In a discussion with Dazed Digital, Neill Blomkamp spoke a little about his upcoming Alien 5 project and how he felt that Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection “went off the rails“. The more Neill Blomkamp talks about the project, the more it seems pretty obvious that his upcoming project is going to be an alternate sequel to Aliens:
“It’s the inverse in that now I get to make the third film of the first two, which I think never happened. I think they made the first two and then went off the rails with these other ones. I wanna try as a fan to fill in that gap. It all stems from being probably one of the most ego-less directors in Hollywood and I think that that plays a big role. If you’re inward focused and narcissistic and thinking about your fans then that’s when weird shit starts happening. If you stay grounded then you can make stuff that actually is balanced and has something to say. I don’t want to give much away but what I can say confidently is that Alien and Aliens are my favourite films and where it went after Aliens was incorrect to me as a fan. I didn’t want that world, I wanted the first two and that’s what I want to go back to.”
Thanks to Tough little S.O.B. and Perfect-Organism for the link.
Procrastinating admin is procrastinating.
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I'd question that. Batman: Dead End had far more integrity.
The sad thing is that's not even a joke.
At least you didn't make the mistake of going to the movies to watch it....and I read the reviews first, as a fan of Aliens I felt obligated to watch it, I sorely which I didn't. My eyes have not been the same since.
No, I like it as well.
OMG!! That's such a cool pic!!!
Indeed - and were never intended to be perceived as such. Cameron was never shy about it effectively being a Vietnam analogy in space. It was just done very well, that's all.
Well, technically, you could say 'Aliens' introduced the concept of the existence of prisoners, even if it was just going by hints of the Marines' back-stories.
The actual prison scenario would have been more interesting if it had been an operational facility, in my view.
Fully agreed. Always thought that they should have done so. Even then, the concept didn't really add much, sadly, because the differences were fairly minimal.
That is true, they have not done that in another movie since 3.
Forgot about the PredAlien.
But I meant the Alien being combined with other earth animals really.
Still didn't help for me
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Avoid the film, unless you have company and a truckload of intoxicating substances.
Haven't seen it.
AVP:R
Its used a lot throughout the expanded universe and features in AVP:R.
And then they never used that idea again.
If you look at it like that, the battered frontiersmen (colonists) and hardened grunts (Marines) that the previous film brought to the series weren't at all inventive either. My point was, it was an added element to the universe of the franchise, and one I found quite interesting.
However, didn't the characters in the film volunteer to stay behind, years bfore Ripley arrived? Hence, why everything was in disrepair and hardly any wardens existed?
Of course Alien 3 expanded the mythos. It gave us the whole concept of convicts being shot out into space and left to rot. That's a pretty significant and powerful image. The way future society deals with its undesirables.
This film will likely suffer a number of leaks given its importance. I wouldn't be surprised if the script gets out, to be honest.
This is the impression I'm getting. Especially given how he's said the film changed when he spoke to Weaver.
At this point, from what little Blomkamp has said is everything seems to be line up for shooting to start later in the year if things go smoothly. Hopefully, they don't muddy the waters and have a dozen goddamn writers try and "fix" things.
The pitch would be the more accurate term. I doubt Blomkamp has even a first draft screenplay yet. He could have a treatment ready by this point. Though all of that really depends on how much time he has had lately to work on it.
It is very likely be that it's still early days yet and he can't say anything more than he already has. It's the media making everything seem so confusing, anyways. Blomkamp was pretty clear about his film directly following on from Aliens, while his comment about 3 and Res came off as him simply being respectful of the filmmakers and the fans.
I don't see why Alien 5 can't replicate the tension of the first film. I realize the last bunch of Alien outings have been lackluster, but let's not write it off yet before we know what's going on.
Nailed it!
What about the impending arrival of the Weyland-Yutani team?
I agree the suspense of it wasn't particularly effectively put forward in the film, but neither was the destruction of the wooden planet in Ward's script to be honest. It was kinda just happening in the background, right until the end. I never really got a sense of urgency.
I also think that script had a LOT of potential to make a better Alien film than it did, but that script was also a bit too out there. They managed to keep some of the ideas in tact but they needed to keep some ideas they did not either.
A big problem I have with ALIEN 3 that I think WAS part of Ward's script and every film in the series ACCEPT Alien 3 - is the instability of the setting of the film.
Meaning that in Aliens and Alien we are confronted with a fragile setting. In Alien 3 they tried to make that so with NO WEAPONS and Dangerous criminals/prisoners but in ALIEN, we have the fear of killing the alien eating away at the ship, and then the self destruction device, and in aliens,the atmospheric processor is going to explode, so there is that race against time to survive. This suspense is largely missing from the Alien 3 film but was part of Ward's script, with the fire burning the placebut ultimately the setting itself, while largely interesting was too fanciful and needed to be set somewhere else.
It was a mix up. I did actually say, that it didn't have a thick plot the second quote, but I'm just tired. I'm kind of on the fence about how thick its plot is, but I'm of the opinion that the Assembly Cut is capable enough, but the theatrical cut isn't. So the theatrical cut really isn't, as good as its predecessors, while the Assembly Cut is. Thus the mix up.
I'm not a native English speaker
But I'll try my best. All I'm saying, is that the Ward script, while pretty Out-There, had many elements, such as the development of Ripley's character, that should not have been changed as much. The logic of the change being, the Ward script had problems, so they recycled the ideas, but removed a lot that worked about the script.
The central idea of Ripley's character is as follows. You can read it from the basic Freud's structural understanding of the psyche. Although it is long out dated, it still is a great way, to analyze characters transformations, and balances within the self. Knowing how Freudian Alien is, it is perfect, that something along these lines, is put in the context of Alien.
The Id, is the basic part of the mind. It controls our urges for sex, water, hunger, sleep, and our impulses, it's our desire to survive. It's the trigger that shoots out when you think "Huh, my mouth is dry, I could use a glass of water." or in other circumstances "There is an Alien organism on board the Nostromo, I gotta get out of here alive at all costs." It is also, interpretable as sin. It's the easiest part of us that is subject for our desires, of all the seven deadly sins. Gluttony, Lust, Greed, Hubris, Wrath, Vanity, and Sloth. The easiest way to understand this, is that it is the part of you that helps you survive, but it's also the part of you that lacks serious impulse control, and so naturally comes into conflict with a Christian society. But most of all, one can see the Alien itself as a giant Id. It is a primitive being that is just, pure, total Id.
The Ego is the middle man, that manages between Super-Ego, and Id.It seeks to please the id's drive in realistic ways that will benefit in the long term rather than bring grief. The ego is the judgment, tolerance, reality testing, control, planning, defense, synthesis of information, intellectual functioning, and memory, of what makes you, you! The ego separates out what is real. It helps us to organize our thoughts and make sense of them and the world around us. The ego is that part of the id which has been modified by the direct influence of the external world. Its task is to find a balance between primitive drives and reality while satisfying the id and super-ego. Its main concern is with the individual's safety and allows some of the id's desires to be expressed, but only when consequences of these actions are marginal. Consequences, that for Ripley in Alien and Aliens, did not exist, and she gave into pure Id, only the will to survive no matter the cost. A colony nuked from orbit? "You can bill me." Running down corridors with flashing light and fire and an Alien chasing you, with everyone you know killed, can throw things out of balance, into a state of trauma, of Id.
The Super-Ego reflects the internalization of cultural rules, mainly taught by parents applying their guidance and influence. It's tradition, religion, faith, you get the idea. The installation of the super-ego can be described as a successful instance of identification with the parental agency. The super-ego works in contradiction to the id. The super-ego strives to act in a socially appropriate manner, whereas the id just wants instant self-gratification. The super-ego controls our sense of right and wrong and guilt. It helps us fit into society by getting us to act in socially acceptable ways. Ripley, had to turn off her Super-Ego temporarily and thrive in the fight or flight/rush or die, manner, of Alien and Aliens. These are also the monks who are representative of it.
Bare in mind none of this is actually how human psychology works, this has been mostly proven false. Psychology actually relies more on your own health. But that's another story.
What does this all mean?
It means, from Ward's script, Ripley is exhausted after Aliens. She is floating in space, recovering from the trauma she endured. But the self is out of balance, there is an unbalance of Id within her that has to be corrected, so an inner turmoil must take place, she has to confront her demons, in one last mission.
She crash lands and it just is her. She's pregnant with an Alien (overload of Id). The monks exist as the Super-Ego extreme to the Alien. The Alien represents out of control Id. They see Ripley for what she is, Id, something they totally reject, they humiliate and ban her, because she is foriegn to them just as the Alien. Anthony and John that help her, is the Super-Ego trying to help a solution. The Wooden World itself is the ego Ripley left behind she cannot recognize, it is the protocol she followed in the beginning of Alien, her unwillingness to let Kane in, her suspicion of Ash, it is, installed memory. It's wooden, and old, the monks who live in it, is the Super-Ego of herself she does not recognize, from her old Ego. She, is just a representation of Ripley, self image.
The journey through the planet plays with the nature of this, I think you get my idea, or I hope I'm clearing up some confusion.
I'm just saying, along these lines, these are great ideas. But it's understandable how they got lost in the chaos of Alien 3's production. To a board room executive who doesn't know Id from Ego, Freud sounds like a bunch of unprofitable horse shit. So, Giler and Hill try their best to adapt elements of it, and David Fincher probably tries to fight for ways to bring this forward, met with combat from Giler and Hill and Fox, and everyone else. On top of him being anti-social and really mad, that production isn't going the way he really wanted.
In the end, what's good, from Ward's script, what they were going for, in Ripley's character progression, exists in a way, but it's really not given the same sense of urgency of the development of Ripley's character in relation to her past memories and past life aside from the line "You've been in my life so long I don't remember anything else" which Fox fought Fincher not to include.
In other words, it's a visually stunning film I love in assembly format, but wouldn't it have been great if the visuals reflected what they implied.