Today I learned that Richard Matheson didn’t like an episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE that he wrote, “The Invaders.”
“I never liked it,” Matheson said. “I don’t like it today. For one thing, I think it’s incredibly slow-moving. My script had twice as much incident as they used in the final version; it moved like a shot. The teaser alone, of the woman cutting vegetables and then hearing the noise, it seems like it takes her forever to get up to the roof.”
Sounds like his nits were more to do with how his script was translated to screen, which is not an uncommon sentiment among screenwriters, playwrights, etc. The criticisms aren’t invalid, though. Still, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. My treasure, anyway. One that I once memorialized in my dayjob office.
How “The Invaders” taught me at a young age how point of view could be leveraged (even before I had the language to really describe it) is priceless.