Sure beats listening to (just about any) star:
Creator Vince Gilligan Talks BREAKING BAD, How His Vision for the Show Has Changed over Time, the Possibility of a Movie and More
by Tommy Cook
“Because I said so.” Have four words ever been so chillingly, yet rousingly, delivered? Walter White’s Season Five conversation ender put the definitive mark on his transformation from mild-mannered science teacher to ruthless drug kingpin. The brilliance of Breaking Bad is that this transformation can be viewed either as a triumph of Nietzschean ‘Superman’ ethics or as the moral turpitude of hubris run amuck. Sure Walter White is a badass – but he’s also a very bad, bad man. Breaking Bad is one of the only shows in recent memory that can ‘have its cake and eat it too’ – at once both celebrating and decrying Walter’s actions. How does it get away with this? Because it’s just so freaking good… ‘Because it says so’.
…[T]oday…,creator Vince Gilligan discusses how his vision of the show changed (or didn’t) since day one, takes exception to the notion of Walter White as a sociopath, puts down any Breaking Bad movie rumors, and more. For the full interview, hit the jump.
Season five is going to be split in half. Where are you in filming currently?
VINCE GILLIGAN: We finished shooting the first eight about three weeks ago and I finished doing my pass on the editing of episode six. I still haven’t watched the final two episodes of the first eight; but I’m real happy with the first six. I have every confidence that the final two will be just as great because they were directed and written by some very smart folks. So that’s where we are. We’re almost through the first eight.
Are we going to see you explore the relationship between Walt’s two sons: Jesse and Walt Jr.?
GILLIGAN: I do see Walt Jr. and Jesse as different sides of the same son. The coy[est] answer I can give is that we will continue to deepen the viewer’s understanding of all these characters as much as we can. There are a lot of revelations yet to be played out throughout the final sixteen.
Has your vision for how the show will end changed from day one to now?
GILLIGAN: Immensely. There’s my vision of the show and then there’s of how it would be received. I can’t believe I’m here at Comic Con talking about the show. I didn’t believe for the longest time it would see the light of day. I didn’t think we would even shoot a pilot. And then once we did shoot a pilot, I had trouble believing it would go on air as a series. And then when it did go on air for a year/year and a half, I thought the most story we could possibly milk out of this thing would be three years. And now look here we are at the beginning of season five. My vision for how things would shake out and how much people would enjoy it continues to astound. But as far as the story goes, we have abided pretty closely to the original pitch we gave to Sony – which was we’re going to take Mr. Chips and turn him into Scarface. We have abided by that. All the twists and turns of character we have produced over the seasons – I certainly have not seen all of them coming. My writers and I have come up with them week-by-week and day-by-day. But the ultimate point of the show: taking a good man and, by will, transforming himself into a bad man. That was always with me from the beginning.
Now if only they would put Gilligan’s pic on the posters, like they do Aaron Sorkin’s.