Science & Tech Quote by Ivan Reitman

A small, almost throwaway confession that quietly re-frames Ivan Reitman’s whole career as less “accidental hitmaker” and more lifelong genre believer. “I’d always been” does the heavy lifting: it’s not a phase, not a marketing angle, not a late-in-life pivot. It’s a claim of continuity, a way of saying the work didn’t pull him into science fiction; he arrived already fluent.

The phrasing is disarmingly modest. “Enthusiast” isn’t “visionary” or “auteur.” It positions him as a fan first, which matters in a field that’s often policed by gatekeeping and credibility tests. Reitman isn’t arguing for science fiction’s cultural importance with big words; he’s normalizing it as a durable taste, like jazz or hockey. That posture fits the kind of sci-fi he helped popularize: accessible, joke-ready, human-scaled.

Context does the rest. Reitman came up in an era when science fiction was still treated as niche or childish in mainstream entertainment, even as it kept bleeding into the culture through blockbuster effects and Cold War anxieties. To admit enthusiasm is to admit allegiance to imagination, to speculative thinking, to the idea that you can sneak big questions into a crowd-pleaser. The subtext: the comedy, the practical effects, the blue-collar heroes, the paranormal bureaucracy - none of it is ironic distance. It’s affection.

Even the grammar nods to credibility. “Always” suggests origin story, and in Hollywood, origin stories are currency: they turn commercial instincts into something like destiny.