Graham Moore Quotes

What works for me in 'Indiana Jones' is the fact that I can project myself onto the character. Maybe if I was cool enough, I could do what he does. But I can't do that if the story breaks the rules of reality in too large of a degree.

Men want a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue. That is what is written in their hearts. That is what little boys play at. That is what men's movies are about. You just see it. It is undeniable.

I think we love the escapism of something like 'Cinderella,' and I think we do with 'Thor.'

Every hero must return home. Starks to Winterfell. Harry to Privet Drive. Luke Skywalker to Tattoine. Katniss to District twelve. The fun is in seeing how they return.

The classic epic fantasy is good versus evil, underdog against power.

If you think of all the enduring stories in the world, they're of journeys. Whether it's 'Don Quixote' or 'Ulysses,' there's always this sense of a quest - of a person going away to be tested, and coming back.

I loved fantasy, but I particularly loved the stories in which somebody got out of where they were and into somewhere better - as in the 'Chronicles Of Narnia,' 'The Wizard Of Oz,' 'The Phantom Tollbooth,' the 'Dungeons & Dragons' cartoon on Saturday morning in the '80s.

As a kid, I always wanted to be lots of things. I was a Walter Mitty type. I wanted to be in the French Foreign Legion, a detective, a doctor, a test pilot with a scarf, a fisherman who hauled in a tremendous marlin after a 12-hour fight.

If you look at the great Westerns, and at Greek, Roman, and Norse mythology, they all contain elements in common: a harsh landscape; demons or outlaws trying to stop or kill the protagonist; and there are mythical legends at their core, innate in all cultures.

I noticed that in 'The Revenant,' as much as it is a good story of revenge and endurance, there are times that you get to escape with a story like that.

Hungry for both fantasy and inspiration, readers crave protagonists who, after overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles, triumph at the end of the day.

Han Solo is more interesting than Superman because he's flawed. Superman's flaw is kryptonite, and that's it. He can make time go backwards, for God's sake, but with Han Solo or Indiana Jones, there's a bit of humanity there.

I was not trying to write some sort of serious meditation on war and peace. 'The Grace of Kings' is meant to be a fun book. It's meant to be an epic fantasy.

In all our pictures, we had an antagonist who becomes the good guy, and the underdog fulfills his quest.

I think making a great action movie is one of the hardest cinematic endeavors. By definition, smart characters avoid action. Smart people don't go down dark alleys, but if you're making an action movie and you want to have an action sequence, somehow you have to get that character into that dangerous situation.

I'd love to do another 'Indiana Jones.' A character that has a history and a potential, kind of a rollicking good movie ride for the audience, Steven Spielberg as a director - what's not to like?

The whole atmosphere of the book, the tone of 'The Hobbit,' is of a kid's adventure story, told in the first person by Tolkien, who is introducing young people to the notion of Middle-earth. A lot of it is very light-hearted.

There has to be a protagonist who has to overcome challenges, and there will be a race to finish.

People ask me whether I see 'Star Wars' as a comedy or a tragedy, but it's really neither - it's partly a history, like 'Henry V,' and partly a fantasy, like 'The Tempest.'

In fiction, as in real life, love might inspire acts that are at best foolish and at worst life-threatening, but in the best romances, love is the final, secret ingredient that turns mere mortals into heroes and heroines.

A bad guy always assumes he's going to win, whereas the good guy has to struggle with, what if I lose?, and the audience wants to struggle with him.

Don Quixote is one that comes to mind in comparison to mine, in that they both involve journeys undertaken by older men. That is unusual, because generally the hero of a journey story is very young.

I'm hardly digging trenches for a living. I'm getting to tap into my boyhood fantasies of being a larger-than-life character.

Good action films - not crap, but good action films - are really morality plays. They deal in modern, mythic culture.

'Star Wars' is mythology. It's like Greek mythology or Shakespeare. It's the story of good versus evil over a very long span of time. The storytelling is universal and timeless.