I loved that Universal logo.
You watch that logo as a kid, growing up
and then to have that headline the film, introduce the film, is a great feeling.
And now you're making Universal pictures.
And now we're making Universal pictures. It's a relationship.
So, big deep-space opening shots, originally not the opening of the movie.
We began with Fry's character inside the ship
as she woke up from cryo-sleep and looked around her like...
Sometimes you wake up in another city and you don't know...
You're in a generic hotel room, you don't know where.
That's the kind of feeling I wanted to start the movie with.
But it worked too well
and the early preview audiences were disoriented by that opening.
They didn't know where they were.
This is a lot better.
This is one of those things, as an actor, you don't see on the page
and you just hope that the special-effects department
is going to do something spectacular.
When we saw the film at the premiere, this was a treat.
Yeah. It is a beautiful opening shot.
It sets the scene.
It gives its beauty, but it's ominous at the same time.
Coupled with the omnipresent
dialogue.
- Yeah, that wasn't in the movie. - This wasn't on the script.
This wasn't on the page. This was something they designed afterwards
to help lead people into the story.
As you can see, if you just started here, you wouldn't know.
- Is this a medical laboratory? - Could be anywhere. Absolutely.
The opening shot gives you that kind of isolated, drifting feel.
I resisted for a long time because it is typical
to start a movie like this with the ship-in-space shot
but every once in a while the audience just needs to be grounded.
It sets you up, though. It's a beautiful way to start a film.
There's Cole Hauser. He's with us today, as is Vin Diesel.
And me. David Twohy.
Being in those cryo-lockers was not the easiest thing in the world.
Being in the cryo-lockers alone was claustrophobic.
And then having chains and being blindfolded
not being able to move.
In fact, I remember shooting this
and I literally lost it
because I felt like I was in there a little bit longer than I needed to be.
And I lost it.
I guess there was a little anxiety.
- I had the control of that, just so you know. - I know you did.
Being blasted out as well was not...
They basically kicked you in the back, didn't they?
He just pushed me in the back.
Here is Radha.
A little-known fact is that I had no close-up of this guy jettisoning from the cryo-locker.
So it's actually you, Cole.
There's 12 frames of someone coming out of the cryo-locker...
It looked like me, actually.
- I was going to say that nobody can tell. - No.
But he actually does look a little bit like you in person.
- A little more handsome, to be fair. - He is?
I am.
...dropping 20 mb per minute.
Shit! We're hemorrhaging air. Something took a swipe at us.
Come on. Just tell me we're still in the shipping lane.
Just show me all those stars. Come on!
Those big, bright...
What?
I've had people come up to me and say that that was one of their favorite shots.
Big go-by.
Visual-effects track will have a commentary on the models
all the visual-effects shots as well
with Mr. Peter Chiang and myself and Tom Engelman.
I like that, too. You open up and you're in a furnace.
It's like no horizon, no chance of anything. Just furnace.
Fry, where the hell's our comms?
So we put Radha up to get all this rocking and rolling
of the Fry character, Radha Mitchell.
We put her up in this big gimbal and just shook the hell out of it.
I remember, one day... Actually several gimballed set.
...one of the gimbals broke right out from under the actors.
- It was a terrible sound. - That's right.
- And did somebody get hurt? I don't think. - Nobody got hurt.
We were lucky. But to hear that thing snap.
This is a 20, 30-ton structure
to see it snap and hit the ground.
Deploy lower air brakes now.
Center of gravity too far aft.
Recommend purging ballast now.
She got into it, though.
Here's this actress who comes out of doing High Art
putting her in gimbals and shaking the hell out of her.
I can't get my fucking nose down.
Crisis program selected number two because it shows some oxygen.
Maximum terrain 220 meters over mean surface,
largely cinder and gypsum with some evaporite deposits.
What the hell are you doing?
I gotta drop more load.
PURGE ALL?
I tried everything else. I still got no horizon.
I like the structure in that we established the moral dilemma
two, three minutes into the film.
- Maybe four. - That quick.
She has a life-and-death decision to make
and it's going to live with her the rest of the film.
I like that structure. And it works well for us.
I'm not gonna die for them.
That was a crucial line. Was that even in the script?
"I'm not gonna die for them"? Yeah.
We use it later on in the finale.
- But was that line actually in the script? - Yeah.
- I like this right here. - Big honking air brakes?
Our first look at Coober Pedy coming up here.
Look at that.
What the fuck is happening up there?
- Poor Radha. - Get your hands back on the control.
Exactly. That's the point. Nobody's driving the ship anymore.
It's like she's supposed to be, but nobody's driving.
Mr. Chiang tells an interesting story about these plates here.
He's in a helicopter shooting them
and they have to get lower and lower to get the plates, to get the shots.
And the helicopter skids, actually hit the ground at 50 miles an hour.
To get these...
SYSTEM ALERT
I didn't know we had helicopters on this shoot.
It was about one day. We could afford one day of helicopters.
This was just unbelievable. Look at that. Peter Chiang.
Do you remember hanging onto that pole?
One of the more painful things I've done. It was tearing my arms off.
It was so sharp, the thing I was actually holding on to.
And I was pulling myself backwards
acting like I was doing 150 miles an hour, hanging on.
And there were all sorts of fans on you, shit whipping by you.
- You hit an eye with a couple of things. - Dodging stuff.
It really works, though. You made it look beautiful.
What an aftermath.
- Some of these out-of-focus shots. - I love that shot.
You got to tell the camera guys. It hurts them to shoot out of focus sometimes.
- It makes sense, though. - Yeah. His head?
Yeah. After all that.
Because these guys get fired for shooting out of focus
on an Oliver Stone film or something. They're gone. They're history.
Blood. A little detail there.
Remember the neck grab? We discussed whether it would be fast enough.
Am I just hanging around here too long? Will it look right?
Once you finesse it, you start playing around with film speeds
and it is a quick strike. It does shock the audience.
I think we just pulled that off.
You remember when the chain broke a few times around my neck?
You remember how long it took him to reset that?
The last one I just told Ric, "Just strangle me.
"Just do it. Make it look right." And it works.
Left a mark, did it?
- Left a mark? - Yeah. A little mark.
I have a few marks from this movie.
- Get it out of him! - No, it's too close to his heart.
There's Anestaphine in the med-lock in the back of the cabin.
Not anymore, there's not.
- Lewis Fitz-Gerald there. - See, that works.
I think you have to see the film once or twice
and then at least on the second time, when you see that shot of Cole
it all reads in place.
Yeah, when you really know what's going through his mind.
Definitely it's just the right reaction.
Uncomfortable, obviously.
Now, why would that be?
During the dailies
there was actually a whole meditation process to this ritual.
And I remember everyone in the dailies cracking up
because they stood up and went back down.
The pilgrims went back down and started meditating again and bowing
and going through this whole ritual.
- It was a mini-series. - Yeah.
That praying out in the desert stuff.
The pilgrims can never quite sync it right.
You notice the pilgrims are not facing Mecca
all in one direction, they're facing each other?
That's because it's a place of multiple suns.
They came to me, and I had scripted in that...
I think their backs are to each other in the script.
They were covering all the bases.
And they came to me and said, "But Mecca's only one way."
I said, "But you don't know what way it is."
It took a little bit to get them to do it that way.
Because the pilgrims were actually Muslim kids.
...but then we saw this.
I thought Claudia really delivered her lines well.
Claudia Black, who plays Shazza.
That originally was my line. I gave it to her. Remember that?
- Did you? - That's funny.
Because you wanted to be isolating up there?
Yeah. I wanted to be thinking about things, not talking.
How it'll lay out. How the whole thing's going to lay out.
I don't know.
I, for one, am thoroughly grateful.
Claudia Black has a popular TV show, Farscape
which is shot in Australia, also seen here in the States.
Pretty popular down there.
Thanks very much.
Pretty popular here, actually.
Well done.
He just escaped from a maximum prison.
So do we just keep him locked up forever?
Well, that would be my choice.
Is he really that dangerous?
This next scene is painful.
The whole bloody container's upside down. It's all topsy-turvy.
- The arm crack coming up. - Yeah.
- Interesting story. - You really did that?
They set up this $60,000 special-effects day
to shoot that scene.
And I walked on the set and held the chain in my hands
and actually did it.
And everyone on the set looks at me like, "Vin, you didn't tell me you could do that."
That was impressive. I was already impressed by you
- but that was very impressive. - For a sec.
Then once my hands were locked in the cuffs
I was in the chains, I wasn't able to do it
because I wasn't able to rotate my hands enough.
- Why? - I don't know.
- It was just a little tighter in, wasn't it? - Yeah.
It made for a good scare.
This is Vin doing about three-quarters of the movement, I would say.
- And then Mr. Chiang. - Yeah.
Vin can get up to about here himself.
What's interesting is that I...
There was this shot that explains how that opening in the eye
- that allowed me to see... - Got to be there.
The cut in the blindfold.
It was extremely dangerous.
I was blindfolded and I had to gauge, or guess, rather,
where this spiked needle was. This spiked edge of metal or something, right?
Some sharp metal.
And I had to pat my head down
and gouge into this blindfold and rip it open.
- We did the whole scene. - Yeah. It was very dangerous.
I don't think it ultimately played. You had to go too tight on it.
They couldn't hunt shit with these things, would be my guess.
What's the point anyway? If the man is gone, he's gone.
- Why should he bother us? - Maybe to take what you got.
Maybe to work your nerves.
I like this. I like backs of people's heads sometimes.
I love the backs.
He sounds like a charmer.
Because too much...
It's like TV coverage, where you're getting this over-the-shoulder, close-up...
Great shot. That shot is amazing.
And Cole got it.
I think Cole recommended that shot to me.
That was like a comic-book shot.
The breathers.
We're never really clear what Al-Imam's name is
'cause everyone says it differently.
Everyone says it differently.
It's actually "Imam", but to say "Al-Imam" means "The Imam"
as I understand it, in Arabic or Farsi.
And Al-Imam is what you say when...
- I'm not going to go there. - It is a bit confusing.
But "imam" is like a title. It means "the cleric" or something like that
or the equivalent of "the priest," rather than a formal name.
John Moore plays Zeke.
- Keith David. - Yes.
- The revered Imam. - You can see the wind.
It was freezing there.
You can see their lapels flapping around. It was very cold.
See the hair blowing? But it's supposed to be scorching desert
heat.
We pulled it off. It looks like that.
- Do you remember how cold it was, Cole? - It was freezing.
Claudia Black's in pain right now.
It's so cold.
There'll be no shots.
I think we're coming up on our first day of shooting here.
We are.
This morning actually was the coldest.
The first day of shooting was the coldest morning.
- They're spritzing you down with water... - Painful.
It was ridiculous.
It's some form of torture. I don't know what kind.
It could have been worse right here in this scene.
I thought we had to start drifting atmosphere through.
Put a big fan on, start sprinkling dust through the air
like there was constantly a dry, irritating wind.
The first bit got right in Keith's face, in his eyes.
He went away to the trailer, came back an hour later.
Said, "I guess that whole atmosphere... Forget the whole atmosphere thing."
So did you see anything?
Another cool shot. Cole's got the cool shots.
Trees, and trees mean water.
I remember going through the wardrobe process.
Cole and I went through it together.
We'd come out of there and Cole always had these cool things.
Cole had some paraphernalia.
It's like, "How the hell did you pull that off?"
Talent, my friend.
I love this shot. Coming up, when you're sitting in the chair.
It just flashes.
That was something created on the day.
Yeah, very late on the day.
It was an opportunity.
We saw the empty, vacant ship and we said, "Let's play it."
We gotta talk about Rhiana, in her absence, before this is all over.
- Those are doubles. - All doubles.
Who you're seeing now is not me, ladies and gentlemen.
That hair. That toupee.
And those are true doubles, 'cause they're stunt-coordinators doubling as stand-ins.
It's a communal graveyard, perhaps...
All CGl'd. You know that from the special-effects track.
Actually, there are miniature bone pieces, one-tenth scale
that we're tracking into that shot.
But shot out in Coober Pedy, in the middle of nowhere. Just rocks.
This set is amazing. This is true to life.
Of course it was incredibly fragile.
If you leaned against it, you heard Styrofoam crack.
We shot some different stuff here of...
Cat-and-mouse stuff between the character Fry and Riddick.
Him knowing that he was somewhere here in the boneyard
but not being able to peg his presence.
But when the movie is running 20, 30 minutes too long
and you got to cut out something, and the audience is saying,
"Get to the creatures faster. Get to the night stuff.
"Because that's when the really cool stuff happens."
You're at a loss as to what to take out because you like a lot of it.
- And that's filmmaking. - Yes.
It's a process. But we lost some nice cat-and-mouse stuff here
between the two characters.
Now, this was in the first week, right?
This is the second day I think.
- Second day? - Yeah.
Yeah, I think you're right.
It was very cold again.
And that really is Irish whiskey.
This is Cole's character being a nice guy
and slowly turning into the nefarious one.
What did Owens mean
about not touching the handle?
Caught.
There was a discussion about Cole saying, "I could just turn my head and see him."
I was doing my dialogue and I could see Vin's face.
It was hysterical.
You were real worried about, "The audience will think I'm stupid."
I can turn and see him.
Not stupid. But the guy's got to be... He should be able to smell his presence.
This always was a little...
I'll tell you what's hokey right now. It's about to come up.
The hokiest scene in the film.
- What do you think? - You're going to see it in a minute.
Maybe I'm wrong
but he holds it, he smells it.
It's enough. What is that?
- That's the Afterschool Special version. - It's lily-gilding.
Completely.
It was made up on the day and did not work
and just found its way on the final cut.
It literally found its way somehow.
Me being the nice guy, I give him my gun.
Nobody ever noticed that.
This is actually beautiful in here. Look at that.
We eventually come crashing through this, right?
Yeah. I'm not sure the audience puts together
that later in the night sequence, we come back through the same way
and when we hit that deadfall of bones, that's what this is.
But they can always rent the DVD and find it out.
Sounds like he's speaking German.
- Wasn't there dialogue for the robot? - Yeah, there was.
Something like...
There's some lron Giant kind of stuff happening.
- It got a little confusing. - I think it did.
The audience thought whatever the robot said was supposed to be important.
And it's not. It's a human artifact.
You can establish that without the dialogue. So we got rid of the robot talk.
- You did that voice for us, didn't you? - Yeah.
What is that?
It's a sprayer for plants, right?
- It's a little sprinkler. - Oh, for the garden.
I love the light. And I love that shot. That's probably one of my favorite shots.
The shot before that.
The silhouette, and the lights on. It was so representative of the time.
It's similar to the shot of you later on coming over the rise
where you're just blacked out.
I love that.
They are saying God is great. Allahu Akbar. Yes.
This is the source of the water.
No darkness.
No lights because no darkness.
Hello, Mecca!
Strained tolerance.
It's like, "What else have we got to deal with?"
Lewis Fitz-Gerald, a man of many props.
You thought Cole was tricked out.
- He had a few things going on, didn't he? - And he knew how to juggle them, too.
This is where the momentum starts.
Total stranger.
Here's where you get the sense of the picture, that it's kind of sick.
This is where the momentum starts. This is the first casualty.
And this plays well, because it's to set up with the...
I'm confused on whether we should have heard that dialogue
where they could have whispered it somehow.
It's pretty clear, though. Don't you think?
It feels like there's a breath behind it and there's no breath.
I don't know. It almost seems like it could be an audio.
I love that flash stuff.
Yeah, just do that...
That's my stunt double right there.
He is brilliant. Ric Anderson really did great work.
Shazza getting creamed with blood. I think we did it in one take.
I could not abide doing it again. I couldn't handle doing...
It's this shot that lets you...
That's the one. That's good.
- Initially, the idea was... - There was nothing there.
And then we saw that and I was bored, I think
and I come up to you and I say,
"David, what if I'm sitting up there, drinking?"
And you thought about it for a second and said, "Great idea."
Because originally you were going to be poking out behind some...
It was always a crash zoom in to reveal you. You were behind some wreckage...
We were running out of time, so we were also thinking
how to maximize the camera set-ups.
So all we had to do was use a zoom lens, a long lens
and capture that shot and explain where Riddick was.
Actually, two crash zooms spliced together invisibly
because on 11-1 zoom you
bang in halfway, then you move the camera forward and bang in again.
It looks like one long motion.
It also showed how proficient Riddick was
in being wherever he wanted to be and not being...
Yeah, it's a good character moment. A good suggestion on your part.
And fun for the audience. They dig it.
I told you I gauge the...
A lot of times in a full audience, a packed house,
you kind of can see if the audience is understanding the story at that point.
Right.
I love how this is shot.
I had to shoot it stylized, because you don't want to know...
We don't want the audience to know if it's Riddick or something else.
- Absolutely, and it works. - So it has to be disorienting, stylized,
abstract, like this stuff is, too.
We call that stuff "trickeration shots."
Again, it's hard to get the cameraman to do that kind of stuff.
They're trying to just hit it, focus it, shoot it.
After a while, I said, "Okay, we need trickeration shots here."
The idea was to be off-balance around Riddick.
This is weird, because I was concerned that
Riddick looked too anemic here.
So we had to kind of find a way to rip off the goggles
and realize that he was still coming out of a deep sleep, or whatever
- and slowly regaining his power. - We decided that
he's vulnerable as soon as the glasses come off, right?
Yeah, I mean, it's like having
a police officer shine a light in your face. You're disoriented, you know?
That's fine.
- I always liked this lighting on you, too. - Love this whole set-up.
That was an important line to throw in. "There's a debate." That was off the page.
And that helped to motivate him into talking
and to show a little sympathy on her part,
which is what was needed for Riddick to eventually warm up slowly to her.
And the first time we heard you talk live, except the voiceover up front.
- Which is something we were conscious of. - Which is a half-hour into the movie
and what's cool is that you recognized the power of that.
- Yeah, I didn't want any lines. - I didn't hear from Vin,
"Maybe I should... God, it's a long time without talking.
"Maybe we should sneak a few things in."
Also, he's talking about the time that he shot me in the back
some years back, when I was actually trying to capture him.
It's actually an important thing for later in the story.
This was something that was designed there on that week,
the whole idea of making her come closer.
Closer.
That sells it, too. That whole, kind of...
I thought that was a great insert.
Her playing this fear... The fear factor.
The sound effect of the chains,
the way the apparatus is used to hold up the chains
all helped to give that mythological, kind of beast trapped...
Then you gotta get sent to a slam...
We were worried about having the same restraints
as the beginning that he escaped from.
That second, the limbs were separated, and each... You know?
We talked about a lot of different poses for that.
I was thinking, initially, like A Man From Horse kind of pose.
A Man Called Horse, the Richard Harris film where they strung him up...
Cute kid.
Did I kill a few people?
This allows him to still look formidable but be restrained.
That's right. He's restrained, but he's still a threat, isn't he?
And he looks very threatening
because it doesn't look like he's restrained in a normal fashion.
All his limbs look like they could potentially do something.
Young boys everywhere, you're welcome.
That was Zeke's flashlight, for those of you who had no clue what that is.
It's amazing how shitty a set like this can look when it's not lit,
when the art department shows you what they're doing for the first time.
- That's beautiful. - Completely unimpressive.
Then Eggby gets in there and starts doing his thing, and it looks like this.
- I love that behind. Look at that. - That's nice.
It's almost like coming out of a cocoon.
I was worried. You remember, David.
I was really apprehensive about these creatures being shown this early
and in this fashion
and her kind of being unharmed.
Whether that would play, and it ultimately did.
- These are just glimpses... - You also played them as babies, correct?
I mean, they're not full-grown.
Yeah, these are adolescent versions in here.
So they just get bigger as the movie goes on.
- Panic. - "Okay, Johns is right. I'm out of here."
I'm thinking about pulling Fry out of the pinnacle.
This is a part in the movie where people start
to really feel vulnerable.
The horror factor comes alive.
I thought I heard something.
Please, can you hear me?
Help me.
- Cool intercutting, huh? - I thought it was a brilliant idea.
Vin just improvised the chain rattling on the sets
and I didn't know where to use it.
So very late in the day, I said, "Let's try to intercut it to give this some energy."
We had little footage of her climbing up in the pinnacle.
- "Let's intercut it here, see how it works." - It seems like he hears her.
It's like he knows what's going on.
It makes him smart, prescient in a kind of way,
like he knew what he was sending her in to do.
- Come on. - Fry, are you okay?
Here's a moment that gets the audience, too.
Yeah, this is an amazing stunt by her double.
It looked so painful when I was sitting there watching.
See you. That looks good.
- Yeah, Marney was the double? - Yeah.
Get it off me!
Watch it. Watch your head.
- Could you tell who cut that rope? - You certainly didn't want to, did you?
- Who was it? I don't even know. - It was Johns. He saves her life.
You work without chains, without bit, and without shivs.
- You do what I say, when I say it. - For what?
The honor of going back to some asshole of a cell? Fuck you.
The truth is
I'm tired of chasing you.
Are you saying you'd cut me loose?
I like that moment there. It's like, "The one thing he could say to get to me.
"The one button I have, he found it, he pushed it."
Freedom.
Okay.
Ghost me. That's what I'd do to you.
This is another reason why the apparatus worked so nicely.
I want you to remember this moment.
The way it could have gone and didn't.
Here.
We had a long discussion
on how to have that gun, that weapon
taken out of Johns' hand.
It worked out, though, because you don't really see it.
It's so fast that you don't see it. That makes sense.
At one point, my hand was out in front of it.
It felt stupid, didn't it? I remember I said, "It will feel stupid.
"You must trust me. When we get to the editing room, we'll make it work."
It's a matter of undercranking the camera, so it's just a snake strike.
And then make it even faster in the editing room.
Faster. The editor kept showing it to me. I said, "Not fast enough."
You can't make Johns stupid by having him dangle it out there.
Also, there were no bullets in the gun.
That scene was a pivotal scene
- because it shows that he doesn't shoot. - That's right. Rule Number One.
That Riddick isn't as bad as people say he is
or has some other kind of logic.
This scene was grueling.
It was also probably the second or third day.
- I think it was the first day. - No.
- Yeah. - No.
Yeah, it was the first day of dialogue.
- For you. - Sure, for me, absolutely.
And I remember carrying this thing and thinking,
"God, these guys expect me to be able to tow this thing for miles."
- See those red marks on the neck? - Yeah.
That's from the chain rubbing, because I'm really trying to...
It was very difficult, but I'm thinking,
"They're expecting me to be able to pull trains.
"So let me try to pull this off."
All right, all right. My turn.
- I love Keith David. I love that. - Keith David. We had pilgrims...
That close-up shot of him standing and smiling with his hands on his hips.
- I know. - It was a great shot. I saw it in dailies.
It was a trip because he would ask the kids on the day,
"How's this pronounced? Okay, I'll do it."
And sometimes it worked, sometimes it worked less well.
That would be five.
I must say, Keith has a good ear for it.
This is a very tricky location to shoot in
because one inch in either direction...
Where your hand was placed was all crucial.
This was a scene where it was too tight to move the camera.
You have to move actors around and have Cole lean up into that close-up.
There was a lot of marks in that scene to hit
and you just rolled all the way through.
It was never like the camera moved. It was all one shot.
Yeah, that's the way to go.
It's interesting that Jack's head is shaved there.
And you don't realize it, it's not played, until later.
People don't pick up on it as much until the next scene.
Freezing here!
For me, the coldest day by far.
And that's why I look so in shape
because I'm trying to protect myself from the elements.
So I'm flexing as much as I can to kind of warm my body.
At least we had sunlight. For the most part, we were rained on in Coober Pedy.
I like that move, Cole.
- You've always liked that one. - Love that move.
- It's like you're calling a dog, isn't it, Cole? - Exactly.
Oh, man.
The major thing there, when I pulled down the tarp...
- You threw your arm out, didn't you? - Because it was hooked.
- It was supposed to be... - It was supposed to come free.
It was supposed to come free, and someone locked it on the other side
because the wind was blowing.
I go to yank it, and I have to use all this extra force.
I threw my shoulder out.
- You threw your shoulder out? - Completely. I went to yank it.
Imagine yanking on a chain as hard as you could
that was fastened to the ceiling.
And then tell me how you'd feel.
I know what you mean.
Love this scene.
I want to take that little kid and put her on my knee.
And take the shades.
It's not a ship, it's a skiff. And it's disposable, really.
Love that.
Yeah, they probably had a big drop ship take them off planet.
These people didn't leave. Come on.
Whoever got Zeke got them. They're all dead.
First time no goggles
in a way.
Vin was quick to get those goggles back on
because it was either the goggles or contact lenses, wasn't it?
Yeah, that's the truth.
You know what you should have said there? "Wash your fucking mouth."
That actually would have been phony.
What's interesting is people commented on
the sexuality between Riddick and Fry.
A lot of people have said that they thought that the scene was actually sexy
that sexual energy with her turning around and saying, "What do you think happened?"
No! Yeah?
The first time I heard it was after dailies.
I think your assistant said it, "Oh, my God, dude."
That's an impersonation of Ken Twohy, my assistant.
"You guys look so sexy doing that. Dude, you gotta see it."
- Ken Twohy, no relation, by the way. - Ken Twohy, who's still in Australia.
- He went native. - Very tanned, by this point.
He was white when he got there.
I actually met him because we had the same last name.
He was a film student at USC. He called me up.
- "Are we related, man?" - Oh, God.
I remember this. There was a huge debate on who should go first.
How do you know? You weren't there.
- The debate was solved by pure logic. - Logic.
I was there because of the shot you added in here, with her.
Guy with the gun goes first, doesn't he, Cole?
I don't know, man. In most worlds. Not on this planet, though.
You may evoke something deep.
Truthful.
I remember Cole saying, "Why don't I shoot them as they go by?"
- I would've laid a couple down. - Shoot them anyway?
Yeah, I would shoot one of them at least.
It's like a swarm. There's nothing to shoot at.
- They're nowhere, they're everywhere. - David, I saw it.
- I was there, you weren't. - Yeah? You took out a couple?
- I shot a couple. - Mounted them on a wall.
You didn't like that. You cut it out, I thought.
- Did we have a scene about that? - I don't recall that.
- All right. - That was held a little too long.
Pilgrim number three, out of action.
Why were the pilgrims inserted into the movie?
- Those were cool kids. - They were very cool kids.
They actually added a lot of life to the set.
They were having more fun than anybody else.
What was the crazy kid's name?
- We had Firass, Les and Sam. - Les was a little quiet.
You could tell Firass was enjoying himself.
One time, he was like, "Is it my close-up yet," or something?
- Didn't he ask you that? - Yeah, he did.
"My bloody close-up."
This was complicated. We were unsure whether people were going to get this.
It actually turned into a really cool shot. Look at that.
It's one of my favorite shots.
I think we had a problem...
Didn't we have a problem with us standing in the background like that?
It was a discussion about, "What are we doing here?"
"Aren't we too comfortable?" It was kind of weird.
But they needed to hear the information because it comes into play later on.
So they needed to just see the model and see what it...
I originally said, "You're not afraid of the dark," to Johns.
That was actually a later shot that was cut and used for that scene.
For Fry.
I said, "You're not afraid of the dark," to Johns.
And now it was positioned to everybody really, the audience.
- It's okay. - This is wonderful.
It was basically there for a trailer shot.
Love this shot. Love that tracking shot up into the skiff.
Yeah, and I like the performances here an awful lot.
Remember it took us a long time finding the stride for this, Cole?
It was only when we said, "Let's go low with it, just quiet"...
I always wanted it to be low. I was never, ever against that.
I think, on the day...
It was one of those scenes where everything is so tight:
putting in the camera, finding the right spot, finding our place,
making Radha comfortable. She wanted to stand through the scene.
I love this, Cole. I love what you do here.
You're dancing on razor blades here.
And I like how she downplays it.
The lighting just accentuates the scene.
This was a big question, too,
whether the audience was going to get what that was.
- I think it... - It carries over into this.
Bad sign.
Shaking like that in this heat.
Not the most flattering of shots on my head.
- You got axle grease on your head. - Yeah, "Not the most flattering shot."
I hope I didn't make anyone get up and walk out of the theater in that shot.
No, they dig it. I've heard some people say,
"A guy who can shave with axle grease, that's my kind of guy."
HULL INTEGRITY TEST
Thanking you.
More trickeration here.
This was actually one of the screen test scenes.
I didn't screen-test with Radha.
I was actually screen-testing with another actor.
Did you have to put on the goggles?
I wish. I wore sunglasses.
This is all tricky, where I had to take off the breather
because it was rattling and making too much noise.
We all said it would take up time.
But it also says, "I'm getting undressed and comfortable now."
It's almost like some sort of strange sexual prelude.
It's the first time, too, that I'm out of the picture completely.
I'm nowhere, I mean, I'm basically...
Johns ain't coming to the rescue here.
Nor do I really care what's going on.
The whole "I've been meaning to catch up with you alone unrestrained",
was added on the day to add more
menace to the scene, and make it more threatening.
We had very limited space to work here
because, again, it was a very confined set.
Oh, you didn't know that?
Here was the time to play with the sexuality and be as
nefarious as possible.
...and that blue uniform...
Working her, working her.
Working the head.
My intent was to invade as much of her space as possible
to make her as uncomfortable as possible.
Not easy what she's doing either, playing...
- Trying to play tough. - But seeing through it.
Seeing through it and registering the fear.
But I do know once the dying starts...
Very difficult here
because the seats offered so little movement.
You had no way to really get into a two-shot.
Ask him.
Love that. Love the shadows.
Noir shadows. The raking shadows.
Was there ever talk about doing that scene without your goggles on
- because it was so dark inside there? - Yeah.
That's a cool shot, too. All out of focus.
Yeah, I love how that was done.
Beautiful close-ups here that actually second unit shot. Ian Thistle.
You got to get on a big, long lens to get these right.
- This is probably a 150. - Cole!
That is actually my eye and my tear duct.
You're crazy. You're really crazy.
I met with a guy in Australia.
I asked him, "Where's the most disgusting place you've seen somebody shoot up?"
He said, "The tear duct of an eyeball."
I brought it to David, and he was a little bit skeptical at first
because a needle close to an actor's eye
could put him out of commission for some time.
But David Eggby and David Twohy basically just guided me
and it was a retractable needle, to the tear duct.
It ended up working very well. A bit of a cringe for the audience.
Huge cringe.
Yeah, well, look to thine own ass first. Right, Carolyn?
Captain! Captain!
I'm not your fucking captain.
This is when the film starts to pick up.
This is when we come alive.
If we need anything from the crash ship, I suggest we kick on.
That sand cat's solar.
The sand cat was built by the art department on the chassis of an old mining vehicle.
It's left-hand drive
even though every other vehicle in Australia is right-hand drive.
Unbelievable stuff.
Was that... Was it in the film?
- Which one? - Where you come flying down.
- Yeah, it's in the film. - Yeah.
- Riddick jumping in. - This is an interesting moment between...
Yeah, that was tricky. We were playing that out,
did that a bunch of times to get it right.
It was tricky jumping onto that sand cat when it was doing 15 miles an hour.
This bone piece that falls down is the same one they encounter,
when they run through that gauntlet
in the nighttime sequence, but I'm not sure if the audience...
- Originally, in the script... - That gives you scale, doesn't it?
Originally, in the script, Johns was the one that was gonna get hit by the bones
and not Jack.
And then, on the day,
it became clear that Jack, that play,
that subtle pointing would be the right thing to do.
You want to talk about Rhiana a little bit?
Yeah.
- This is Rhiana Griffith. - She's a very talented young actress.
She does a wonderful job.
She showed full commitment on the first day.
She had long, beautiful blonde hair on the first day,
when she opted or agreed to cut it all off,
after a couple of years of a successful modeling career,
in order to do this.
And for a 13-year-old junior-high-school girl...
- There's a lot invested in their hair. - Yeah, it's pretty impressive.
She was there every step of the way.
She was actually probably the most easy-going person on the set.
Good energy,
just brought a smile to everyone.
I'd originally scripted the part for a female named Audrey, I think.
Given the fact that everyone else has so many secrets in the movie,
Johns' character, Fry's character, Riddick's background,
that it just seemed a little flat.
So we said the dimension that we can give her,
is that she'll be masquerading as a boy through most of the film.
'Cause it will be safer for a young male to travel
or someone who's perceived as a young boy, than a young girl on her own.
That's what she had to play and we had to find somebody
who was slender enough, especially through the hips
to not give it away
and who was willing to cut her hair. She had this beautiful mane of hair.
- Got rid of it all. - For the part.
No one ever answered Johns
because Riddick is so transfixed
on the beauty of such power.
I don't think you could ever count on me, to be fair.
- Perhaps you should flee! - Let's go!
There really were a lot. And she's angry.
- Great shot. - Yeah, I dig that shot. This was in the script.
Get in!
This is where it all starts.
Get down!
We talked about this a bit on the DVD track.
What is that thing you pitch aside when you stand up?
You throw a piece of shit aside.
We explained it.
This special effect, running and literally leaping into a ditch,
didn't help the shoulder condition
that was created on the tarp-pulling scene.
- Stay there! Stay down! - Come back here!
Shazza, stay down!
Do I lift the shiv up in this?
I think it was Shazza in two parts.
If you slow down, you'll see the top half is screaming.
You're missing something here.
What we shot was, he lifts up the shiv
and the shiv gets devoured just an inch away from his face.
Half the shiv gets devoured so he tosses...
By the stream of hatchlings, which is razor sharp.
So it was like Riddick testing the enemy.
Testing how dangerous it is. He put up this little bone blade
into the stream of hatchlings and it whittled it down.
That was the thought, but
it was lost for cost reasons and so you just see the tail end of it there.
My concern was that
with this shot you wouldn't be able to get an idea of how big these creatures were.
We talked about this with Mr. Chiang.
You have to differentiate these from the hatchlings, the little guys
and he does that by, especially in this next installment,
slowing down the animation, big gliders.
You realize even though they're small in the screen, they have a lot of mass.
- This is a beautiful shot, isn't it? - That's a great shot.
It's good night.
Now the beginning of the end.
- This was a fun set, wasn't it? - This was great.
If she'd only stayed down, she'd be okay. She wouldn't have died.
You remember the boneyard?
These just might be the fuckers
that killed every living thing on this planet.
What was the deal with the door that was built a certain way
and then it didn't work?
- Do you remember that? - The door was on the left here?
The whole container is supposed to be upside down.
Everyone was livid because...
You and the rest of the producers,
everyone was so upset because this door...
Imam tries to rip it open and it broke.
It's just a shitty little slab door...
It's a hero door 'cause it works on film.
It's got to open and close.
Every time he tried to open it, it would drop 3 inches.
He'd have to shake it a bit, it'd drop another 6 inches,
shake it a little bit more...
This is an action scene. It's got to get through fast.
This is a subtle introduction to their relationship, Riddick and Johns,
that tees up
the comedy between them later.
They're constantly pushing each other's buttons.
In a very comfortable way.
They both know they're more capable than anybody else
in the crew. They're kind of playing with that.
This is a semi-dangerous set.
The torch was live.
It was, again, a very confined space.
Excellent lighting, Mr. Eggby.
- Just the chiseled light. - Beautiful lighting.
Should have done more of this.
- Nice look, isn't it? And this, too. - This is great.
Pilgrim number two, Sam.
Why he's walking around, we don't know.
But it ends up working.
I love that.
First predator POV.
The idea is they don't actually see, they're blind creatures.
But by issuing this sound,
that reflects back,
they're able to form a rough picture in their mind,
with echo location in their mind.
So we're actually seeing what the creature perceives.
And that is really me with the torch in my hand burning something.
- You did all your stunts, didn't you? - Every single one.
Hassan. Where is Hassan?
Amazing special effects.
I love this shot coming up when you take off running.
Look at that. Slow mo.
So, Cole, did you miss that thing, or did you hit it?
That thing is done with, buddy, as you can see.
I'll just set them up, you knock them out.
Is it alive?
Another life saved.
Cole's going through the film, chalking up the good-guy points.
Just want people to be aware.
Light actually hurts them.
That would be one for the bad-guy column.
Whatever, I don't really care.
That's actually one of the funny lines.
One of my favorite lines.
That's hysterical.
David, did you take out the real vulgar part of this scene
where I call her a very dirty name?
You did, didn't you?
- Did it hurt a little too much? - What was it?
Did you use the "C" word?
I think it was the "B" word. Bitch.
- That's not so bad. - No?
If we did, it's not because it's...
- It won't run at night. - So we carry the cells.
We drag them, whatever it takes.
You mean tonight, with all those things still out there?
All right, how long can this last?
A few hours? A day, tops?
I have the impression from the model.
It was very tricky to keep this story going and allow...
Keith David time to remorse.
Yeah, that's the thing. When you're knocking off as many people as we are,
logically there is grief period.
For Shazza because the Zeke character got knocked off
and here it was pilgrims.
He plays it so well. Those lidded eyes that Keith has.
Going back to it was real important.
We were almost out of time
and not going to be able to get that shot of Imam.
It was important that we went back and actually covered that
because that shot actually plays
that last shot of Imam.
His face is perfect, isn't it?
He plays the remorse...
Love this.
Is that fucking right?
- Where are you going? - This solves nothing.
Okay.
The tapping was all decided on the day
which was perfect that the holster had that metallic thing.
This is the first part where
I think the character of Johns starts to feel he's losing control
in this scene.
When you're playing it in your head that I can use this guy down the line.
The reason I'm not going to kill him now,
is that he could come in handy later on.
Yeah, there's definitely that, but also...
It's a tricky situation.
He either has to align himself
with his adversary
or make his obstacles that much harder.
Stay close.
And also, they're still listening to Fry.
- It's a pain in the ass. - It's a very big problem.
Which Johns doesn't really like all that much.
Remember this?
This was a huge debate.
Riddick.
Cole was livid.
I'm gonna take an audience poll.
This was not my fight.
Cole was like, "Now why the hell aren't I moving forward?"
I got the gun.
"This has got to be the stupidest thing I've ever seen in my life."
I actually had to make that move by myself. David didn't advise me.
He took it on his own initiative.
We wound up playing it both ways. I like this moment in the film, too,
because it's humanizing for both of you.
It shows a little bit of teamwork in a strange way.
But also it shows that we should both be afraid of these fuckers out there.
Right.
Camaraderie, in a weird way.
These effects, the fiber optics, were extremely cool.
Not the easiest thing.
The next shot after this was extremely difficult.
Everyone was frustrated.
This next shot when we are taking off was at 5:00 a.m.
And it never worked.
Here is a nice little moment I like with Jack,
where she's holding the fiber optic up to her hand.
You see the blood through it.
This one,
because she's looking at her own blood, she's looking at her vulnerability.
- She's thinking ahead to her secret. - It's introspective. It's beautiful.
We stay together, we keep the light burning.
That's all we gotta do to live through this thing.
Aren't we missing somebody?
This is one my favorite scenes in the movie.
Very casual, you know?
Yeah.
Look, we're just wasting light here.
Just look at him.
It's a cool shot on you, isn't it?
Yeah, it's lit beautifully.
He'll leave all of you.
I don't get it, Johns.
What is so goddamn valuable in your life
that you're worried about losing?
Is there anything at all...
It was freezing out there 'cause that was a true exterior.
We tried one exit shot in Coober Pedy of them pulling the sled away.
- It just never worked. - Disastrous.
This was a pure disaster.
The reason you don't see that shot carried through
is because it never came off the skiff.
And believe it or not, that little thing that I'm pulling behind me
weighs about 150 pounds.
- Everyone's really... - They're really working there.
It just kept breaking down in Coober Pedy.
- "Hiya, Mom." - Everyone loves this shot.
The special effects of them closing in. That really gives a good sense...
I remember the last night in Coober Pedy.
Keith's pulling that thing out, it breaks on him. "Mother fucker!"
As Imam, you know?
Stay close.
We can get ready to say goodbye to Lewis.
Wait.
Lewis, I must say, is a very facile guy.
He'll give it to you any which way.
He's got a lot of ideas, quickly adaptable.
And if that absolutely doesn't work for you, he's got this, he's got this.
- A man who can juggle a lot of props. - That was amazing.
- Interesting part, too. - Where you almost shot Fry there?
You had her in your sights.
You brought up that on the day, I thought that was really interesting.
That shot, where I'm scratching my face with the shiv.
Initially, my character was humming Three Blind Mice.
Are you all right?
This can't be happening.
I'm looking at everybody and kind of mocking their lack of sight.
Now remember when
Lewis came up with this idea, we were all like,
"A little hokey, it makes no sense at all."
But when you throw special effects in there,
those special effects are brilliant and make the scene a showstopper.
- That's a nice trailer moment. - Beautiful trailer moment.
- It sold a few tickets. - And one must always...
This was a great improvisation between me and Vin on the day.
"Glad to see you're okay."
- Gave some lightness to it. - Very funny, yeah.
Do I even wanna know?
Not really.
So subtle, I wonder if people even...
I get it.
- Beautiful. - Nice, this is all we need here.
He figures out they're tracking her.
Are we getting close?
Can we pick up the pace?
Jack's like, "Are we getting close?"
The subtext was, "Well, can you answer me? We're about to die."
Why have we circled? Are we lost?
Listen.
- Do you even know where we are? - Listen!
Canyon ahead. I circled once to buy some time to think.
I think we should go now.
I don't know about that.
That's death row up there.
The death row was always a concern of mine.
Not her.
I wondered how it would play and I think it worked.
I hope it worked. Please tell me it worked.
I don't know what the problem is.
The "her". That reveal,
that's brilliant.
Where she's just in the background initially and we sort of rack to her very quickly.
This whole scene works so nicely 'cause it looks like it's all unraveling.
The crew is breaking down.
You could've left me at the ship, Fry.
That's a great look.
Keith has those great close-ups, I must say.
The eyes. It's all in the eyes for him.
Not wild about my delivery, my dialogue there
but what can you do.
Love this.
This is where we get into, "What did you say? Excuse me."
Love this. Temperatures flared on this day.
Nice breeze, wide-open space.
I'm starting to enjoy my fucking self.
What, are you high again? Just listen to yourself, Johns.
Johns gets mean here.
But it makes sense. He makes sense, too.
It's all logic.
...stuff a cork in this fucking kid, and let's go.
She is the captain. We should listen to her.
Listen to her?
I asked David if I could blow his brains out right that minute.
Temperatures flared on this day.
This is a day to remember because it was so intense.
So many of these scenes were so intense that...
Fine. Fine!
I had to walk away after that, because I started laughing.
How much do you weigh now?
The verdict's in. The light moves forward.
That's one of those magic flares. It sort of comes from nowhere.
When did you add that shot?
- Of her on the ground? It was always there. - Really?
This scene, guys, one of my favorites.
This is fun.
He's just so calculating, so cold.
I love this shot coming up...
We did it 20 times, from every different possible human...
That's a cool shot though, right there.
It's a good idea. You stop and hear something.
There's jeopardy inside the group, there's jeopardy outside the group.
What are they doing up there?
Talking about the canyon, I suppose.
How to get us through.
Battlefield doctors decide who lives and dies, it's called triage.
He's so laid-back at the same time.
You didn't push too hard.
Sacrifice play.
In this we can barely hear what they're saying.
We drag the body 40, 50 feet behind us.
Nice embellishment.
I don't wanna feed 'em. I just wanna keep 'em off our scent.
All looped, I might add, because of that goddamn flare.
It's one of the best jobs of looping I've seen.
That whole scene was completely looped.
Just a little more space between us and them.
Beautiful.
You do the girl, and I'll keep the others off your back.
This is when it's on. This is the shot.
This is it.
- The audience is wondering... - What's going to happen.
And the audience knows.
That's when I basically go, "All right.
"Who is it going to be?"
Nice job.
That took us a long time to choreograph with the help of the stunt coordinator.
Dig this shot.
Can you believe we got away with that?
I cannot. We worked on that so long. Half a day.
So tricky.
But people just went, "Yeah!"
The idea for this choreography was to
have us not fight in the conventional sense,
but more like two cobras dancing.
Where the two cobras would dance around one another
and then furiously strike for seconds and then come back out.
Stay in the light.
The speed of Riddick
is 10 times faster than a human.
And it's almost...
Remember that moment.
You should've never taken the chains off, Johns.
You were one brave fuck before.
I guess the audience gets the red-shell business.
I've had enough people comment on it to believe that it's selling.
You've always loved that, haven't you?
I told you to ghost me.
This scene works bigtime.
'Cause you really feel like this guy's isolated and done in.
And vulnerable.
And that's a great special-effects shot.
That's your stunt double.
Thank you, that was your stunt double. Good night, Mr. Johns.
Well done, Peter Chiang.
The "chud" shot.
That's the stunt double.
- There's no stunt double there. - Yeah, the back of the head.
Till you can't see what's eating you.
- That the big plan? - Where's Johns?
Which half?
I didn't know if people would get that.
We should've stayed at the ship.
He died fast. If we have any choice, that's the way we should all go out.
Don't you cry for Johns.
Don't you dare.
At the time, I wasn't 100% convinced
that people would understand that.
Then later, after the test screenings...
About that end, "Don't cry for Johns, don't you dare"?
I think they got it.
The way I am in the scene before and when we talk,
people laugh because it's kind of painful.
I remember hearing people giggle in the theater.
Shall we pray together?
Did you say "pray" or "play"?
I have already prayed with the others.
It is painless.
It's pointless.
Because you do not believe in God
doesn't mean God does not believe in you.
I hate to say it, but I was acting against
Imam's stunt double, Imam's stand-in. Remember that?
This scene ran over. We were on his coverage.
Then we had to finish my coverage in the morning.
And I ended up having to do it with the stand-in.
Who was throwing you lines?
You were throwing me lines from behind the camera.
- There you go. - Very awkward and interesting.
A lot of people don't know these things are filmed
under the least ideal conditions possible.
You want to finish a scene like that at the end of a day.
You want to go home and put it to bed, and when it doesn't go to bed,
it's awful to bring it back, try to resurrect
and get back the same energy
you had the day before. It's very hard to do.
This is a good scene. It's the first time you get some insight into Riddick,
which is important for the story.
Just keep the girl between you.
What about the cells?
I'll take those.
Still got this intrigue going here.
The game we're playing. Now that Johns is gone, it's like...
"Is Riddick the guy?" You got to play this. "Is he the guy we can trust?
"Can he lead us now?
"Or can we not trust him to do it?"
Love this sequence.
Wasn't too wild about my first move.
Look at this stuff. You shoot it like a racehorse sequence, in a way.
- Just over-crank it, and... - This is great.
...wet the actors down, wet the muscles down, and go for it, man.
Yeah, we really went for it.
While you guys were doing this scene, I was sitting in the Great Barrier Reef
in northern Australia getting some sun.
I think we all wanted to be there.
Vin, you sold this. Dragging a lot of weight back there, too.
You made it look like it was a real burden.
Move! Keep moving!
Keep moving!
The music reflects you and what you're doing here.
Every time the group starts to lag
the music goes away with that percussion track and then it comes back in.
It sounds like a locomotive. Got to keep going.
Les did an exceptional job there.
Riddick! Wait!
One of my favorite lines in the film.
- What is? - Her saying "Riddick".
It's not unlike Shane.
You're right. It's got that innocent quaver in it.
"Shane." This is a lovely shot, I told Mr. Chiang.
That's great.
Just shows the mass of the creature, the size of the creature and everything.
- The debate. - And listen what the music does.
As soon as you get going, the cranked-up percussion comes back in.
Or it was doing that before
when she was calling, the Shane business.
Get off her!
I'm going to handle this.
It's okay.
- Stand back. - Stand back, I got it.
Just about the time it's gonna chud you. It's gonna head-split you.
I can't tell you
how I felt hearing the audience respond to that.
First couple previews got a big reaction.
And I got to tell you, I wasn't gung ho about that line, David.
"He did not know who he was fucking with." I wasn't 100% sold on that.
You were like, "Just give it a shot."
We tried some other things, you said, "Give it a shot again." You were right.
Huge moment for the audience when Riddick kills the beast barehanded.
- Come on. - Stand up.
Get up. Come on.
Oh, no.
The ambiguity stays alive with this.
So, where the hell's your God now?
He's still trying, though.
This was a long week
of wet... cold.
Weren't they supposed to warm the water for you?
They were gonna, and they never worked, and everyone was in raincoats
and standing by heaters.
That was created on the day, that concept.
Hide here! Now!
That stone literally weighed nothing.
The trick was to make it heavy.
Love all this, the ambiguity, the uncertainty of it.
- He was struggling with himself. - "What will I do?
"I'm doing my best. I can't get them to the skiff."
This has got to be fun for you. The rain, the mud, dragging these things.
- Knowing the camera's eating it up. - I loved the shot. I loved, loved the shot.
It was probably one of my favorite sequences.
Here's one of my favorite shots because it's lit like a Renaissance painting.
Yeah, it's nice.
He's not coming back, is he?
I like Radha silent. Love that. Love the silhouette.
- Just the black. - I love that shot, too.
His POV. But that's, like, probably my favorite shot in the film.
Thank God it was on me.
- It's special, isn't it? - I don't know what I'd do.
If I may say, I might as well follow through with it.
I think you've said about 14 different times that's your favorite shot.
That one? I'm talking about your shots more than mine.
We got a lot of favorite shots.
Cole, don't do that. Don't start counting up shots.
That's bullshit, Cole.
I like how we played this very much.
In that it's... We've done the scare thing.
We've done that to death, so I just asked the actors to be quiet
and listen to the sounds. The creepiness will come through, trust me.
Love this sequence.
- Love the blue, sepia tone. - It's kind of magical, isn't it?
Especially with Graeme Revell's music, what he laid in there.
- It makes it delicate and mysterious. - It looks like a sea of moving stars.
And people said, you know, you always hear this.
When scripting or shooting something, there's always somebody
who doesn't like the idea, doesn't like the notion.
"Why are there glow-worms all of a sudden?"
"Why did they survive?" They survived because they have lights.
But there are people who think you're walking a fine line here and say,
"That's kind of a goofy thing. They find these worms..."
Worms could be very goofy.
But the way you set it up
- and what's behind it, it works. - Yeah.
- But like everything, it's all in the execution. - It had to work.
This is tricky.
The whole light thing. I think people get it, though.
- We had an insert later shot, right? - Yep, and that's why it looks like an insert.
- Followed by my least favorite shot. - That insert, yeah.
Well, what happened is that second unit was supposed...
A second-unit gang in London shot it about five months after the fact.
This is great, her climbing over the rocks.
It's all about execution or lack of.
That's the last I could find.
It grieves me that we didn't do that shot better using first unit.
- That's great, that shot. - Keith's face, yeah.
I love that night sequence. I love the colors.
Now, people often said, "You were going to leave them?
"Why would your character leave them?"
And I think my character calculated
that there was no possible way to save everybody.
It was a pure, practical, logical decision.
And it's her strength, her survival instinct that enlightens him.
That the impossible is possible.
And one of the key lines here is,
"Some small part of you wanted to rejoin the human race."
And she's actually right, even though he denies it at the time.
Come on, Riddick.
There's gotta be some part of you that wants to rejoin the human race.
Truthfully, I wouldn't know how.
Then just give me more light for them. I'll go back by myself.
Okay.
This moment would've been a lot better had the insert worked here.
Right, but it still worked even before the insert was put in.
Please just come with me.
- They didn't care whether it worked or not. - Yeah. "Just go on your own."
He has not healed. He has not conformed to humanity yet.
You know I am?
You don't know anything about me.
This whole talking over this thing is probably really retarded.
At the end of the day, it must belittle the film.
I wish everyone knew that we were just sitting in a room
it's two hours of our day. We wanna do it.
And we can't smoke cigarettes either 'cause of David Twohy.
And this isn't pre-scripted. You follow me?
People should know that we're just three guys sitting in the ADR room.
Love this scene.
I love what she does here because what was tricky...
I think she really brought it home there.
What was tricky was, we had to have her be aggressive.
It was difficult to make it believable
that she could push him off the skiff.
So we created a distraction for him.
So everyone in the theater is like, "Come on."
I love what you do to her here.
- You turned the tables. - She looks like she weighs a buck.
Yeah.
- Watch this. Crunch, crunch. - How are you? Good evening.
You have now knocked yourself.
And the thing is he could've done it at any time. He let her go on a bit.
I didn't like the "Get that thing off my neck."
Yes, I would, Riddick.
- It was okay. - It was kind of like the whole thing was...
But why are we... What is this critiquing the movie thing about?
- All I can tell you, man... - What do you think about it, Cole?
You can't win if you critique the movie. I like the movie.
I enjoy the movie.
This whole thing about critiquing the movie is bizarre.
It's probably one of the most asinine things ever created.
It's the future.
Here's a question, "Where did Fry go? And what is she doing down there?"
Don't ask. Hey, come on, dude. Seriously.
- Just go with it. - It gets very light right there.
And Keith actually comes up with a very nice retort
to the question, "Where the hell's your God now?"
He says, "There's my God. He came back in the form of you."
- Did he say that? - That's Keith's ad-lib.
That's beautiful. I didn't know Keith ad-libbed that. That was great.
I love this special-effects shot. I love this whole sequence.
Them, like, drinking.
You guys wish you had Johns now, huh?
Johns, go clear a path, check it out.
It actually works because... The reason why this works
is because such a lifelike,
realistic, animal response was given to those creatures.
You know, from when they pop up.
- Favorite shot. Big boy! - My favorite shot.
- My favorite shot in the film. - This one?
Not thought of as a visual-effects shot at first.
- It was just you scrambling up the hill. - My favorite shot.
When they laid that special effects on, I just went, "What?"
I jumped out of my seat. I said, "I can't believe I'm in one of these films
"that I grew up watching and loving."
And now I'm being chased by a 2-ton creature.
- Look at what we have here. - Another big boy.
Round two.
- Oh, good. - This is actually very smooth. Look at that.
You should explain to the audience what exactly you were looking at
- when you were doing that. - A blind spot.
No, I'm saying when you were actually doing this scene...
Right. We actually used a doll,
a puppet for part of it
and improvved the other part and they kind of put it all together.
And Peter Chiang actually animated the creature to your movements.
And the knife comes up.
There needed to be more sounds here, though. You wanted more.
You almost wish you had another day to go back or something.
But we ended up putting in the sounds.
Are there sounds?
- Your off-stage scream, remember this? - Right.
Did you ever consider just staying
on the creatures and Vin?
Not coming back here?
Not enough money.
- That's the God's honest truth. - Yeah, Vin cost too much.
No, the creatures.
I like how we shot this. The hand-held, urgency
in your face, quick, dirty,
jumpy...
I like that.
I like seeing Riddick on his last legs.
It's like giving up the ghost.
This was a very taxing... This was so emotional,
this shooting day.
You were a little bit worried about it, too.
About giving her so much power in this scene,
as to being able to rescue you.
But, look, our heart is with you
and we love her for it, too, for making the attempt.
I said I'd die for them, not you. Let's move. Come on.
I actually like that she was rescuing me.
You were trying to kiss her or what?
Getting a little?
Love how you slow-mo'd it.
See this little camera bump here?
That little camera bump?
- Yeah. - Wish I didn't have it.
It's because we only had... The story is, we had only one take there.
What camera bump?
The camera, following you down, it goes up and down and bounces.
- I didn't even notice. - Because I never thought it'd be in the film.
I was shooting it because you wanted it shot.
I'm thinking, "I'll give this fucker one take, it will never be in the film.
- "We do not need it." - That's true.
I was just going to have her go away. And that was it. Cut.
And Vin says, "No, I got more to give you.
"I'll go down on the ground. I'll do all this stuff."
And I gave it to him, but I said, "It'll never be in the film."
And you know what? I saw it and you sold it so well.
I said, "This has got to be in. Camera bump and all."
But had I known it...
We'd have shot another take.
...I would've corrected that.
Love this.
The original ending didn't have this extra sequence.
What are you doing?
- This false calm, here. - Yeah.
The original ending didn't have this.
- Love the eye shine there, don't you? - Yeah.
Got a little extra punch.
I love this, 'cause before, the original ending was just them flying off.
- I think so. - It needed that extra scare.
It needed that extra threat.
And him doing something.
Some retaliation against these creatures.
Originally, the concept was
to allow him to donut the skiff like you would a motorcycle
and torch it, a 360 degrees radius.
- But we didn't have the money for that. - Not new.
- This is a great shot. The burn-away shot. - Love how they added it.
The special effects as he goes away.
You get the idea that he's plowing through a shitload of them.
He's hurting them. Love that.
I love this film.
The idea is that the skiff has fabric wings that are designed to burn off...
- I love this film. - ...in atmosphere.
That's what that is, even though people don't understand it.
I think she does a great job here.
A lot of questions, whoever we run into.
Could even be a merc ship.
Just perfect.
Good.
Rhiana, you really tore it up there.
He died somewhere on that planet.
Perfect understatement. Perfect reaction shot by Keith David.
- Just the camera. - Perfect insert with Keith David. Perfect.
Love this.
Love that. Hovering above the meteors, just beautiful. What are those?
- Particulate matter that make up the rings... - Okay.
David Twohy, ladies and gentlemen.
Ken and Jim Wheat and David Twohy, ladies and gentlemen.
Story by Ken and Jim Wheat, ladies and gentlemen.
Produced by Tom Engelman? Who is that?
Ted Field, who was actually responsible for getting me in the film.
- Patron saints. - Vin Diesel, put your hands together.
Radha, who couldn't join us today, but she is very sad.
Radha "Don't ever shoot me from that fucking low angle again" Mitchell.
Cole Hauser, Lewis Fitz-Gerald. Well, you could do the rest.
Claudia Black.
This is Claudia Black.
And Keith David as Al-Imam.
Mary Vernieu, Anne McCarthy.
- Who's that? - Nice ladies.
David Eggby.
Grace Walker.
Boy, the crew on this was
so amazing and instrumental in making this happen.