With his newest film, Chappie, due out later this week Neill Blomkamp is doing the press rounds promoting it. In a chat with IGN UK for their podcast, they talked quite candidly and in detail about how his Alien 5 project came together:
“My apprehension with Alien was that I had never worked with someone else’s material. And not even someone else – at this point it was like… I’m going to count Fincher in with the third one, even though the third one I don’t like as much as the first two. But they’re all three awesome filmmakers. So it’s not about living up to it and being nervous about it, I just don’t want other people to tell me what to do. Which is a different thing.”
This is the lengthiest and best interview with Neill so far. He talks about how he is feeling in regards to Alien 5, about the aesthetics of Alien Isolation and how that has made him rethink his design choices and more. Definitely worth giving it a read! Thanks to The Eighth Passenger for the tip.
There's a saying, you can't spell IGNorant without IGN.
I think these days critics can be too biased for their own good, look at IGN, the review that one guy gave Isolation was not only wrong but controversial because we all knew it was based on bias and frustration(of course hard mode is going to be hard
Those films don't suck, it's just like a James Bond film- they're now familiar, comfortable and generally well made territory.
You'd struggle to find an original one among them, GoTG being the exception.
Chappie is original, it has a tougher job garnering appeal.
Which is a shame, I think, since Ebert was spot-on with that call. My favorite Terry Gilliam film is 12 Monkeys, but the whole debate on that and the problems of Brazil is a whole other topic entirely.
That said, I do agree that the critics can be wrong about films. It's not uncommon among now-classic films to find that they received negative reviews at the time of their release. However I can't really think of (m)any films that have had that happen since the rise of the Internet. Can anyone provide more recent examples of this happening?
A lot of professional critics didn't like ALIEN either: https://alienseries.wordpress.com/2012/10/29/bad-alien-reviews/
Ebert wrote what I thought was a pretty disinterested review of PREDATOR as well.
I guess it's up to the audiences and, if a film does have merit, the critics catch up eventually.
Unfortunately the reviews of Chappie are not encouraging but public opinion can always be different to critic's, I believe the first predator wasn't given good reviews but was better received after some time passed but most of us probably loved it regardless.
After seeing CHAPPIE last night, I think he will make a good film based solely on the fact that he was able to create great characters that people will care about before things start getting shot up.
Ain't that the truth. I think we all assumed Prometheus would be the best Sci Fi movie since Alien and Blade Runner, and look how that turned out.
Indeed, while I had my doubts about a retcon (not anymore) because it can come across as fan-service, I never resorted to bashing Neill or Alien V, the story is not even there yet, all we got is a bunch of concept art which may or may not ever be used and news that Ripley and Hicks may be back. Instead of going crazy, people should hold their tongue until some part of the story is revealed, never judge a book by its cover, and assumptions are the mother of all f***ups.
Nice, listening now.
Except we don't know anything about the story, aside from it not featuring Ripley 8.
Until we begin to get some concrete details about the story details, it honestly feels very immature for anyone to be prejudging this project. We have nothing to go on except for some concept art which may or may not even make it to the end result.
This is getting as bad as when people first saw the concept art and had already decided it would therefore be an awesome film.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/03/06/ign-uk-podcast-270-when-chappie-met-alien?abthid=54f989017a0cd82448000007
I didn't mind what they did with Isolation, I put it down to simply that in the future, they reuse old tech for spacecrafts and colonies because most of the budget would go to the safety and structures etc because even in the future where space travel is normal, I doubt we would ever forget how dangerous it is and how nearly impossible it was to explore space. Obvious the Weyland company is way ahead so would have all the advanced tech seen in Prometheus and because according to isolation, they actually hoarded it and refused to allow it to be used by the public cue the rise of seesgon, who allowed everyone to start space travelling and colonization of worlds though their tech was partially stolen from Weyland-Yutani.
I go by that reasoning because as much as I liked Isolation and its retro-designs, I don't want the Alien series to be set in a weird retro-future like world of tomorrow or bio-shock.
I agree with you. I'm not a fan of Alien 3 all that much myself, I've always said it's a decent movie but a terrible sequel. And Resurrection is beyond awful, so I am very excited about what NB has in mind for bringing Hicks, Newt, Ripley, and probably Bishop back. Bring on this new "Alien 3" i say.
Kinda sorta. I think Aliens does a better job of connecting with Alien in it's opening sequences than Alien 3 does to Aliens, but yeah, i've never once looked at Alien 3 and gone "This doesn't feel like the same universe."
Yeah, all Ive heard about is the ideas I've liked in the past getting thrown out because he doesn't like them. Also what is this BS conceit that Alien 3 doesn't feel like the same world as ALIEN and ALIENS?
Ive spent 24 years listening to people complain about ALIEN 3 and I have literarlly NEVER heard one person try and say that it doesn't seem like the same universe, not from a design or thematic sense. In fact this is one of the more universal strengths people ascribe to it, even the haters.
No. A:R sucked, and Ripley 8 sucked. Nothing worth working with there. At all. Thank god Alien V is ignoring them. Making a sequel to A:R would be WAY more fan fiction-ish than ANY "retcon/alt timeline". This new movie sounds geat so far, and is the alien film Ive always wanted.
It did work with Alien though, and Cameron literally barked a rep off of Elstree so, it frankly sounds more promising than anything we've heard out of FOXnFRENZ promo camp in probably a decade, or since before or after Predators.
It's still marketing, but it more genuine than anything else uttered in quite a while.
Same here man. I never thought I'd be so disappointed over Alien 5 being made
Well, when asked about the connections he chokes back and says he wants to keep his cards close to his chest.
I mean, if there's nothing to hide, there is no deck of cards.
Comparisons with the Nostromo's technology only work up to a point.
God, I hope not. Alien 3 puts Prometheus to shame when it comes to acting and writing.
Does anyone actually think Prometheus is BETTER than ALIEN 3?
Except Resurrection was a product of them not being able to let Ripley go. I agree that they need to go with new characters and stories like what the comics had, but those comics got retconned thanks to wanting to make Resurrection and "bring Ripley back." Continuing Ripley 8's story is still continuing to have Ripley in it. Personally, I am fine with A3 and A:R being side-stepped, and this could be the alternate continuity ending of Ripley's story and we could continue on like in the comics.
We don't know what the story is yet. Just that Ripley and Hicks (in some form) happen to feature in it.
I agree to a degree. In my honest opinion, AvP2010 did a decent job of "updating" the technology without bringing it too far from the movies.
And I'm really liking what Blomkamp is saying in his recent interviews, specially the "Giger Freudian horror terror" he's hoping to achieve. But the narrative comment was the one thing that gave me concern. In bringing back these characters, the narrative and story are crucial for success. Even more so with the toes he's stepping on by bringing them back. He did acknowledge this was his mistake with Elysium as he focused in the concepts and imagery more over the story itself. This is good and I hope it means he's looking for a competitive writer to compliment his current vision and rough draft he has of the story, but it is a bit worrying. I do think that it is fresh in his mind since he did feel self conscious about his shortcomings with Elysium, so that is also good.
I just wish we had some sort of idea as to what this would be about
I hope Terri is co-writing.
He didn't lie. He's not undoing A3 or A:R; he's just ignoring them and following the first two films only. They still exist. That previous timeline still exists. He was just being respectful to the fans of those films.
I can understand this, though I'm feeling far more comfortable about Ridley just producing it than if he had been directing this himself. I'd actually love it if Cameron were also producing or helping with the script too.
This is worth some amount of concern, but I think his overall attitude so far makes me willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I'm just hoping Blomkamp decides to look for a skilled screenwriter to transform his story treatment into a great script.
The Beast Within - The Making of Alien is my favourite movie doc of all time. That's my winner because I saw it before Dangerous Days and was flabbergasted by richness of information.
Totally with you on that. I enjoyed the lo-fi feel but they did go a bit overboard. You couldn't really build a space station like that and still be primarily running 24 minute cassettes and tape decks. 70's aesthetic doesn't have to be actual 70's tech. That, and the horrendous static and flickers on every video in the game. Should have been a little more subtle I think. So yeah, as far as the tech in this upcoming film goes, it should be retro-ish, but still sci-fi.
Also, it was a bit amusing to see him praising the game during the interview, considering IGN's review.
It sounds like he's not really bothered what other peole want, and it's more about him just experimenting with the story (which presumably is attempting to erase 'Alien 3' and 'Alien: Resurrection'; meaning he lied previously).
'Producing' doesn't really mean much, as far as I know, in terms of input of content. But I'm not keen on Ridley Scott producing it. After 'Prometheus' I'd like him to not be involved with the 'Alien' franchise any more.
"I'm such a visual person, that the narrative of stuff is neither here nor there for me" - ?? No. Don't make an 'Alien' movie if you aren't interested in good narrative. I really hope that was just referencing games.
On a kind of side note, I wouldn't call 'Alien: Isolation' perfect. I think there was a lot wrong with it. It was great visually and in terms of sound. But otherwise - eh.
^ This. I really hope so too. The director's "vision" (I really hate that term) is well and good but they should be paying fortunes for a writer on this one. Top dollar for the writer, definitely.