Q&A with Writer-Director John Milius

Whether you stand left, right or center politically, John Milius is considered one of the most unique and controversial voices in Hollywood. If you don't know the name off-hand, you'll certainly know some of his work. Milius co-wrote "Apocalypse Now," the epic Vietnam War film, with director Francis Ford Coppola. He also directed "Conan the Barbarian" and co-wrote the screenplay with Oliver Stone, and co-wrote and directed the 1980s classic "Red Dawn."

But Milius has earned a cult status over the years for his un-credited script work on several blockbuster films. For example, he wrote the famous "Indianapolis" dialogue scene in "Jaws." He added the classic monologue scene in "Dirty Harry" and coined the phrase, "Do I feel lucky?" (he was rumored to have written the famous line "Go ahead, make my day" in another Dirty Harry film, "Magnum Force," but this is urban legend).

If you're a fan of 1970s cinema, you'll also know Milius as the writer and/or director of the Robert Redford Western "Jeremiah Johnson," the gangster biopic "Dillinger, the political drama "The Wind and the Lion" and the surfing film "Big Wednesday," which now enjoys a devoted cult following. Milius was also co-creator of the acclaimed HBO series "Rome."

Anyone who knows Milius' work is also aware of the fact that he's a controversial figure, thanks to his passion for gun and right-wing politics. He's a larger than life character who's become a Hollywood icon over the years for his unflinching portrayals of violence and powerful personality (for those that don't know, John Goodman's memorable character in the Cohen Brothers' film "The Big Lebowski" was modeled after Milius).

One of Milius' more recent projects, believe it or not, was not a feature film or a TV series. It was a video game. Several years ago, Milius was contracted by Electronic Arts to write the story for its World War II title Medal of Honor: European Assault. A history buff, Milius penned a complex script to shed light on some of the lesser-known aspects of WWII. The game follows the playable character Lt. Holt, who travels from France (the great St. Nazaire raid) to Russia (the Battle of Stalingrad) and Belgium (the Battle of the Bulge). Unfortunately, the game's story was trimmed down and the title earned good but not great reviews.

Tom's Games spoke with Milius recently about his work on MoH: European Assault and picked his brain on a variety of topics, including interactive storytelling, video game violence, the current state of Hollywood and the evolution of entertainment technology. With no shortage of opinions, the iconic writer-filmmaker gave us plenty of food for thought.

TOM'S GAMES: Thanks for taking time to speak with us.

JOHN MILIUS: Well, I was fascinated; you guys are a very high-tech site, and I thought, "boy, what would they want to talk to me about?" I'm computer illiterate and everything. I actually can get on the Internet, but that's about it.

TG: We were actually intrigued to find out you wrote a video game, Medal of Honor: European Assault.

MILIUS: I made a lot of contributions, but they didn't really use much of them.

TG: What compelled you to write for a game?

MILIUS: Well, I thought the gaming idea was real interesting, and I thought a World War II game would be really interesting to do. But they actually contacted me about doing another one of these war type things. And I thought the idea at the time was pretty good, that you could do stories. You could have these games where not only would you follow a story but you would actually learn a lot about history doing it. I thought that was kind of neat.

I remember there were board games about war that people used to play; you could fight Gettysburg or Waterloo or something like that. Those were interesting, and I thought these could be interesting, too. They showed me some of the ideas they wanted to do, and they were very ambitious in the beginning. They really wanted to have a real story and everything. But basically, it kind of devolved into a shooting gallery, which is what most of them are.

Milius wrote the storyline for EA's Medal of Honor: European Assault.

TG: Like a first-person shooter game?

MILIUS: Well this kind of tells you the whole state that they are in when you say first-person shooter. And that's unfortunate because I don't really think they got much beyond that.

TG: So you feel there's potential with games that have depth and can teach people about history?

MILIUS: Yeah, there's enormous potential. And I do like the idea of something to give us a new form of narrative storytelling, a different form of entertainment in a way. I don't know whether it'll be games. Remember a couple of years ago everybody thought about interactive movies. Of course nobody wanted them to do that because people wanted to be told a story. But with games, you could be told a story and you could kind of go along for the ride.

TG: Did you think you'd offer more perspective to writing a game because you're a historian?

MILIUS: Yeah. I wanted to follow something very interesting, that was very realistic, and follow that kind of narrative form. The thread of the story that we originally started with was very interesting, very realistic and it kind of devolved with these things. Movies do, too; they don't have any monopoly on diluting something.

TG: Do you think there will be a merger of movies and games in the future?

MILIUS: No. I think what's interesting is games are their own thing. And they may eventually become more sophisticated. Hollywood is something else. Hollywood is coming unraveled; it's a sinking ship. First of all, I think the real system of Hollywood where they actually made the movies and stuff like that died a long time ago. I think that you see it in the product. The stuff is not very good. Everybody can sit there and talk about how it still makes money, and that's debatable as to how much it really does make. And the studio system should die. And it will die because there's too many interesting other things that are coming about now. And Francis Coppola always said once these things, these cameras will get cheaper...I mean he predicted all of this a long time ago.

TG: He said the most important movie in the future will be made by some kid in his bedroom.

MILIUS: Yeah, and he's absolutely right. In that way, the technology has allowed a sort of breakdown of the formal kind of oppressive system that will probably produce some very interesting results. We don't know what they'll be; we don't know whether it'll be a half hour movie or something else. A lot of very interesting things are happening now. One of the most important movie narrative entertainments in a long time was "The Sopranos." What was Sopranos? It was six seasons long. And the whole experience of "The Sopranos" was you could compare it to "The Godfather," compare it to a movie, so you're comparing it to a movie that was maybe four hours long and the whole thing was six hours long or something. "The Sopranos" was six years long. And then there are other things. I'm sure there are things on the Internet or things on YouTube that are 10 minutes long that have that effect. All this stuff is up for grabs. The idea of a two-hour narrative film made in Hollywood with movie stars is vastly obsolete.

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