Preface: mental note to self.

Late last night, I watched The Project Hail Mary, produced by Ryan Gosling and Amy Pascal. It was kind of a last minute decision, I went in without much expectations, but I was happily surprised. It’s your typical doomsday movie, not to spoil too much, but basically Ryan Gosling had to go on a suicide mission to find out something about a star to save our planet earth. It was a pleasant watch, a blockbuster movie I enjoyed which is rare (when did Amazon buy MGM? I must have missed out on the news). Up till that point, I hadn't really enjoyed any of the big films since 2020, after the fall of Marvel, commercial movies went into a different direction, Super Marios, Pixels, franchise on franchise on franchise. Watching these movies felt more like a long amusement park ride than a film. Hollywood kept recycling through all the IPs with an established fan base, because it’s safer that way. Why be creative and innovative when they know the formula of screenwriting and storytelling was going to work 100%? Since it will work again, and again, why not just use it again, and again? The blockbuster movie scene had become more or less going into a Chinese restaurant and ordering what you always order: safe, just how you expected, no surprises, but guaranteed gratification. After watching this movie, I had more insight into how to make blockbuster movies better, less repetitive, while still following a similar structure. The same week, I had tried to watch Farewell, My Concubine twice. I paid both times, and failed both times. By the end of it I subscribed to Criterion Channel, just so that I don’t have to pay again. To say it’s the greatest Chinese language film ever made is not an overstatement, it’s doing the film justice for just how intricate, dense, emotionally-packed, metaphorical, subtle, gentle, yet leaves you with a long lingering pain that makes you think about it for weeks. That’s the kind of movie I wanted to make, I thought. But now I wonder if I was wrong.  Sometimes it’s not about what I want to write, but about what I can make, and what the market wants to see. 

Any director that writes screenplays with the purpose of having them made will face a problem: the stories they are writing, do not necessarily get made in the sequence of when the stories were written. It’s normal to see a director who has screenplays he/she wanted to produce from 10 years ago, only to make it now because the technology wasn’t ready. Suddenly with advancement in tech specifically in the film industry, such as virtual production, previs, engine updates in visual effects, it’s now possible. People ask me all the time about if AI will replace filmmaking, to me it’s a dumb question that only people who don't know about the ins and outs of the craft will ask. The amount of fine tuning, changing dialogue, rehearsing different possibilities in a scene, co-creating with actors/actresses is hard enough to do with people, who speak the same language, let along AI who don’t have the context, it can’t possible infer artists intent and deliver the exact, or better, exceeding expectation results. As they are trained on human data, which are honestly mostly mediocre and sometimes bad in terms of speed, accuracy, creativity, space-performance comprehension and many other things. Such mediocrity is not that outstanding when compared to top notch industry professionals, however, it does open the door to many non-professionals to start creating with less limitations, since they don’t need the whole set of crew and equipment to get started. It’s like Tik Tok with dances, it makes everyone dance, but does it wipe out professional backup dancers, the industry dancers? Not really. They are not in the same stratosphere. I couldn’t help but notice Project Hail Mary is adapted from a book that’s published in 2021, which tells me that Hollywood is really running out of materials to make. When people talk about AI taking over writers' jobs, I see the exact opposite. In the age of AI, the ability to tell good stories and come up with good stories is becoming increasingly rare and valuable. 

Anyways, why am I mentioning this? I’m mentioning this because I thought I wanted to make Farewell, My Concubine sort of movie, yet my background is in commercial/blockbuster filmmaking. The process of creating such a story requires a much longer time, and it’s also up to the market what it needs to see at the moment of its release. Some stories are timeless, while others are time sensitive. There are stories I want to tell, and then there are stories the world needs to see. I can only go so far if I don’t cater toward the public taste. Yet, how far I should go toward catering is unclear, perhaps that is the assignment for the year. Project Hail Mary is not as great as any other sci-fi movies I’ve watched in the early 2000s, such as Ex Machina, Arrival, Lucy, or any Christopher Nolan movies. However, it was entertaining, fun, complete for the most part, and with a good message, not mentioning beautiful set designs, sound from Skywalker Sound and amazing visual effects. Perhaps that’s the bar now, we don’t have to do fancy, deep, existential questions movies, all the greatest movies that could have been made have already been made, if I could pull off just one in my lifetime, I’d have no regrets. Perhaps providing the world with some good old, easy fun in the meantime while getting ready for that is more efficient use of my time, I do not know. Also the same week, I reached out to some people I used to work with, no response in return. I thought perhaps they have forgotten about me, only to see their IG profiles being recommended on my page. I’ve been reflecting upon how I randomly disappear from people’s lives after we’ve built a relationship together, only to return years later as if nothing happened. It’s hard to keep up with friends who are no longer around you. It's not a good habit, yet when things get overwhelming, I’m not sure what to do other than just fade into the background, or go rogue, disappear. So that’s assignment #2 for the remainder of the year. Carry on, and let’s see what life in store for us the remainder of 2026. ☀️