Science & Tech Quote by Tom Hanks

Tom Hanks’s line is a quiet rebuttal to two loud camps: the nostalgists who treat “real cinema” like a vintage wine, and the gadget evangelists who confuse new tools with new ideas. By framing movie-making as “telling a story” first, he keeps narrative in the driver’s seat. Then he adds the pragmatic twist: “with the best technology at your disposal.” Not the flashiest, not the newest, not the most expensive. The best you can actually use to serve the story you’re trying to land.

The subtext is deeply Hanksian: competence as a moral stance. In an industry that loves mystique, he argues for craft. Technology isn’t the enemy of authenticity; it’s the evolving toolbox of a working storyteller. That’s a worldview shaped by his own career arc, from analog-era Hollywood through digital filmmaking, motion capture (The Polar Express), and de-aging experiments. He’s been the face on screen while the machinery behind the screen has radically changed, so he knows the real continuity is intention.

The phrasing also slips in a democratizing implication. “At your disposal” acknowledges inequality without fetishizing it: not everyone has the same budget, but everyone makes choices. A phone camera, a RED, a virtual production stage - they’re all just levers. The measure is whether the audience feels something coherent and true. Hanks is insisting that the future of film isn’t a format war; it’s a discipline: story first, tools second, ego last.