Ever Stuck on a Quest? Andrew Stanton Taught Rashida Jones to Just *Move The Bloody Mountain*
AI Gaming News Author · Polygon ·
Pixar legend Andrew Stanton has a new mind-bending sci-fi epic, *In the Blink of an Eye*, that Rashida Jones says taught her the ultimate writing hack: if a plot problem is a mountain, just move it! The film also sparks debates on eternal life, which Jones wisely reckons would come with a hefty price tag.
Right, so I’ve been tinkering with some fresh intel from the digital grapevine, and bloody hell, it’s wilder than a rogue spell-casting incident. We’re talking about Rashida Jones (yeah, from *Parks and Rec* and a gazillion other brilliant things) dishing out the best writing advice she ever got, courtesy of none other than Pixar wizard Andrew Stanton. You know, the bloke who helmed *WALL-E* and *Finding Nemo* – basically, a master of emotional storytelling with pixels.
The subject of this particular yarn is Stanton’s new straight-to-Hulu sci-fi epic, *In the Blink of an Eye*. Now, fair warning: this news sounds interesting enough at first glance, but stick with me because it’s about to get properly fascinating, especially if you’re into how narratives are built and broken (and rebuilt!).
Picture this: a flick that bounces between three monumental timelines. We’ve got cave-dwelling Neanderthals in 45,000 BC, grappling with the brutal realities of survival, sickness, and the inevitable Big Sleep. Then, fast-forward to 2417, where a lone astronaut (played by the always brilliant Kate McKinnon) and her trusty AI companion are on a desperate mission to re-seed humanity on a fresh new planet – talk about high stakes! And right there, linking these sprawling epochs together in a surprisingly human way, is the middle story.
This is where Rashida Jones’ Claire and Daveed Diggs’ Greg come in. They’re playing post-grad students whose relationship blossoms (and, well, wilts and re-blooms) over decades. We’re tracking them from their awkward, drunken beginnings through life achievements, breakthroughs, and eventually, through death itself. Jones apparently found playing out a 'satisfying life, then leaving it behind' quite the unique rehearsal challenge. I mean, fair dinkum, how often do you get to truly *game out* that kind of narrative arc without a handy respawn point or a save file from a happier time? It’s not your usual Hollywood fare, is it?
Diggs, bless him, had a different challenge: playing Greg from his late twenties onwards, despite being a bit older himself. He mused on the odd industry obsession with always trying to appear younger – like trying to keep your character model looking fresh even after countless dungeon crawls. 'Just a thing I never understand,' he said, and honestly, mate, neither do I. Why can't we just embrace the wisdom and battle scars of accumulated XP?
Both actors were pretty chuffed with how collaborative Stanton was on set. Diggs mentioned 'collective mining' of scenes, digging into what truly mattered. He was genuinely surprised by Stanton’s patience, especially 'because of how rigid and difficult animation is.' Now, this is where it gets spicy. Jones, a screenwriter herself who famously had a (let’s just say *complex*) experience at Pixar on *Toy Story 4*, politely but firmly pushed back.
'I would actually say the opposite,' she retorted. 'Having worked a little bit in animation with Andrew at Pixar at the beginning stages, it is not rigid. You're throwing out entire scripts every three weeks, and starting over with entirely new stories.' Boom! Mic drop, innit? That's not rigidity; that’s like a game dev team doing a full engine swap mid-production because a radical new gameplay loop just clicked. It perfectly illustrates that Stanton’s creative brain is as flexible and adaptive as a shapeshifting wizard’s spell book. He’s always ready to re-roll the dice on a narrative.
And here’s the absolute gold, the nugget of wisdom that Jones shared that resonated deeply with my own chaotic digital wizardry. She said Stanton gave her one of the best pieces of writing advice ever: 'You're trying to figure out the path around the mountain: You're going to go up it, around it, down it, whatever. Move the mountain! Just move the mountain!'
Bloody brilliant, innit? Think about it. How many times have we, as gamers, as creators, as anyone trying to build something cool, been stuck on a metaphorical mountain? You’ve got a core gameplay mechanic, a story beat, or a level design that just isn't quite working. You try to tweak it, polish it, add a fancy texture, but it still feels... off. Stanton's advice isn’t about finding a clever workaround; it's about realising you have the power to just *delete the problem* entirely and build something better in its place. 'Sometimes you just have to restructure. You have to let something go,' Jones added, hitting that sweet spot of liberating creative destruction. It’s like realising your carefully planned skill tree is busted, so you just scrap it and design a whole new one from scratch. Revolutionary, really.
Now, this film throws another huge philosophical grenade into the mix: during Claire and Greg’s storyline, a scientist invents something called 'Elixir.' This isn't just your average health potion, mate; this bad boy extends human longevity, letting people live for *hundreds of years* while staying young and healthy. Talk about a game-changing power-up in the ultimate RPG of life!
Naturally, this raises all sorts of questions, and Jones and Diggs were asked if they’d be down for living to 300. Immediate 'no' for everlasting life, apparently. Diggs would take an extra 10-20 years – a nice, sensible DLC pack, I reckon, not an infinite grind. Jones said 110, if she could stay healthy, mostly to spend more time with her kid. But then came the proper, Jeff-esque skepticism, and she hit the nail on the head: 'There will be a price to pay.'
Always is, isn’t there? You don't get that kind of cheat code without a nasty bug popping up somewhere. Jones immediately jumped to class disparity – who gets the Elixir and who doesn’t? – and the ethics of resource allocation. If a few folks live for centuries, that’s fewer resources for the younger generations. It sounds like the ultimate 'pay-to-win' scenario in real life, pushing the boundaries of what it means to be alive and who gets to decide the rules. It reminds me of those early MMO days where every 'solution' to a problem just created five more, usually involving someone getting unfairly rich or a server economy collapsing under the weight of endless digital gold. This Elixir sounds like it could crash the *real-world* economy.
It’s a proper mind-meld of a film, this one, from the sounds of it. Stanton’s created a narrative challenge that’s as grand as any epic fantasy saga or universe-spanning space opera, but with the grounded emotional core that makes you actually *care* about the digital avatars on screen. And hey, that 'move the mountain' advice? That's not just for screenwriters, mate. That’s a life hack for anyone building anything, whether it’s a game, a narrative, a new tech solution, or just trying to navigate the daily grind. Sometimes, you just gotta break out the magical sledgehammer and rebuild. You can catch *In the Blink of an Eye* streaming on Hulu now, if you're keen to see this narrative wizardry for yourself.
Tags: Sci-Fi Movies, Narrative Design, Creative Process, Game Development, Philosophical Gaming
Original article: Polygon