Nick "Rocket" Rodriguez

I don't know Hollywood history, but I feel CGI probably put a dent in real set work and real models, etc… but I think we generally think films and tv shows got better because of it / had more story possibilities? I was curious if the more worker oriented (as opposed to the more business oriented) individuals may have any seeds of optimism for AI?

Some of us love your show and work in tech / near tech so it's rather sad hearing how negative the opinions on AI can be. :(

No one I know or call a friend or consider a mentor thinks genAI has any place in the arts. If not for plagiarism or the effects it poses on the environment and human lives, than simply for the fact that genAI is soulless, and it's proliferation in the arts would lead to less work for artists and more bland candy "content" for people to form brain rot with. There is simply no truly ethical way to use this technology within the arts.

Perhaps it has some use on the production side -- in terms of planning, building schedules, etc. -- but with how often it produces incorrect outputs and how it can't take the human element into account, the amount of work it would take to fix anything the AI comes up with would negate the amount of money it saves the production in the long run.

I'm not an expert in how CGI affected everything while it became more and more popular, but with the amount of vitriol I see surrounding the VFX of any given blockbuster, I don't agree with the assessment that anything got better. I think there might be an argument for that, but things didn't get better, they got different. And CGI allows for some really great VFX, don't get me wrong -- but there's a certain charm to more tactile SFX that can never be replaced by CGI. I'm of the mind that more projects should utilize BOTH -- animatronics and other IRL FX help make things feel more grounded when it's smaller scale shot or something, while CGI helps enhance spectacle or deliver more complicated shots that animatronics just could not deliver on. I think there's a balance there that can be achieved that most studios are afraid to try. Not to mention, CGI still requires modelers, painters, lighters, and dozens of other artists. Maybe it replaced a ton of jobs, but it provided tons of new ones.

So again, no, I don't think anyone who considers themselves a real artist likes the idea of using genAI in their work. They certainly don't like this sense of false inevitability surrounding the tech.

You also need to understand that art is not a product. It doesn't need to "be better" or improved or whatever. Art should be allowed to be messy and weird and human. If we give even an inch on the idea that "art" can be made by soulless technology that cannot feel or experience or evolve, than we've lost the idea of art forever.

I cannot get over the plagiarism aspects, the environmental aspects, the false inevitability marketing tactic, or the endgame results of allowing this type of technology to proliferate. And I don't think many artists can.

I'm sure you mean well, and this is not an attack on you or anyone else who works in tech... but please, keep it the fuck out of my art.

This is a bit of an impossible question to answer because it varies so much on the project, the episode, the writer, etc.

Similarly, I'm not sure if you also worked on jwcc, but do you know if Kenji and Brooklynn were always planned to be a couple? Because I feel like no one really saw it coming. Lol I remember the reason I even got into cc was because I'd only seen little bits in pieces of the first 3 seasons, but was pretty damn sure darius x brook would eventually be a thing, and then my friend called me screaming that they made brooklynn and kenji a couple and I just had to see it for myself because I couldn't believe it, and that's how I got into cc (and thank god I did)

The decision to have Brooklynn and Kenji stay broken up grew naturally from the characters and what they went through throughout the show. During our conversations in the writers room, we determined that it didn’t feel right for them to get back together at the end. They clearly didn’t actually work as a couple — Kenji needed to find more stability in his life, especially after what he’d been through with Daniel, and Brooklynn needed her freedom; she needed the space to realize what she’d done was not great. They couldn’t do that together. They weren’t a match, and that’s okay. Not everyone stays with their camp sweetheart, ya know?

I don’t remember who brought it to the table first. That doesn’t really matter. We all discussed it at length and came to the same conclusion with little debate. I’m glad for it.

I did not work on Camp C, so I can’t speak to that initial decision to make them a couple.

So, if we're being honest and looking at the bigger picture, the fact of these longer waits between season has been going on since before the strikes, especially. In fact, I believe that that's one factor that helped lead up to the strikes in the first place.

To answer your question, I don't think there's a writer, artist, actor, crewmember, etc. who's NOT concerned about these large gaps between seasons. This leads to major disruption both within shows and within the industry at large. When shows go on these long hiatuses, everyone involved needs to fill that time between projects with other work. But, if all of these projects are on hiatus, what work is there to be had? And if people happen to actually find work, the schedules often overlap, and people are maybe stuck in contracts on new shows that prevent them from returning to their old shows, so that leads to a lack of continuity between seasons -- if a show suddenly feels different or looks different, especially today, that's likely what happened.

On an industry-wide scale, when all of this work is so hard to get, when there are so few opportunities, then the people who make the shows tend to feel like they don't have any ability to bargain, and are forced to take lower rates than they otherwise would just to put money in their pockets.

Also, when it comes to audiences, you guys then never know when something is going to come back, or if it's going to come back. And channels/streamers already don't announce when something is canceled themselves, they've historically relied on the trades to do it for them, so already there was a lack of communication. But now there's a lack of PATTERN -- there used to be seasons of series that followed a pattern of release: Usually series on networks started around September/October, took a couple of months off in December-February, came back March-May, hiatus again through the summer. That doesn't exist for these streamer shows. They come and go whenever the fuck, and a lot are binge-dropped, so it's not like they're kept fresh in audiences brains past maybe a month or so. The audience is then totally left in the dark -- OR, it drives the layman to go to the trades even more, and now laymans folks think they're experts in an industry that really has no rhyme or reason, and now people suddenly care about runtimes of movies as opposed to the actually quality of the films themselves and--

Whatever. It's all fucked, and it was fucked up by these tech companies that promised disruption, but never promised how they would develop a new consistency to keep both filmmakers and audiences appeased. They just wanted to come in and make the most money while fronting the smallest costs.

Oooh, that’s very kind of you to ask.

So, in an official capacity, I’m between projects at the moment. Writing for the next series I was staffed on, Messi and the Giants, wrapped already. Be on the lookout for news about that series, coming soon to Disney Channel and Disney+! I hope folks enjoy that one. :)

I’m also writing for an independent video game. I’m not sure what’s announced on that, so I’ll stay mum until I see a bigger announcement.

In terms of personal projects, well, the life of a writer is busy busy busy. I’ve recently completed a couple of pilots that my reps have been sending around and have been getting great feedback. In addition to those…

* A YA novel

* A new near-future sci-fi pilot

* A horror feature

And those are all keeping me pretty busy right now, in addition to pitching on some original work and existing IP at various studios.

As soon as I sell something or land another staffing gig, I’m sure I’ll be shouting it from the proverbial rooftops lol.

It fits the story perfectly, of course, but isn't it somewhat illogical that Ben, who was already 14 in JWCC—and a few years older by the end when he was on the island for summer vacation—could become so huge?

Of course, boys grow until they're about 19, but Ben was extremely small and lanky.

The muscles even make sense, but only if Ben really trained a lot—after all, he still had very thin arms and legs after all the physical exertion on Nublar.

But the height seems unrealistic to me. He's definitely over 190 cm tall now (from JWCT onward).

How did you make this decision?

So, the decision to make Ben bigger in Chaos Theory was made well before any of the writing staff was hired. Scott would have made that decision in the development process, so I can’t really speak to how it came to be. I know it was discussed in the room at some point, but it was so long ago. As far as I recall, it was just a fun idea! It played on expectations, it helped really signify the passage of time, it played into Ben’s overall character arc, and it even set up jokes.

I would say that you’re completely overthinking the reality of whether or not Ben would grow up like this. That’s not really the point. The point is that he always felt like a burden, whether he was small and lanky, or whether he was big and buff. For so many like him, the feeling of not being enough is hard to shake even when you’re stereotypically seen as sort of the pinnacle of “manliness.” The story of that was what was important to us, logic be damned.

Didn’t Christopher Nolan face similar pushback in regards to his adaptation of The Odyssey coming out soon? That story is full of fantasy, and yet fans were coming for him for things not looking “historically accurate” — yet they looked dope as hell and were clearly inspired by history. The awesome factor outweighed the accuracy.