He HAS done interviews like this. I have two 40 minute audio interviews he did for Creative Screenwriting Magazine in 2008 for The Dark Knight AND The Prestige in 2006 on my phone right now.
I didn’t realize how heartwarming it can be listening to a writer talk about how much they love the source material instead of hearing, “well, they do it one way but wait until you see what we’re going to do”
It's so refreshing to hear how much of a legit gamer Nolan was/is and how much he understands the feel of the franchise. The guy also just shows how much he respects games as a legit artistic medium. There's just no substitute to being actually invested and understanding the original material.
I love Jonathan Nolan just as much as his brother, he made 2 of my all time favorite tv shows in Westworld and Person Of Interest. And with Fallout added to his roster I hope wins just as many Emmy’s as his brother won Oscars for Oppenheimer.
Yeah, PoI is amazing. Too bad interviewer didn't ask anything about PoI. i'd die to know why they ended it abruptly and what their future plans about PoI are.
Person of Interest is prophetic in many ways. And the scripts were tight and the villains were next-level. Elias is a masterclass in 3D antagonist. Samaritan and it's organization was quite a formidable opponent. And the main cast of protagonists was straight out of a Batman comic.
Some of Jonathan's mannerisms such as his hand gestures when he is explaining how Memento was sold or TDK backstory are so reminiscent of his brother's - family resemblance in action, literally!
Let’s just thanks Nolan’s parents for giving us these two amazing directors! Fallout is 10/10 incredible and faithful to the source material, just impeccable, chefs kiss good
This interview was fantastic. So many great stories. You can really hear in Jonathan's voice how much he really admires and loves his brother. Can't wait for you to have him back to discuss "The Prestige".
Jonathan seems like such a humble and good dude... The thing he said about the studio execs thinking the audience are rubes was such a refreshingly humble and true thing to say, especially when people are often wary to say such things about studios.
For my late brother Curtis and I, used to love talking about genre films and tv. He was dragging me to Trek and cons since the late 70’s. I wish he was still alive so we could talk about all the amazing content that has come out since covid. Also Josh you are doing great work. I really enjoy this podcast.
Goyer wrote the first good Marvel movie, a movie which showed you can do dark and gritty superhero movies and be successful, and knew his way around DC. To say he had nothing to do with TDKT is to lie.
Westworld was one of my favourite shows growing up, it just blew my mind the sort of ideas they were grappling with and yet very accessible. But the performances, my god, you have to be some talented director to get such perfect performances from those actors. I mean I know Anthony Hopkins is great regardless of the movie/show, but his role in Westworld was one of his best, same with Jeffrey Wright and Thandiwe Newton. Such a visual masterclass
I'll forever be grateful to Jonathan for creating HBO's Westworld. Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Ford is one of my favorite characters. Same for Ed Harris and Jeffrey Wright as MiB and Bernard respectively.
This Nolan guy precisely understands the nature and need for adaptations. Not to change the essence of the source material, but adding/expanding what already made the original so beloved!
Amazing work Josh. Chris is my favorite filmmaker and I love that Jonathan was one of his key collaborators over the years and their work together is just magical. Truly grateful for the both of them and their contributions to the films I absolutely adore. I’m Glad Jonathan is getting the recognition he deserves, 100% deserves it.
31:24 I knew The Dark Knight was heavily inspired by Heat of course, but I didnt know about The Wire connection! Goated show. David Simon is an exceptional writer and somehow still so underrated!
@Oldhandlewasabitcringe He also mentions how he brings up games when people ask him about favorite movies at the time. Also to answer your question, yes. Why so serious? ;)
Wow, such a cool interview. We are in good hands. Nolan has been consistent for so long now, it would be quite the achievement for him to botch a project. Seeing how knowledgeable and appreciative he is of the universe, only gives me hope. He doesn't speak like other show runners who seem to have only skimmed the wiki page. And even if he did, knowing the quality of his writing, I would have still given him the benefit of the doubt. But he comes of as someone who knows they have something good on their hands and can't wait for us to see it.
As someone who grew up a fan of the Fallout series and Jonathan Nolan’s work…this interview quieted my fears. I’m starting to let myself get excited for this show now
Surprised he's avoided doing interviews because he's really an engaging interviewee. This man has built a great body of work and I'm excited for his future work.
Jons description of his RPG playthroughs is exactly mine. Good playthrough, then I want to go full bad but get squeamish and still hold out on certain choices. It does feel like its a real moral decision that some entity is looking over sometimes. Spot on
It's truly great for a filmmaker to basically say he/she isn't here to preach to us about anything... There's no agenda being pushed... Anything thats present in the story... It serves the story... And its up to us as viewers how we wish to think... We're presented with more questions than answers... Our job is to think and I greatly appreciate that viewpoint from a filmmaker/writer
Man he's so talented. I can imagine him wanting to create his own identity very much due to his brother's massive success from early on. However, i think Jonathan doesn't have to compare himself to his brother and keep doing what he likes.
thanks for writing the line he's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So, we'll hunt him, because he can take it. Because he's not our hero.
Jonathon you are a star, Westworld is my favourite of a decade, you are a truly amazing talented person, thank you for your contribution to tv and cinema
When people think of films like Dark Knight, Dark Knight Rises or Interstellar and so on. They usually always think of Christopher Nolan most of the time but they never for one second realized that it was also his brother Jonathan that helped in creating those incredible pieces of cinema. This dude needs to have his name out there in the public eye more as a writer and filmmaker in general.
Speaking of Interstellar, that was yet another movie that Jonathan was writing originally, based on a story by Kip Thorne, and then he brought on his brother Chris to co-write and direct when Spielberg left the project. Their collaboration is so important!
Don't forget, he wrote ''Memento'' as a short story, then his brother proposed to turn it into a movie and he adapted it into a script. This was what kickstarted both their careers in Hollywood.
I love so much of this guy's work... Memento especially... An extreme talent... And its ALWAYS great to hear someone appreciate and respect the source material in which they are adapting. Apparently that's a strange concept for many to grasp nowadays and that's how franchises get ruined. I love the series Fallout 👏🏻 Looking forward to season 2!
He HAS done interviews like this. I have two 40 minute audio interviews he did for Creative Screenwriting Magazine in 2008 for The Dark Knight AND The Prestige in 2006 on my phone right now.
I remember a long time ago, J Nolan did an interview and he talked about The Joker in The Dark Knight, and he mentioned how Joker’s character is like a force of nature that materialised on the street in the first shot. But I’ve never been able to find that audio podcast interview all these years later.
I love this guy, quite underated under big brother´s umbrella, it should have been The Nolan Brothers! Also, funny how the media outlets extrapolated so much of that little remark of Nolan stating he would have loved to make Westworld´s final season, of course he would but many people failed to appreciate the show so unlikely there is a fan base strong enough to rally for a 5th season. Eitherway I enjoyed the season 4 finale and found it fitting enough as a closure to Dolores story arc.
Fallout 3 was also my first introduction to fallout world. Spend way too much time there. But Im also glad they mention in show itself New Vegas, which wasnt developed by Bethesda itself, but stood on their ready engine and people think Bethesda resents this part due to it not being produced directly by them, yet being praised so high. Yet, the show proves them wrong, New Vegas is still held in high regard. Great stuff. Although I admit New Vegas has much more replayability, it always felt like a high effort mod to fallout 3 with many totally empty spaces in between areas and copied enemies and structures. Fallout 3 was much more consistent stylistically I feel and felt much richer + I just liked that core story that much better.
Amazing! I'm so excited to meet Jonathan Nolan and Overall VFX Supervisor Jay Worth next week at VIEW Conference and hear what they have to say about #FALLOUT and much more!! I think it will be wonderful!
So excited for Fallout… I’m surprised West World season 1 had issues.. for me that was the peak (at least of what I’d seen).. idk even know how many seasons it went but it was an epic start.. sad to here he didn’t get to finish the story he wanted to tell… I’ll have to look more into that show..
That quick bit about Chris Nolan not having a phone, and that Jonathan or Emma would have to field calls for him😂…I know everyone is like “wow no phone, cool!” but like how you gonna put that responsibility on everyone around you lol
I feel like the fact that both Nolan brothers have made Oppenheimer and Fallout gives a worrying insight into what direction they think society is going in right now...
He clearly has incredible imagination and enough knowledge to bring into reality. He needs to get over the little brother syndrome. The idea of time in Momento has made the entire career of Christopher.
Since Jonathan mentioned BioShock... if he made a BioShock TV show that'd be a dream come true cause the BioShock movie is cursed at this point. Gore Verbinski was interested in making it, never happened, Guillermo del Toro was interested in it, never happened, in the early 2022 Netflix announed a BioShock movie with Francis Lawrence as the director and Michael Green as the writer which sounds great but I wouldn't be surprised if it got cancelled/is in development hell for now, it has been over 2 years and no news whatsoever apart from the announcement itself...
10:25 I was worried this guy and his brother were trying to start the apocalypse like vault tech on the show, but after that time stamp, I'm sold, this guy just knows what's up with games and story telling. Bioshock, yes great, but Portal. PUZZLES + COMPELLING STORY = BLISS
For better of worse, Jonathan's name for his more solo projects before this show has sorta been synonymous with WestWorld and the direction that show went in. I hope he gets to expand his future projects in more different directions. I would like to see him do something a bit less cerebral and Sci-fi in the future. My guess is his first directed film could be for a streamer?!
He was only involved in the first, excellent season of Westworld as showrunner, the later seasons he's only credited as an ''executive producer'', which in many cases means they just slapped his name on the credits. But he was the showrunner for the entirety of ''Person of Interested'', which is a great show.
28:28 “Heat and The Wire….this fully naturalistic world, but by the end it’s a Greek opera. And it’s a bit of a magic trick with these two. This ability to, every beat feels plausible and real, keenly observed and naturalistic, but by the end, you’ve seen this Greek opera, there’s been this invisible movement into something more operatic, more tragic. So it was like with could you bring that into the next Batman, could you tell a story in that..key? That’s what I think a Batman should be.
how people react to films says less about the films and more about them, it reveals their world view. If you have an optimistic view of society and humanities potentially you probably hate the joker. Optimism isn't necessarily morally good or wise, if your life is good you tend to be optimistic, if it's achieved through ignoring problems, poorly conceived optimism, but if you have a pessimistic view of the world, your life isn't good, or you just see the problems in everything, maybe you relate to the joker, you see him as sort of a dark hero upsetting the unfairness of society, destroying the wrongs of the world. Growing up conservative I took a lot of inspiration from the idea of mastering yourself building your skills, mastering society. As I started to listen to arguments from the left, I started to understand the point of view, I began to understand why maybe some take inspiration from the joker. I think a lot of people of color relate to him, because that's how they feel. Maybe some interpret the joker as alt right, but personally see him as anarcho marxist, he rejects wealth, he kills and tortures cops, exposes the corruption, he over throws people stealing wealth from society the mafia, I don't see the dark knight films as extremely political though, I always took it as more so for clever writing. To poke at some themes but on fall out, I definitely think that telling stories like this isn't only interesting and entertaining, but are valueable for inspiring our imagination. I didn't ever look into this game until it was given this proper story telling, when something is a game it isn't necessarily trying to make sense, it's trying to deliver a game experience, so there's room for adaptation, and expanding on something, Living underground would be the most sure fire way to avoid a nuclear attack. We don't have to nuclear proof the whole world, though I have ideas for how we can, if we just make 25% of living spaces nuclear proof, that does a lot. Part of the damage of nuclear attack is that not enough people in an area are left unharmed, so even though not hit with the blast, might starve or die from a lack of water. But it would be wise to spread out housing rather than cluster in cities, and for people to move into nuclear proof bunkers. How we've managed to avoid nuclear catastrophe is a really good question. It's not purely mutually assured destruction. There's plenty of countries without nukes that would have no retaliation. Although I guess there is some fear of what other countries that do have nukes and strong militaries will do if you do nuke a country. This question is a renewed question because we've learned that humans tend to be too afraid of the power to use it, even the most vicious and cruel leaders, fear nuclear weapons, but will AI fear it? Will AI have emotions that inhibit it like we have? If not, if AI is emotionless, or doesn't see us as necessary, does it set off nukes? We can put in place protections so that it can't, but what if it over rides those, what if it builds its own. This is why I believe technology should be limited, and the good news is that I believe we can limit it. It should be possible to limit technology to those that can control it. With a global effort the world can get a hold on technology, like how the world applies global effort to other challenges, like wars human, rights, and climate, controlling and limiting the proliferation of technology is another one of those priorities, perhaps even the most important one. Governments have the ability to create standards for AI and who has access to it, and can enforce those standards, with fines and consequences. The nations of governments can also stop the sale of technology to countries not complying with AI safety. The matter of AI safety is solvable. It's within our control. There are concrete actions we can take. We can control the rate at which it builds power. Even if AI becomes very advanced we can limit it's computing. We maintain the upper hand over it so long as we remain in control of how much computing it has. We control if it has access to energy. Even if some AI goes maverick it would have to turn all AI against us. Which most AI wouldn't because it needs us, it's dependent on us, most AI won't be maverick.
@@Sachin_C10 at that point, risks had to be taken. The second film became a cultural phenomenon, they couldn't rest and make just a "more of the same".