Ridley Scott Prometheus: NOT the Alien Prequel Details

Some of those same adjectives could be used to describe the original Star Wars trilogy as well, but most overlook problems with movies we fell in love with as kids.

American Gangster, Matchstick Men, and Black Hawk Down were all good in my opinion.

Two of his older movies, "Someone to Watch Over Me", and "Black Rain", do not get the attention I feel they deserve.

To me, Ridley Scott is the best chance for a spectacular sci fi movie. From the looks of it, he is doing great. I dont care how it fits in with Alien. The idea that there may be a connection adds to the interest, but I dont think it should be something that holds Ridley back in any way. I hope he does exactly the same with Blade Runner.
 
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"Someone to Watch Over Me" was great. I don't recall "Black Rain." Was that the Michael Douglas flick?

Anyway, my one HUGE concern is that he'll do that "stuttering" camera thing he did in "Gladiator" and "Kingdom of Heaven." I don't know what he's doing: messing with the shutter timing or something? But it's gimmicky and stupid and I hope he can go back to his slow and careful roots and not make a spastic corn fest (again, see "Kingdom of Heaven").
 
rodneyfaile said:
Sometimes I think one reason the Star Wars prequels were received so poorly because people had decades to imagine the clone wars and envision their own stories When the movies hit, they just didnt compare to everyones imagination. (That, and Jar-Jar talking, lol.)
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Oh man, that reminds me. On my first week of working at Lucas I was in a meeting about the Clone Wars, raised my hand and basically said that sentence verbatim. The silence was deafening. Still laugh about that one.
 
io9.com's MORNING SPOILERS posted an interview with Damon Lindelof post trailer debut. Let's enjoy. :wacko

"One part of me sort of wants to be working on something where I can say, ‘This is exactly what this is' without being secretive or mysterious but I think that with the genesis of this a couple of years ago - when Ridley announced that he wanted to make an ‘Alien' prequel - that's where this began and where it's evolved to is this conversation: Is it or isn't it [an 'Alien' prequel]? And I think this little sort of dance that we're doing basically existed prior to anybody seeing anything. Now that people are seeing stuff I think the material kind of speaks for itself. If you're looking at it through the prism of ‘I want it to be that,' you'll notice the way the word ‘Prometheus' comes up [in a way that resembles the 'Alien' classic logo] or look at the production design and the way the whole thing feels. If you're looking at it from the perspective of wanting it to be something more original, I think the trailer accomplishes that by being pretty cool to people who have never even seen ‘Alien.'

"It's accomplishing what we set out to do. I wish that we didn't have to be so mysterious about it but mystery can be a good thing as long as you've got the goods to back it up. In this case, when the movie arrives, one of the most visionary filmmakers in the history of cinema will be putting his cards on the table and I'm just kind of standing behind him with my arms folded."

In a nutshell, "Is it or isn't it? I'll tell you. It's Ridley Scott." I can just hear Damon right now on the commentary track going "That's so brilliant" every single minute.

I think a lot of film makers these days involved with sequels/requels/reboots/remakes take the whole "Stand on it's own" concept for granted. As a general rule, shouldn’t all films stand on their own in some way shape or form regardless of how it relates to something else? It's like the Lord of the Rings movies. I think all three films are excellent in their own way, but I don't believe that they should stand on their own so much that they shouldn't be depend on each other.

Remember that interview with James Cameron where he talked about ALIENS being a true follow up to ALIEN yet didn't want to take that for granted to those who probably haven't seen the original film? That's a good approach in making sure your film can standson it's own while at the same time being a continuation of the original. He didn't go into ALIENS shouting "IT DOESN'T NEED ALIEN! IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ALIEN! IT STANDS ON IT'S OWN!".
 
cayman shen said:
Yup, in my imagination, the prequels weren't woodenly acted, painfully scripted, incompetently directed cartoons. And they weren't boring.

Anyway, I've expressed concerns about this movie because Scott's recent films (say Gladiator onward) have been total **** in my opinion. I gotta say the trailer looks amazing and I'm very optimistic at this point, and excited to revisit the franchise with a true artist and not some AVP cash-grabbing hack at the helm (yes, I like the AVPs, but they ain't well made by any rubric!).
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Yup, that's my opinion too!

Rich
 
rodneyfaile said:
Some of those same adjectives could be used to describe the original Star Wars trilogy as well, but most overlook problems with movies we fell in love with as kids.
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This. The eyes of nostalgia can be a wonderful thing.

I had a thought similar to this yesterday after watching the new 2011 version of Conan the Barbarian. Those of us who enjoyed it were able to look beyond the Schwarzenegger film. No "raping of my childhood" going on here. But I did think about the first film, and wondered about why I love it so much and why I think it hits the nail for Hyboria if not for Conan himself.

It's because that was my introduction to that world. I never read Robert E Howard until much later. For twenty years, the Milius film was what Hyboria was, and it was something I could keep in my head even as I read the Howard books, and it worked.

The argument applies to Star Wars as well. Good or bad, those films cemented in us over the course of twenty years and became the "true form" of Star Wars, which caused people to reject the prequels.

I'm almost afraid of that happening here, with people rejecting Ridley's choices based on nostalgia around the original film. And, just like the Star Wars prequels, it won't make a lick of difference, since the few people who get all pissy about it won't make but about a hundred bucks difference to the box office take, which is probably going to be huge.
 
I think that is why the words "stand alone" have been stressed so much.

I think Ridley is an artist, and sci-fi is his greatest medium. He is going to give us something very special.
 
So what if the differences regarding the lack of "bio" stuff in the derelict vs the new look is really a matter of the Aliens transforming their habitat?

In Aliens and even in cut footage from the original Alien you see how they cover existing structres with there own bio stuff. So maybe the reason the derelict from the original alien movie has more "bone" and bio looking stuff is because the hatched alien(s) transformed the interior over years covering up and integrating the original structure with its new environment. Also the jar like eggs could have been destroyed and replaced with its own "evolved" eggs.

The Aliens have been shown in the movies to kind of take on properties from thier host. Having the engineer as a host may have altered them in to the form we are familiar with from the original series
 
I read a script treatment for this (not sure how far in the production process they were at the time) and so far the limited views we've gotten seem to match what i read, so it should be interesting to say the least.

I will also say that Hollywood executives need to be spoon fed the details on sci-fi movies, and the names/descriptions given to anything other than human characters in script treatments is hilarious. :)
 
blakeh1 said:
In Aliens and even in cut footage from the original Alien you see how they cover existing structres with there own bio stuff. So maybe the reason the derelict from the original alien movie has more "bone" and bio looking stuff is because the hatched alien(s) transformed the interior over years
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Yeah, we've already been there, but the ship in Prometheus has a metallic *exterior* too.

We also see the encrustation is very amorphous in the A L I E N cut scenes, and in the Aliens scenes it is more structured but still relatively irregular and organic. The exterior of the original Derelict is HIGHLY organised and structured. It features grilles, vents, conduits, rectilinear recesses, just a ton of biomechanoid detail that's all very clearly laid out by an alien yet sentient being. Same for the interiors: alien but regular - there's *purpose* in that design (or at least, the art department worked hard to make it look as if there had been. You know what I mean). :)

The warriors just aren't that purposeful or sentient. They're smarter than dogs or chimps, probably ("they cut the power!!") but they're not sentient as we understand it. If that is what we get in Prometheus - seems quite possible too - then I'll call that a bit disappointing. Too pat, too easy.
 
I was actually thinking of doing something like that for kicks. Would have taken me forever to actually do it, though.. hehe.
 
blakeh1 said:
In Aliens and even in cut footage from the original Alien you see how they cover existing structres with there own bio stuff. So maybe the reason the derelict from the original alien movie has more "bone" and bio looking stuff is because the hatched alien(s) transformed the interior over years covering up and integrating the original structure with its new environment. Also the jar like eggs could have been destroyed and replaced with its own "evolved" eggs.
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The problem with that is the Derelict's interior sdtructure and the Space Jockey's fossilized remains are too consistant in their designs. In ALIENS and the Director's Cut of ALIEN, the slimy infestation goo was always depicted as a shapeless mess. When it came to living hosts, the creatures would cover them from head to toe. The Space Jockey looks like it has it's arms and head completely free.
 
Ashb1502 said:
just a thought, but why dont we wait untill the film comes out and see whats what
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Because we're speculating. That's one of the many reasons why we have discussion forums. Nobody starts a forum discussing something that's yet to be released with "Before we say anything, let's wait and see it first." Speculation is not an offense.

Plus, we are waiting. What makes you think we're not?
 
The thing you have to remember about the derelict's interior structure is that it was originally designed to be a totally different location. The "bones" in the walls were meant for the pyramid/"egg silo" that never made it into the final shooting script. There's a Giger painting out there of the original "cockpit", and it's quite a bit different from what we see in the film, more in keeping with the mechanical nature of the circular platform the chair was on. Fox wouldn't spring for the rest of the set and made them re-use the "bone" background from the egg chamber.

The design of the egg chamber, along with it's shape and size, have led some to believe that it's not actually part of the ship, but rather under it. I think that's another leftover of the original design, in that the ship and the egg silo were originally two completely different locations.

So it's entirely possible that Ridley may be going back to the original intent of the designs in the first film, regardless of what actually ended up on-screen. Hence, the more "mechanical" nature of the Jockey ship and the interior structures.
 
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