Ridley Scott Thinking Quotations

I think movies are getting dumber, actually. Where it used to be 50/50, now it`s 3% good, 97% stupid.

You've got to be able to know someone really well to be able to have a row and then also walk away from it and not have it matter, especially in this business. That doesn't mean to say we have many rows but I think the nearest thing to a row would be just flatly disagreeing with something .

I think going into space would be like going deep into the ocean, like 5,000 meters down. When you go down that far, it's just awfully black. There's not much there except mud and some particles. I imagine space would be a similar thing. The only difference is you're hoping to bump into some sort of intelligent extraterritorial being.

I always say to people when I'm trying to get something going, bringing on other producers or other directors, "You can think of 95 reasons why not to make a movie. You've got to address why you want to make the movie and get it done. Just do it." I tend to live by that rule.

It goes back a long way. I wanted to make Tristan + Isolde as my second movie. My first movie was The Duellists. And I was standing in a very romantic part of France looking around me thinking, "My God, this would be perfect for Tristan," and to cut a long story short it never happened because I did Alien instead.

Scaring someone's the hardest thing to do, and that's why most of scary movies are not scary. They're sick, but not scary. There's a lot of sickness out there, of people who then sit there and watch it, which I think is absolutely dismaying.

And anyway, it's only movies. to stop me I think they'll ahve to shoot me in the head.

I think there's nothing worse than inertia. You can inert and study your navel and gradually you'll fall off the chair. I think the key is to keep flying.

I think moviemakers are dramatists.

I think if I'm going to do a science fiction, I'm going to go down a new path that I want to do.

There is an access to... people can now afford very high quality technology, where you can have a very good reproduction of a large picture on a large screen at home. People go out less. I don't know that it's going to stay that way but, I think also, we've got to start making better movies.

Some actors - you work with them once and don't even think about working with them again.

There's great wine from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Chile and, of course, California. But there's nothing like a really great French wine, they're so well balanced. The better the wine, the less you feel the effects I think.

I'm just trying to think what other sequels there were. There was the James Bond movies and not many. I think sequels have become a recent idea of franchising.

Usually, when special effects get in the way, it's because the story isn't strong enough. If you don't start with a strong screenplay, it's easy to fall back on special effects, thinking it's going to carry you. But it never works. It's just tiresome.

I think one of the successes of Gladiator is how we manage to turn on a dime the character from one thing to another where you believe he is one thing and he is something very different.