this to say, you know, it's, it's… your fear, or my fear as a writer, and I'm sure it's similar as a documentarian, is you don't want for someone to sort of slip into the same story that they've told, you know, to everyone, and you've heard the story over and over again, and you can recount it almost word for word. You know, you want them to say something new.

38:41Jawad MirYeah.

38:41Caseen GainesAnd I thought that a lot of what he offered was information that, even in all of the interviews that I had read, there was still new information that he was able to give, and new perspective, and I thought that was really amazing. And actually, I was partially stalling because I was trying to think what gave me goosebumps, but I know what gave me goosebumps the most. It was, the answer to this question. So I'll tell you the question, but I won't tell you…

39:14Jawad MirThat's fine

39:14Caseen Gaines... The answer. So I asked, a number of people along the way, but particularly, Steven's answer to, if ET were released today, do you think it would be the same sort of global phenomenon that it was in 1982? And his answer not only sort of surprised me, but also was so beautifully, articulated and, really did give me goosebumps. And I knew as soon as he gave me that answer that was the ending of the book. I hadn't, I hadn't gotten there yet. I didn't know exactly what the journey was gonna be, but his answer was such a great, ending that I knew that was going to be it, and it is the ending of the book.

40:20Jawad MirThat's exciting. What did you… what do you think? Do you think it's gonna have a s… it would have a similar impact that it did on a personal level?

40:26Caseen GainesWell, I'm… it's, it's hard 'cause I'm, I'm colored now by so many people's answers. But I think that, I think that… see, I think it's hard…

40:38Jawad MirThe reason that…

40:38Caseen Gaines... To give an objective answer at this point, but I think that the, that it was interesting to hear people's answers along the way, and I think that, what would have been my answer, and what I anticipated people's answers to be, d… d… doesn't always align or didn't align always with what people said. I think people feel like there was something very magical about that period of time that made ET such a phenomenon, and that the… part of the reason why it has been so hard to replicate that success is because there was just a unique, it was a unique moment. You know, where Steven was in his career, Melissa Mathison, Kathy Kennedy, Frank Marshall, you know, the, you know, John Williams. Like, everyone was just at a certain moment in their lives where they were sort of really primed to tell this story about family and about growth and about, you know, they were sort of in a nostalgic, reflective sort of mood, while also really trying to put their finger on the pulse of kids in the '80s.

41:59Caseen GainesYou know, and really, you know, not having it be something like, The Fabelmans, which is, you know, Steven's new project that's, that's coming out, but something that's r… that was really of the moment while also, you know, sp… spiritually, I guess, being of the '50s and '60s. I don't know if any of that's making sense, but…

42:20Jawad MirNo, it does be… I… it does, and I feel, I feel Back to the Future, ET, Gremlins, like, a lot of those films that came out in the '80s, yes, there was that element of novelty, like, you know, special effects, puppets, science fiction, time machine. But if you really focus on all those films, especially Back to the Future and ET, it was just about people

42:45Caseen GainesRight

42:46Jawad MirRight? I mean, Back to the Future just had a time machine. Other than that, what was there? Like, there was nothing sci-fi about it.

42:51Caseen GainesRight.

42:51Jawad MirIt was just like a story of a family. And I… And now with the success of Stranger Things, I do feel, personally, for me, I think ET would do reasonably well from a box office standpoint if you really wanna talk about that, because I think people are at that stage. And a lot of people have been reintroduced to ET because of Stranger Things. I don't know if you have seen Stranger Things at all.

43:12Caseen GainesOh, have I?

43:14Jawad MirOkay, good.

43:15Caseen GainesYeah.

43:16Jawad MirYeah. I mean, I remember the first season that, I don't know if it was the last episode, the whole ET re-reference where the van flips…

43:22Caseen GainesYep

43:23Jawad Mir... And I was like, yay.

43:26Caseen GainesYes. I'm a big Stranger Things fan, for sure.

43:29Jawad MirWhat did you think of the la… latest season?

43:32Caseen GainesOh, I loved it. I thought the latest season of Stranger Things was so well done. And you know, I love, honestly, I love even, like, the staggered release of it. I love the runtime of the episodes. I thought it was… They're like, that's, that's gold. I mean, Stranger Things is just absolute gold to me.

43:55Jawad MirYeah.

43:55Caseen GainesI think it's so great.

43:57Jawad MirI gotta, I gotta watch the la… this season again, because this season didn't do it for me as much as the first three did. Maybe I missed something.

44:03Caseen GainesReally?

44:04Jawad MirA lot of people… Yeah, a lot of people tell me it's great, and I was, maybe, for me, it was more about, it was just way too many effects than… ... The characters. But maybe I missed something. I mean, I'll have to look at it again.

44:16Caseen GainesIt's so funny that you say that, because I felt like the opposite. I really felt like…

44:23Jawad MirReally?

44:23Caseen Gaines... They were so focused on the characters.

44:29Jawad MirMaybe I missed something.

44:29Caseen GainesThat's so funny. And I, and that's really interesting. And I felt the way that you're describing about the third season a little bit. And I've heard people say, you know, I have a couple friends that rewatched it in anticipation of the fourth season, and I was like, "Ah, I don't know if I felt as strongly about the third season." and they were like, "No, you have to go back and rewatch it. It's really good." And I was like, "you know, I will. I guess I will." But the fourth season definitely pulled me right back in. I was really excited by it.

44:59Jawad MirMaybe I'll watch it just before the fifth season comes out.

45:02Caseen GainesYeah. Yeah.

45:03Jawad MirJust to…

45:03Caseen GainesI think I'm gonna do the whole thing, too, because, the fifth, the fifth and final.

45:08Jawad MirYeah. I wanna talk a little bit, I m… I might come back to ET again. I'm just kinda going all over the place. I didn't honestly know that you wrote a book about Back to the Future, which is really cool. So, and I, it's funny because literally last night we, not last night, Friday night, we sent an email to Bob Gale about a request for an interview for our podcast as well. Do you know Steven Clark?

45:31Caseen GainesYes, of course. Yeah.

45:32Jawad MirOkay. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about that book, for people. When did it come out? What transpired that? Was it through Amblin as well, and publisher same route? And who did you speak to?

45:46Caseen GainesSure. So that book came out in 2015, and it was called, or it is called, We Don't Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy.

45:54Jawad MirYeah.

45:54Caseen GainesAnd, you know, for me, it, I was really, I was actually kind of surprised because there was a, an official book that came out in, I wanna say 1990 or 1991… ... That was a very thin, book. And I was just sort of amazed that there was no big sort of comprehensive, you know, book on the making of Back to the Future. And so this was something that I started to pursue in 2013, and I reached out. Funny that you mention Steven, because Steven Clark was one of the first people that I reached out to.

46:34Jawad MirYeah

46:34Caseen Gaines... And…

46:35Jawad MirI've known him for a good 25 years.

46:37Caseen GainesOh my God, have you? Oh, isn't he the nicest guy? Like, sincerely, he's such a great guy.

46:42Jawad MirHe's such a cool guy, yeah.

46:43Caseen GainesAnd he knows everything. I mean, he's, you know, he, and if he doesn't know, he knows how to get you to someone who does know, you know. He's a really great guy.

46:51Jawad MirYeah

46:51Caseen Gaines... So, Steven helped put me in contact with Bob Gale. And, it was, it was really kind of funny, because it, Bob was so generous with his time, and I mean, I don't know. I owe him, like, a steak dinner or something. I, like, I really owe so much of the book to him because I swear there wasn't a question that I couldn't have asked him. He answered everything. He gave me amazingly comprehensive answers. We both agreed really early on that anything that I was asking him that was, like, formally for the book that we were gonna do via email, because he wanted to be able to really s… give detailed answers. And then even when the book was done, he offered to, like, fact check it for me, and just make sure that, like…

47:56Jawad MirOh, nice

47:57Caseen Gaines... Everything was right. So, like, let me tell you something. I, this is a memory that I will never forget. It was right around Christmas. I was driving to Orlando from, Northern New Jersey. So that's a, that's a drive.

48:15Jawad MirYeah.

48:15Caseen GainesI was with, my wife, who wasn't my wife at the time, and our two dogs, and we, and, Bob had the book for a couple of weeks, and I knew that he was going to be giving me his feedback, sometime within that period of time, but I didn't know exactly when. So it happened to be as I was driving down, I, like, I checked my, like I got a notification on my phone that Bob, you know, Bob had read the first chapter. He did it, he did it in chapters. I just want you to picture this. So I'm driving down, and I see, like… Chapter one notes, and I'm like, "Oh my God, I wanna know," even though I'm driving now. And so my wife has…

48:59Jawad MirSwitch drivers

49:00Caseen Gaines... Reading. No. So my wife is reading all the, you know, page three, you know, "Here's my feedback. Here's my thoughts of the whole thing," and she's just reading. And I'm, "huh., huh., huh," and I'm just digesting. And then, like, whoop, chapter two comes in. And so I got all of Bob's notes as I was driving from New York to Orlando, and, it was just so funny because the whole ride down, I was just like, "He likes the book. I can't believe it. I'm so glad he likes it." And, you know, I go, and I'm just, I, you know, it was just a very interesting way to digest that. But I spoke with

49:38Jawad MirThat sounds like a making of a book

49:40Caseen Gaines... It wa… it, right? Isn't it? It's like a

49:42Jawad MirYou should write a book. You could actually make an episode of TV show about that.

49:46Caseen GainesThe exa… the, right. I, you know, I have a friend, who also writes, you know, a lot of pop culture books, and we always joke that, you know, we have to collaborate on, like, the making of the making of the book, you know? Like, because they're always so interesting.

50:02Jawad MirYeah.

50:02Caseen GainesBut I spoke with, both Bobs, Bob Zemeckis, Bob Gale. I spoke with, Leah. I spoke with Chris Lloyd. I did not speak with Michael because Michael…

50:14Jawad MirYeah

50:14Caseen Gaines... Was filming his TV show at the time. And I spoke with, that, I did a ton of interviews for that too. I spoke with a lot of the effects people. I spoke with, and then, like Claudia Wells, Harry Waters. I spoke wi… I, so pe… it might be easier to do a list of people I didn't speak to.

50:36Jawad MirYeah.

50:36Caseen GainesAnd people…

50:36Jawad MirRight

50:36Caseen Gaines... That I tried to get that I couldn't get were, probably not surprising, Crispin I did not speak with. And my holy grail person that I wanted to speak to was, of course, Eric Stoltz.

50:52Jawad MirYes.

50:52Caseen GainesBut I did not speak to Eric.

50:56Jawad MirYeah.

50:56Caseen GainesBut some of the stories about Eric, were amazing. In fact, the, a piece of the book is actually excerpted in, I think, Vulture or, I think Vulture ran an excerpt of the book, and it's a piece about, Eric Stoltz. It's only a small portion of the Eric Stoltz story that's in the book, but, it's a, it's a cool little excerpt. So if you want a little taste of the book, you can seek that out and read that either for free or for their, you know, 99 cents or whatever they're, you know, if they make you pay for it.

51:32Jawad MirYeah, no, it, you know, it's something that comes up in all… There's a documentary series on Netflix, I forget what it's called, but they've done a documentary episode on…

51:40Caseen GainesThe Movies That Made Us?

51:41Jawad MirYeah. They did…

51:43Caseen GainesI'm in it. I'm in the Back to the Future episode of The Movies That Made Us.

51:47Jawad MirI gotta watch it again.

51:49Caseen GainesI'm there. I'm there.

51:51Jawad MirI saw it a year ago or whenever it came out.

51:53Caseen GainesYeah.

51:53Jawad MirI'm gonna watch it again. Yeah, I apologize I missed it.

51:56Caseen GainesNo, it's okay. It's okay.

51:58Jawad MirEverybody talks about Eric Stoltz, right? And you wonder kinda what we were talking about, if E.T. Would come out now, would it be the same? And it's sometimes you wonder, nothing disrespectful to Eric, I mean, he's a fabulous actor, but you wonder if the film maybe would've been a lot more impactful or less impactful or maybe the same. You, sometimes you wonder about those things, how life kind of takes you through a journey. And, you know, when you're living in that moment, especially as Bob Zemeckis and Gale, you're probably thinking, "That's it, we're done." Like, "What the hell are we gonna do? How are we gonna..." Because I think they shot, like, what, 30% of the film with him or something like that.

52:35Caseen GainesYeah.

52:35Jawad MirYeah.

52:35Caseen GainesThey did. They shot a lot, yeah.

52:38Jawad MirAnd the similar thing happened…

52:39Caseen GainesWhich would be crazy

52:39Jawad Mir... On Aliens too. I don't know if you, I saw that on the Movies That Made Us Aliens episode. They had an actor where they shot most of the stuff with and he got fired or he quit or something happened. But what was the pro… what was different? What was something that you learned from the Back to the Future book that you decided at a personal level, you're like, "Okay, I'm not gonna do that when I did that, or I mi… I'm gonna do that when I did, you know, the previous book"?

53:08Caseen GainesSure. So I think, sorry, I have a little sip of water. One second.

53:13Jawad MirNo worries.

53:16Caseen GainesSo I think Back to the Future, for me, was a, like a gargantuan book, and it, I think what I learned is how important it is to, if you have to tell a story that people know, you have to find a new and interesting way to tell it, which is sort of like an obvious thing. But Back to the Future posed some interesting challenges for me, particularly because when you pick up the book and you start reading it actually starts, while they're already filming with Eric. And I think the first page of the book is when Zemeckis starts to get an inkling that it isn't working with Eric. And then, obviously, I go back and sort of fill in how did Eric get cast, how did this film get made, you know.

54:18Caseen GainesBut, obviously everyone who's picking up that book knows when they start reading on page one that Eric Stoltz does not star in a film called Back to the Future.

54:29Jawad MirYeah.

54:29Caseen GainesSo, what I found, and I've always had this, I think, in all of my books, but Back to the Future really was an excellent example. One of the best sources for that book was actually Dean Cundey, who is the cinematographer.

54:48Jawad MirCinematographer, yeah.

54:49Caseen GainesBecause if you think about it, he was there for all three films. He was behind the camera for... Almo… unless it was, like, a second unit situation, he was behind the camera for almost all of the shots. So he was there. And then as the cinematographer, he's there for a lot of the downtime on the set as well. And so he was great because he had such interesting insights that, I think a lot of times people always want to know, well, what did this actor have to say about that? What did this actor have to say? But the reality is, like, a lot of the times the actors are, like, in their trailers, you know, on sets. They aren't there while everything's getting set up.

55:33Jawad MirYeah.

55:34Caseen GainesAnd while it's great to sort of, you know, yeah, I'm, you know, I'm not gonna na… name any names, but, like, it's, it's great to be able to say, well, what did so-and-so have to say about making the film, you know, this A-list actor or something like that. The reality is a lot of the crew often have, often have the more interesting stories.

55:52Jawad MirYeah. They do. They do.

55:54Caseen GainesSo I always like to talk to the crew and, they did, provide a lot of really colorful stories. I think another thing that sticks out to me about that interview process is, something that Lea said when, I spoke to her, where she said, you know, the Back to the Future trilogy, while obviously she, you know, she does conventions, she's, you know, she's never for a single day shied away from being Lorraine Baines. But she said it's, they still are kind of bittersweet for her because there isn't a single scene in any of those three films where she isn't working with someone who either didn't make it all the way through the trilogy or is a replacement for someone who didn't make it all the way through the trilogy.

56:47Jawad MirAh.

56:48Caseen GainesAnd so Eric was a very good friend of hers. Crispin was a very good friend of hers. And so while, you know, she's very proud of the films and, you know, had a great time making them, it was a little bit hard for her to, especially to go back and refilm scenes that, you know, when her friend Eric, you know, wasn't there anymore.

57:12Jawad MirYeah.

57:12Caseen GainesYou know, she really had a hard time warming up to Michael, because, you know, he wasn't, he wasn't Eric, you know? And so, and also he was a sitcom actor, and she was a movie actor, and at that time, you know, movies, you know, and television isn't what it is today.

57:29Jawad MirWasn't the same thing, yeah.

57:30Caseen GainesRight. So yeah, it w… it was that was sort of interesting. And so I think, yeah, that was, that was an interesting kind of, anecdote…

57:40Jawad MirSure

57:40Caseen Gaines... From the book.

57:42Jawad MirSo just a couple of things before we wrap up. When you are writing a book like E.T. Or Back to the Future, and in a way, for the lack of a better word, you know, the production company or the studios picked you, right? Is there ev… ever a time where you had a disagreement? And I'm not trying to ask you this from a controversial standpoint, just more so, you know, because when I ask people questions too, for my, for my projects and documentaries, it's like there's sometimes some questions that people are not comfortable asking. And if somebody asks me a question that I'm not comfortable, I would probably, you know, tell them that I'm not comfortable. But was there ever a moment where there was a disagreement, "No, we shouldn't do this," or, "We should," for whatever reason? If there was, how did you… what was the consensus? How did you deal with that?

58:30Caseen GainesYeah. I can honestly say, not that I can recall, honestly, and I, and I say that to say, with both of these, you know, with, I guess I'll talk about Back to the Future first. You know, Bob was very interested in just, telling a good, you know…

58:53Jawad MirStory

58:54Caseen Gaines... Documenting the history, you know, in the best way. And I was honestly, maybe, you know, this question is sort of making me realize maybe this is a, an answer to your previous question as well, because I think Bob Gale and Bob Zemeckis, both of them, were so forthcoming with Back to the Future, where I would ask things that I was like, "Ooh, I don't know if they're gonna answer this," or, you know…

59:20Caseen Gaines... I was a little bit nervous to ask, and they just gave me just the most generous answers, that I, it sort of established a little bit of a fearlessness in me, I think i… in subsequent projects, where I figured if someone doesn't wanna answer the question, they won't answer it. But, you never know. Maybe they'll give you know, a wonderful answer. The same with, talking to Steven about, like, the 2002 release…

59:50Jawad MirYeah

59:50Caseen Gaines... And a lot of the criticism of it and, you know, whether or not he was personally impacted by the criticism, how he felt about it. Was it fair? Was it unfair? You know, I could see that maybe being a little bit of a dicey question, but he was very generous, you know, in his answer, and I think gave me a very truthful answer. So there really wasn't anything that was ever off limits. And I think the other thing too is, you know, I am a fan of these films, so, you know, when I approach it, like, yes, I think there were challenges, there were pitfalls. In some cases, you know, there were controversies maybe on set, or in the making of the film. But at the end of the day, the work was amazing, and I'm always a firm believer that, a story of triumph only comes when there's some rough spots.

1:00:45Jawad MirOh, yeah.

1:00:45Caseen GainesYou know? So…

1:00:46Jawad MirAbsolutely

1:00:46Caseen Gaines... Because of that, it was, they all have happy endings, right? You know?

1:00:52Jawad MirYeah.

1:00:52Caseen GainesAnd so because of that, I feel like no one was really too shy about discussing some of the more challenging aspects of it.

1:00:59Jawad MirYou mentioned something interesting about being a fan of these movies and then writing a book. How do you at a personal level…... Push yourself to be objective and separate yourself from being a fan, then writing a book. Like, is it, how's that?

1:01:13Caseen GainesYeah, I think that's something that I've gotten better with, frankly, over time. You know, I, and I think it's, you know, I'm, you know, if I, to be wonky about it, you know, I, went to school for journalism. You know, I, spent some time at, ABC News, you know, and so I like, I, it, i… intern. I don't wanna like, you know, I don't wanna oversell it, but like I did do some work on stories and things like that. And so I…

1:01:41Jawad MirIt shaped you.

1:01:42Caseen GainesYeah. I, yeah, I really, that aspect, I think, to me, isn't even something that I h… have to think about all that much, because I just approach these things both journalistically and also it's a, it's a book, so it does have a story in the same way the documentary has a story. You know, there is an arc. So, that's, I think, what separates. You know, when people, I will say, you know, it's funny because sometimes, when you look at the rev… the, you know, when you look at Amazon or Goodreads reviews or anything like that, you know, there are always people that are like, "Oh, well, I knew some of this already. You know? Oh, well, I knew Eric Stoltz was cast before." And it's like, well, sure. I mean, obviously. I mean, some of this information is out there, but I think the crafting of it into, a compelling story that's fun to read, interesting to read, and I think, you know, one of the greatest compliments, that I receive from just like a regular reader who I met at a convention once, he said, you know, "I knew Eric Stoltz obviously wasn't gonna be, you know, wasn't gonna make it all the way through Back to the Future," of course, huge Back to the Future fan, but it was still a page-turner to find out, you know, there were conversations taking place here, there were conversations taking place here, who knew what when, how they were gonna break the news, what the fallout was, how they had to regroup, how they were gonna, you know, change the costumes and sort of, and all that was really exciting even though I knew what the conclusion was going to be.

1:03:20Jawad MirYeah.

1:03:20Caseen GainesSo yeah, I think that's, it's a, it's a sort of, fun thing as a fan to be able to…

1:03:28Jawad MirRight

1:03:28Caseen Gaines... Take people on that ride.

1:03:30Jawad MirIt's, it's funny you mention that because, Robert Zemeckis' film, What Lies Beneath and Cast Away, I don't know if you've seen those. And I know this because, at the time, I used to run a very successful DreamWorks fan site, and that was my life for like a good 10 years. When Cast Away trailer came out and What Lies Beneath trailer came out, they came out like seven months apart.

1:03:54Jawad MirBoth trailers pretty much gave away the film. Right? And people were so, even like Variety, I shouldn't say Variety, p… media outlets were so frenzy about the fact that why would you put so much in the trailer?

1:04:09Jawad MirAnd his answer before the film even came out is that people like to know what they're going into, and they would still watch it. And I even at that time thought, "Maybe is he right or is he wrong?" But he was right because both those films made killer box office.

1:04:26Jawad MirEven though people knew what they were going into. Just like you said, like, you know, even if people know what has happened… ... They still want to, genuine readers and genuine moviegoers, they want to see someone else's perspective of how that panned out. Now, if it was exactly the same, yeah, then they're gonna say, "Stuff," but it's, it's, it's, it's, it's important to have a different eye because everybody brings something different to a story, even if…

1:04:51Jawad Mir... It's been told before. Like remakes, like West Side Story, right, like Spielberg's remake of. So, well, yeah, so just…

1:04:57Caseen GainesWell, and the thing, you know, along those lines, I, the, it, the two things I always like to remind people, right along the lines of what you're saying is everyone knows something about Romeo and Juliet before you've read Romeo and Juliet, before you've seen it.

1:05:10Jawad MirExactly.

1:05:11Caseen GainesAnd the thing that I always remind people is the very first audience to see Romeo and Juliet, when they sat in the theater, two people came out on stage, and they said, "Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we lay our scene," and they go through the entire plot. They tell you that Romeo and Juliet die in this play, and then they start the play. It is fully spoiled before the play begins, and yet it's still exciting to watch. And, you know, again, talking about h… having a journalism background, every newspaper heading, headline is…

1:05:53Jawad MirGives away everything. Yeah

1:05:54Caseen Gaines... Gives away everything, you know?

1:05:55Jawad MirThat's true.

1:05:56Caseen GainesTwo people killed in house fire, cat survives. You know, whatever it is, like spoiled every, before you even read the story, but then it makes you go, "My goodness, how did that happen?" And then you read the article.

1:06:06Jawad MirYou read it. That's, that's actually a good point. I never thought about the media headline in a similar way. That's awesome.

1:06:11Caseen GainesYeah.

1:06:12Jawad MirAnything else you wanna add before I talk to you about the final closing arguments, closing discussion of the book?

1:06:19Caseen GainesNo. You know, what I, what I will add, and I'm realizing because I'm, I'm staring at this book right here, I just wanna…

1:06:27Jawad MirWell, let's do it

1:06:28Caseen Gaines... Thumb through it and show you a little bit.

1:06:31Jawad MirPlease

1:06:32Caseen Gaines... This is, this is the book here.

1:06:35Jawad MirGreat.

1:06:36Caseen GainesAnd, this is the back 'cause I don't think anyone's seen the back yet, actually.

1:06:40Jawad MirNo, I have… I… Oh, that's a nice photo. I've never seen that photo of Spielberg directing. That's awesome.

1:06:46Caseen GainesSo this is, I'm, it's hard, it's hard because it's so large to kind of like thumb through it in a sense, so I'm just gonna go to like a couple random pages. And here we go. So here are some early, I don't know if you can wait. There we go, I think.

1:07:03Jawad MirYep. There we go.

1:07:04Caseen GainesAnd the book has all of these great attachments. So you can see Like this is all just inside the book. Can you see this?

1:07:16Jawad MirYeah.

1:07:16Caseen GainesThere, like all of these. So it just folds, and this is here for…

1:07:22Jawad MirNice

1:07:23Caseen GainesLet me see. What else I can... I'm just, I'm just choosing some random pages here.

1:07:26Jawad MirYeah, that's fine.

1:07:27Caseen GainesBut here there's like building the model for... Can you, and it's, I'm not very good at doing the Zoom hold.

1:07:39Jawad MirJust hold it with your both hands like this, maybe that…

1:07:41Caseen GainesWait, let me do this. I got it. Hold on a second. This is probably better.

1:07:46Jawad MirYep, that's awesome.

1:07:48Caseen GainesAnd you can see there's attachments that are falling out again. Oh, well.

1:07:51Jawad MirThat's okay.

1:07:52Caseen GainesThere's attachments everywhere. Let me see. Is there anything you wanna see? Maybe I can... May… What's, what's something that you'd be, that you'd be interested in seeing? Maybe I can find it.

1:08:02Jawad MirI want you to pick something that you are very, the most proud of.

1:08:05Caseen GainesOh, okay.

1:08:05Jawad MirBecause obviously I haven't seen the book, so I don't know what's in there.

1:08:10Caseen GainesSo here, I'm gonna show you. This is, okay, here's a, this is like a real... I wanna show you a picture that I'm really excited that are in here. These are in... Can you see these pictures here?

1:08:21Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

1:08:22Caseen GainesSo these are Matt DeMe… these are two pictures of Matt DeMeritt in, a prototype of the E.T. Body puppet, and these two pictures are actually, from Steven Spielberg. Those are Steven Spielberg's pictures, that he took. And, literally they have never been published anywhere before. So yeah, they, I'm just, there's, that's just a little, a little peek.

1:08:50Jawad MirAre there, are there any other polarized photos that he took that you can share?

1:08:54Caseen GainesThere are other Polaroid

1:08:56Jawad MirPolaroid, not polarized. I don't know why I said polarized.

1:08:58Caseen GainesI'm gonna... That's okay. I'm gonna just go, I mean, here I'll just go to another... I know in particular that those two were Steven's. I'm not sure if…

1:09:10Jawad MirThat's fine.

1:09:12Caseen GainesSorry, I know I'm, I know I'm thumbing, watching me thumb through is not all that exciting. Oh, actually, here's another thing that I will, that's sort of fun to show. This is a photo, or an illustration rather, by, Drew Struzan, who…

1:09:30Jawad MirYep, I know Drew Struzan

1:09:31Caseen Gaines... Drew concept art. And this is actually an early, depiction of Elliott before Elliott had been cast.

1:09:38Jawad MirReally?

1:09:38Caseen GainesSo this is not, this is just a concept. So yeah, so this is obviously not Henry Thomas. This was not modeled after Henry Thomas, but this was just sort of some concept art.

1:09:48Jawad MirWow.

1:09:48Caseen GainesYeah, so it's, it's, it's a full history. It's, it's r… really visual and I think the stories that people tell will also be really, people really enjoy them. I'm excited. Now I'm, now I'm just thumbing here. Now I'm just looking at it just thumbing.

1:10:07Jawad MirWhen is the book out and who is the publisher, just so people know? And where can they get it from?

1:10:12Caseen GainesSure. The book is out August 23rd. It's E.T.: The Ultimate Visual History, E.T. The Extraterrestrial: The Ultimate Visual History. And it is, the publisher is Insight Editions. They do these great ultimate visual history books that if you haven't seen their line of them, you should go check them out. I wrote one on The Dark Crystal as well, which is also celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. But yeah, no, it's a, it's a beautiful book, and I'm not just saying it because I wrote it. It's, it's, you're gonna be…

1:10:42Jawad MirNo, I can tell. Looking at just the excerpts of it looks fantastic. And what's next for you? What are you working on, or if you're taking a break, or?

1:10:50Caseen GainesI can't say just yet, but I'm al…

1:10:52Jawad MirI'm sure you have something

1:10:52Caseen Gaines... I'm always working. I'm always working.

1:10:55Jawad MirIs it m… is it, film related?

1:10:58Caseen GainesI can't say just yet.

1:11:01Jawad MirThat makes sense.

1:11:02Caseen GainesCan't say just yet, but I'm always working.

1:11:06Jawad MirThat's good. That's fantastic. Well, listen, you know, thank you so much for your time, unless you have something else to add.

1:11:14Caseen GainesNo

1:11:14Jawad Mir... I would, love to chat with you in the near future about maybe Back to the Future in more detail, you know?

1:11:21Caseen GainesSure

1:11:21Jawad Mir... And, it, this has been great, and I really appreciate you taking the time. Looking forward to the book and, hope to see you at the movies.

1:11:31Caseen GainesYes. Thank you so much. It's been great.

1:11:34Jawad MirThank you so much, man. Have a great day.

1:11:35Caseen GainesGreat. Thanks. You, too. Take care.

1:11:36Jawad MirTake care. Bye. I 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.