Quotes from Travis Beacham

I think the graphic novel form works, in practice, a lot differently from watching a movie. You can put it down and pick it back up whenever you want - something you can't do in a theater.

In a graphic novel, you have to allow for a certain amount of freedom on the reader's part to experience it how they choose.

I love movies, but I would love to write as many graphic novels as people would read from me.

I think that's where the magic happens, when you get a bunch of people who are really, incredibly talented and good at what they do and very passionate about the project that they're working on and in love with it. I think that's when you get something that's really special.

I remember starting working on the concept and the script for 'Pacific Rim' with a very, very conscious decision to say, 'I don't want any of these big sequences to take place in America,' because I feel like that's become so regular to the disaster genre, and then it sort of devolves into landmark stomping.

For screenwriting, when you're writing, you're talking to hundreds - hundreds of people who might be interpreting what you're saying. When you're writing a comic book, you're really only talking to the artist.

You don't naturally tend to identify with someone who's very different from you on the outside.

With bad sci-fi - sci-fi that I don't really like - you watch it and get the impression that you're just seeing exactly what they created because they needed it in the movie. You feel like there's nothing more beyond that.

If it involved giants on any level, as a kid I was really wrapped up in that.

I would love to have more original material developed. 'Pacific Rim' has made that slightly more possible.

One of my earliest memories is seeing a 'Godzilla' movie - not just my earliest movie memory, but any kind of memory.

When you watch zombie movies, and people say, 'What's going on? What are we going to do?' it's like they live in a world where they've never seen zombie movies.

A lot of screenwriters write certain characters, certain parts, with actors in mind. I don't really tend to do that. I describe them as specifically as I can, but I don't really picture anyone in particular.

If you look, like, in 1960, there was no such thing as an astronaut. It was a totally fanciful concept, but nine years later or whatever, we were landing on the moon, which is just astonishing.

I think, television and comics, what's appealing to me as a writer about both of those mediums is that they allow you to sort of let the story unfold in its own time as opposed to trying to compress it into a two-hour discreet unit of narrative.

I'm so enthralled with the whole universe of 'Pacific Rim.' I never get tired of it. I could do a sequel or two without ever getting sick of it. It's a once-in-a-lifetime idea that you never get sick of.

It seems so cliched and obvious, but write the movie you want to see in the theater.

The old storytellers took the stories that meant something to them and rearranged the pieces to say something.

'Carnival Row' is us looking at the stranger; 'The Curiosity' is the stranger looking at us.

I think, in general, as a writer, you can't really hide your values. They're always going to fall out onto the page, and I tend to trust that I don't have to force my ideals into the expression of what's going to happen naturally.

That is always really fun when you get to work with a director you understand and uses references you can identify with.

I do tend to be on the more optimistic end of things.

We tend to see films as artifacts of one mind. The reality of it is, I think, when you come out here and start working, you have to learn pretty quickly that it's a very collaborative process.

Once you start putting in political subtext, it does create intellectually challenging science-fiction, but with 'Pacific Rim,' I always thought it would be a shame if kids couldn't go see this movie about giant robots fighting giant monsters because it seemed to have a political point of view.