Ridley Scott Prometheus: NOT the Alien Prequel Details

re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

Well, I hope he still has the ambition to do something great. At the end of the day, directing anything is hard work. With Alien, the ambition in design and the collaborative effort with Geiger, OBannon, and Sigourney; everyone was at the top of their game. I still think he's a very good director. And he's got a wonderful sense of design. What will the new aliens look like? I can't wait to find out.
 
re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

As long as he stays away from those artsy camera moves and camera tricks he's been using in later films that is more an annoyance than anything interesting and go back to a normal camera operation this may be interesting. Bust any Gladiator flickering or GI-Jane zoom-in-zoom-out all the time and I'm walking out and asking for my money back, as I didn't go to the movies to get sea-sick.
 
re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

Good luck to him, but I don't know... for me, the space jockey and the derelict are so perfectly mysterious, so perfectly beyond experience, it seems a shame to just explain that all away, to bring the jockey and the derelict into the ho-hum realm of the known and the explained. It would deflate the powerful dream-sense of the original scene in 'Alien'. Seriously,for that reason, I might stay away...I know I'd miss some good stuff, but I'm sure nothing in the film can have the impact that derelict scene had in 1979. The memory of that impact is more important to me.
 
re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

I agree, Colin. I've got a bad feeling about this. Just doing it as a prequel at all seems to indicate they're buying into the Aliens fan mythos that the derelict was destroyed somehow, perhaps by the atmosphere station blast, despite being a very long way from the colony. If they're going to canonise that bit of silliness then there could be a lot of room for other, worse things. And a whole new alien threat...why?

Additionally, CG spaceships lacking any involvement by the original design and model crew just aren't going to look as good. Not that much of the audience will care about that level of geekery, and all, but you know...
 
re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

I agree as well Colin.

There's something wonderfully odd and intriguing about the Derelict and the Spacejockey. Filling in that backstory to me would be a little like a magician revealing how the trick was done, but a big part of me really wants to see this film all the same.

If Geiger does indeed get involved in the Alien designs that would be great, but I don't see why the creatures as a species would need to look all that different only 30 years before the first film.
 
re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

Nwerke said:
Just doing it as a prequel at all seems to indicate they're buying into the Aliens fan mythos that the derelict was destroyed somehow, perhaps by the atmosphere station blast, despite being a very long way from the colony. If they're going to canonise that bit of silliness then there could be a lot of room for other, worse things.
Click to expand...


Yeah umm... I've been a fan of Aliens since '86. This is the first time ever that I heard the Derelict was destroyed (in expanded universe etc).

In fact I wrote a short story based on the premise that it wasn't destroyed by the atmosphere processor explosion. And in the AvP PC game it is alive and well on one of the levels. Far as I'm concerned it is still on LV-426.

So I'm kinda not seeing how a prequel "canonises" the Derelict being destroyed (which again- I hadn't heard in the first place). But I'm just one fan.

Personally I'm glad Scott is at the helm- and reading between the lines of his MTV interview, I'd say he thinks that the franchise has been completely trashed (which I totally agree with).

But I've been burned by what Hollywood has churned out these days- so I don't want to get my hopes up.

Kevin
 
re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

Why do filmmakers have the desire to go back and explain the mysterious to audiences? Didn't you like Boba Fett better when you knew less about his past? I don't understand this compulsion to connect the dots storywise.
 
re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

Kevin, it's just my guess. There seems to be this attitude around that you can't go back to the Derelict for further research. IIRC there were even comments to this effect in behind the scenes stuff from the making of the second and third sequels (but don't quote me on that, it's a foggy memory). The fact that this one's a prequel seems to confirm that the studio doesn't think they can kick off from Acheron again, at least not after the time of Aliens.

OTOH, perhaps we'll get to see the Derelict again. Perhaps even the original model can be dug up and restored! ("resculpted" would be a better word given the state it was last seen in).

That would be nice...
 
re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

Ever since they adopted that whole alien takes on the characteristics of its host bit, they can now make 'space jockey aliens' if they want to. Maybe they'll also include a prison planet made entirely of wood. :lol

The original full-sized space jockey was burned to the ground.
 
re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

Well. In my view, the explosion didn't look at all big enough to wipe out the Derelict, so to me the Derelict is still sitting on that vacant rock just waiting. That's the whole charm of it. Clearly The Company is too stupid to realize this, since they didn't go back, but they never struck me as very clever. Since they recovered the escape pod from the Sulaco they would have a note about the LV-426 processing plant suffering an thermo nuclear explosion - I think it would be easy for Ripley to exaggerate things a bit in her report to likely prevent anyone from going back there.

Hehe... yeah... the other movies just seriously mess everything up.

But... if Ridley just have the Derelict just sitting there like in the first movie... then that's just rather... well... boring. And it did look like it had been there for many, many thousands of years... though... could have crashed because of something humans did. Maybe it wasn't a bomber... maybe it was a bomb-disposal craft and humans shot it down deliberately to get the cargo - pirates looking for treasure - or unintentionally downing it.
 
re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

Kick off there, follow the trail, end up in an unexplored part of space, find the civilisation that sent it. Or what's left of it.

I don't know about the 'thousands of years' part though. The big guy wasn't crumbling to dust or anything, and the ship itself was intact.
 
re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

Too Much Garlic said:
Well. In my view, the explosion didn't look at all big enough to wipe out the Derelict, so to me the Derelict is still sitting on that vacant rock just waiting..
Click to expand...
Well, the trick is that we don't know how far the derelict was from Hadley's Hope. The film mentions that the Jordens were only gone for around a week (if I'm remembering the dialogue correctly), and despite the crawler, they can't make good time over that kind of terrain. I'd imagine they didn't get more than a few hundred miles from the colony. Combine that with Bishop's statement about a "ball of dust the size of Nebraska" from the explosion, and it's very likely that the ship was caught in it. Whether it was completely vaporized or simply blown to pieces, we have no idea.

I seem to recall one of the novels made a mention of it, specifically saying that the ship had been destroyed, and that the company had gone to what was left of it and was unable to recover anything useful. I'll have to look it up, I think it's in Resurrection.

While I'm not super-jazzed about this new film (it's far too early for that), I do have faith.. it's Ridley Scott, for cryin' out loud. He MADE that franchise. If anybody can take the series back to it's roots, it's him. It would be like Jim Cameron making another Terminator film. There could be no wrong!
 
re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

Remember Bishop's quote-
"This place is going to be a cloud of vapor the size of Nebraska."
And the derelict ship was within tractor driving distance from the Acheron Colony.
It must have been destroyed but what does any of that have to do with a prequel anyway?
I hate prequels but at least this has Ridley at the helm and Dan O'Bannon was working on it when he died.
 
re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

I think it will be great. The man is a cinematic genius. The look and feel of the original will be intact, the used,worn functional hardware and designs! Maybe a Nostromo like designed ship in new condition.

I can't wait:)
 
re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

If Ridley is behind it, I look forward to it. If he feels like he has more to tell then it's gotta be good.
 
re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

The whole space jockey story was covered in one of the Dark Horse comics in the '90s. Don't know if they'll roughly follow that idea or not, but it was quite interesting.

Personally, I'm really really looking forward to this. I'll eat up any Aliens crap the studio puts out, whether it's good or bad.
 
re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

TheMechanic said:
Remember Bishop's quote-
"This place is going to be a cloud of vapor the size of Nebraska."
And the derelict ship was within tractor driving distance from the Acheron Colony.
It must have been destroyed but what does any of that have to do with a prequel anyway?
Click to expand...


Okay not to labour the point-

The Derelict was located past a mountain range (the "Illyum Range"), it could just as easily be argued that it was protected from the blast. However as already mentioned it is a moot point since this is a prequel.


However I have another theory about all this...

What if the Derelict was not a cargo ship/bomber?

What if that "cave" on LV-426 (that Kane lowers himself into) was there before the Derelict? What if it wasn't a part of the ship itself (which has always been assumed).

So in other words- the fate of the Nostromo crew paralleled the fate of the Space Jockey. The Space Jockey either investigates a signal (or sign of life on LV-426), lands (or crashes) above that "cave", and is subsequently face-hugged.

The Alien that would have "birthed" from the Space Jockey could have died off hundreds of years before the Nostromo crew encounters it.


But since this prequel only takes place a mere 30 years before the events of ALIEN, it would negate this "fossilized for thousands of years" theory.

That is if the story takes place before/during the Jockey's flight to LV-426.

Kevin
 
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