anyone hear about the alien prequel?
apparently ridley scott wants to produce a prequel to alien but fox will only greenlight it if he directs.
i have to say, i'm half exited about this idea. i know there will likely be a mob on my hands for saying this but i liked what james cameron did with the franchise with "aliens" so much more than what scott did with the original "alien".
since then, the franchise went off into a series of ok, good and total crap homages to either scott or camerons vision (even though david fincher's alien 3, which was an homage to the first i actually thought was much better than the original) and has evolved and become a household name.
i almost feel that it's at a point where the franchise has grown and changed so much that ridley would be lost in the universe he helped create so to speak or just out of the alien loop.
personally if another alien film was made i'd want it to be something completely new and parrallel to the quadrilogy (because alien ressurection was so terrible, a new film would need to be created in a cannon where ressurection could not possibly have occurred before or after it as to not have the shittiness of ressurection tied in to it in any way). even though i'm not a fan of remakes, sometimes revisiting a classic idea and bringing something new to it as actually cool (batman begins, rebuild of evangelion) and would not tie it any of the inevibilities of some of the series less than perfect entries.
anyone agree?
i have to say, i'm half exited about this idea. i know there will likely be a mob on my hands for saying this but i liked what james cameron did with the franchise with "aliens" so much more than what scott did with the original "alien".
since then, the franchise went off into a series of ok, good and total crap homages to either scott or camerons vision (even though david fincher's alien 3, which was an homage to the first i actually thought was much better than the original) and has evolved and become a household name.
i almost feel that it's at a point where the franchise has grown and changed so much that ridley would be lost in the universe he helped create so to speak or just out of the alien loop.
personally if another alien film was made i'd want it to be something completely new and parrallel to the quadrilogy (because alien ressurection was so terrible, a new film would need to be created in a cannon where ressurection could not possibly have occurred before or after it as to not have the shittiness of ressurection tied in to it in any way). even though i'm not a fan of remakes, sometimes revisiting a classic idea and bringing something new to it as actually cool (batman begins, rebuild of evangelion) and would not tie it any of the inevibilities of some of the series less than perfect entries.
anyone agree?
Replies
I'm not really a movie watcher, can you tell? :P
what Ridley had was the ability to use the camera to set the mood... he was able to bring life to his characters by allowing the actors to take the script to a new level... Ridley was an artist
i like the james cameron stuff, but he was more about using the latest technology as a much bigger tool in his bag of tricks than Ridley... Alien was meant to scare the fuck out of you... not wow you... all the other films since then were meant to wow you and bring in the coin for the studio... which is why they want him back... they know that he would breath new, much needed life into the franchise that would put more money in their pockets with his name on it
i think he would do amazing things with another Alien film but only if it were a situation where he had complete control over the film... with the amount of technology available, and the desire for studios to bring in more profit, i could see the studio/producer(s) putting so much pressure on him to make a movie that in the end wouldn't be his work
I dunno about the prequels though. Scott is 72 and his later movies weren't that good. I guess we'll see with Robin Hood.
i agree that cameron brought in a lot of new "tricks" and much of aliens rested on visual innovations but, cameron was just better at framing shots and directing too.
i've just always felt ridley scott didn't have his heart in alien the same way cameron did in aliens and the territory that opened up since is probably way to much for scott to handle.
nothing makes that seem more apparent than the fact he wants the brother of his girlfriend to direct it and not him, he just wants to produce it. however fox won't greenlight it without ridley directing so the possibility of a film he has his heart in seems slim.
I couldn't disagree more but then everyone is entitled to their opinion. Aliens, in Cameron's own words, was Alien with a Vietnam War movie spin on it. I just don't think its fair to compare the two films. Alien is a much slower, thoughtful film and only proceeds to ratchet up the pace toward the end. What you refer to as redunant shots are in my view vitally important to establishing mood and setting pace. Saying that Scott didn't have his heart in Alien is just a preposterous statement at best. Both filmakers are passionate about what they do and are very good at it in their own right but have totally different approaches to their craft. Personally I like both films but for different reasons.
Oh and I think you mean the boyfriend of his daughter
I always imagined the Alien prequel as in the ship that crashed being a Predator.
quoted for truth. Alien was a masterpiece in my view. Aliens was awesome too, but yeah they're not the same type of film so comparisons don't really work..
I love the Alien trilogy
Im not all that excited about robin hood either..
this one just smells of gravy train big time and I wont be bothering
I think over the next year we're going to see safe bets made when it comes to movies. I see studios and producers exerting a bit more control which in some cases could be good, or it could really hurt. Either way I'm there, and that's what they're counting on.
so....for me....i question whether or not ridley scott can pull it off the way i'm hoping. and also, almost everyone abuses the tech these days. alien was so good because it had that "less is more" sensibility. you rarely saw the alien which is always effective for scare factors.
dunno....we shall see i guess.
p.s. 'the thing' is also going to get a prequel......one of my all time favorite movies. please god, satan, or whatever......don't eff that one up!!!!
the two films are drastically different albeit part of the same universe. the fact that aliens is rated as one of the greatest action movies of all time and alien is mentioned under horror illustrates that perfectly.
i think the alien is a rich enough creature that it deserves more films, but i think they need to be be complete departures story wise from the other films so it can have a fresh start and anything can happen without creating a paradox or plot hole.
even AvPR appointed itself as a prequel to the events of alien and the birth of wayland yutani which i think is awful. i did enjoy the practicle effects and gore of the film, it was entertaining but movies that are just what if's or versus films shouldn't be attached to the source material but thats how it is with franchises.
when a company like fox makes an addition to a film franchise, whatever happens in that film becomes part the new "reality" of the franchise and all of their characters, and when movies are made that way they have to compromise for eachother (eg. terminator salvation...which was horrible).
though i'm going about it in a roundabout way, i'm really saying that the best new alien film we could get is one that has no ties to the original films and starts with the same creatures, but from scratch.
my obvious favoring of cameron over scott got in the way of making my point that any director placed in charge of making a prequel to alien is in trouble because they can't present anything new that would discrupt the plots of any of the other films. creatively their hands are tied unless they pull a batman begins and say "forget all of the other movies, in fact, they didnt even happen!" and in that case it isn't a prequel it's something new and that i guess is what i'm hoping for but i'm sure we wont receive.
i say we nuke it from orbit...only way to be sure...
What is a safe bet?
If they just use existing ip and pump all there money into them then they are in danger of encouraging audience fatigue. Better safe bets would be to spend less money, or the same amounts on lots of smaller but more varied movies.
If the new Aliens prequel is written by the usual horror writers then I can imagine how utterly derivative it will be.
But if its Ridley, then at least he may have some leverage and could push it a little beyond the required formula, manna manna!.
I agree with fritz about directors as they age. I think when they're younger they have a lot less to loose. So they take risks, some pan out some don't. When nobody knows your name no one reports on the flops. As they get older I'm sure they are under more pressure to "stick to the formula" and "not loose the magic".
I think I was about 10 and even the adverts put the shits up me:0
Both movies are good, as has been stated a number of times, very different in approach and I would love a new one of each, but given only one I cross my fingers for Space Marines...
If the prequel is in the same lieu as the original, I think I would enjoy it far more than your classic guns blazing shoot'em up action film. Either way, it'll have me queued up in the theaters when it's out.
Ridley's direction should serve the move well, so long as they keep the tone of the film closer to what his direction is better suited for. In Aliens, Cameron proved to the world that he was one of the great action film directors. In contrast, Alien was all about slow, creeping psychological tension. And in that capacity it was masterful.
The real challenge that Ridley Scott faces is the familiarity that the audience has with the title creature. In the first Alien, the creatures bizarre nature, and the fact that so little of it was shown, were major components in the film's lurking dread. Now the monster is an established, iconic fixture in pop culture. If they intend to make a slower-paced film, that is going to work against them.
As long as they make it a threat, and dont have rubbish washed out cgi as in the first AVP film, it should be scary barring other erroneous decisions.
Which is what made it SOOO damn awesome.
I see stronger similarities between Dawn of the Dead/Aliens than Aliens/Alien.
I want to see a completely fresh take on Aliens. Not Scott, Not Cameron. I want to see what Peter Jackson, Guillermo del Toro, Sam Raimi, or Christopher Nolan would do with it.
Hell, I'd like to see what Duncan Jones could do with it.
As long as they make it better, they could easily re-interpret the creature design. Giger's still around and he has what, 3 decades' worth of nightmares accumulated for inspiration? And now that it doesn't have to be a man in suit, they could really set him loose... In fact I'd prefer them to be daring and take risks with the movie.
Jackie chan vs the Predator or Alien would be cool. In fact that would be awesome. The alien trying to catch him and he's flipping and jump kicking all over the place then he cuts it and gets some acid on himself, he blows it out, and decides to make a hasty retreat up some wall, it follows him, and he's starting to get panicked, so he improvises rope using his clothing and the, alien ends up on the ground as a tightly screeching ball.
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/44796
And here: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2010/04/23/alien-prequel-update-ridley-scott/
The problem with this statement is that effects technology was not a defining characteristic of Alien - the story was.
In Alien, the creature is developed in such a way to convey just how tough it is to kill, how keenly-honed its survival instincts are, and how it is to be hunted by a solitary, ruthlessly-efficient predator. It's horror at its finest. The manner in which the creature is revealed to us says more about Scott's directorial approach and the script than it does about technological limitations.
I loved Aliens, but Cameron does not do suspense - he does grandiose action. The closest he ever got to true suspense was The Abyss, and even then it was more interesting to observe the gradual degeneration of Coffey's state of mind rather than the progressive intrusion of and interaction with of the alien life-forms.
I seriously doubt whether a more traditional horror script, utilizing imagination and suspense, will win out over the overwhelming temptation for eye-candy in this new version, and that bums me out pretty bad.
http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=65438
Coming Soon is a credible source and a really nice site, they always get the information before I readi t anywhere else.
I'm not sure how to take Ridley's statement of the Alien shape being worn out. If anything, it has evolved so far away from Giger's original vision that a return to original biomechanical beastie would be a breath of fresh air. Hopefully with Giger on board doing designs this is something we will see happen.
Crossing fingers.
I hope they make a decent film. The last avp film was not bad, very generic... but what can you expect from alien and a predator? that combo of characters is only good in a shooter game lol
There's a new predator film.
Don't know if fox would go for it if they couldn't create a pop-corn munching action-packed block-buster, but in an ideal world where the director had complete licence to do what he wanted with the script, it'd be interesting to see how they first discover the aliens, and the events leading them up to the whole Notromo conspiracy and sticking in Ash as the android mole to set them up to get infected.