If you’re having flashbacks to the earlier years of the 2010s, you can be forgiven. Sir Ridley Scott had spoken numerous times over recent years about how he thought the Alien was no longer effective, so much so that it came as quite a surprise when Prometheus 2 was announced as Alien: Paradise Lost (later Alien: Covenant)!
It seems that despite his inclusion of the Alien in Covenant, Ridley Scott still has a negative opinion on future uses of the Alien! During a roundtable hosted by The Hollywood Reporter, when asked by the host about why he choose to direct Alien: Covenant over Blade Runner 2049, Ridley made the comment about his current thoughts on the creature:
“It was a crossfire of too much business. I’m doing a lot of TV and a lot of films – there’s 6 films going out this year – and one of them…I figured it was a good piece of business to follow through on Prometheus, which from ground zero had good liftoff, so we went to Covenant to perpetuate the idea and re-evolve the universe of the Alien.
But I think the beast has almost run out, personally. You’ve got to come in with something else. You’ve got to replace that. And so I was right…I was ahead of the game. I had to make a decision and Deni was a terrific choice.”
Why did Ridley Scott decide to produce #BladeRunner2049 instead of direct? pic.twitter.com/m89KW5YZso
— Hollywood Reporter (@THR) November 2, 2017
So it would appear that Sir Ridley Scott is still not as interested in the Alien. And, from some behind-the-scenes chatter that Alien vs. Predator Galaxy has heard it would seem that the decision to include the Aliens in Prometheus 2 came down from the studio. Will Fox and Scott continue in the direction of the Alien for the next film or will they steer back away from it?
Thanks to Ingwar for the link. Keep a close eye on Alien vs. Predator Galaxy for the latest on Alien: Covenant and Alien: Covenant 2! You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to get the latest on your social media walls. You can also join in with fellow Alien fans on our forums!
This is close to where I'm at.
I thought the Neomorph back burster sequence was one of the best science fiction horror moments in the entire Alien franchise.
- But because the Giger inspired monsters have been played out and the style of Alien has been copied (see "Life", etc.); the question comes, where to go from there with the story?
- A few jump scares? It's still not enough.
* What Ridley decided with "Prometheus" was to go in a more detailed, serious science fiction direction. The film made decent money.
But because the fan base is so split, a lot of fans hated "Prometheus".
I definitely get that with all my IMDb "Prometheus" debates.
But in the end I think for the future of the Alien franchise, Scott was on the right track.
Personally, I'm interested in seeing a movie about the response of the Engineers to David's attack.
in the Hive because the rest were too busy gangbanging Hudson.
#EDGY
(Ridley will make this Canon, somehow.)
there's probably a fanfic like this somewhere..
The fanbase..
not so much.
Catering to the Japanese market, I see.
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/gallery/albums/userpics/10003/PAR_XENcocoonAppendage_LL01_1002.jpg
Only if we also hire Tony Gilroy to reshoot at least 30% of it,
then it could have a chance at being pretty good.
Yup, this.
And ultimately Alien still works. Bolaji Badejo lurking around the corridors of the Nostromo in that gorgeous Giger suit is still ominous and still immersive to watch as a viewer. One of the assets the Alien design still has going for it is you just can't take your eyes off it; has the grace of a butterfly yet the spine-tingling stay-the-f**k-away-from-me reaction you get,say, from a tarantula.
So I don't think the shape or presence of the creature is worn out, but as a lot of people in here are rightly saying, it just ain't being used right.
Yeah, and if the last sequel is still possible, Ridley Scott needs to finish his story with a dark conclusion.
+1
Obviously, they could no longer do that for the second movie, which is why action was employed.
Another genre resembling detective fiction was used for the third, i.e., how to kill the creature.
The fourth follows something similar in conspiracy films, involving scientists, the military, mercenaries, etc. Although the third looked like the proper end for the franchise, i.e., if Ripley is considered the center of the story, it is still open-ended because it is implied that the company or at least other groups would try to profit from the creatures. Which is what happened in the fourth.
But the fourth still has no closure given the point that Ripley's character is brought back and the aliens still pose a thread to humans. Given that, the only genre I can imagine that is different from those used in previous films and that will finally give closure is major conflict and whatever tech needed to destroy the xenomorphs, or at least give human beings a fighting chance to do so but at incredible costs, thus allowing for a return to the bleakness of the first film.
With that, it's obvious that the prequels would employ other genres, and in this case looks like something involving scientific discoveries concerning the origins of the creature and various plot twists connected to that. The idea is sound, but there were problems with the story, notably the introduction of a star map discovered and connecting it to "Engineers." Perhaps a more elaborate tale should have been constructed, and that would certainly make at least the first film look like 2001 rather than an Alien film. If similar principles were applied to the next movie, then it would have been different from the recent mess, where the same theme involving origins was mixed with elements from Alien and Aliens.
Alien Covenant wasn't scary because Scott, in my book, didn't approach the creature right. Instead of making it slow, spooky and almost majestic in movement, playing with shadows and sounds, he turned the Alien in yet another hyperspastic CGI-beast, like we see in 90% of monster movies now.
The beast is what you make of it and shouldn't be the only excuse for a shitty movie and/or box-office failure.
They always attempt to be scary.
That's right. Why the f**k would I want to see the same f**king thing and the same predictable ending all over again? The "decent character" protagonists make it through hell and back -> oh no the Alien is still here -> enter boss fight -> Alien is killed and humanity is saved.
Covenant finally offered something different from this stale ending. The Xeno, through David, actually WON in Covenant. I'm eternally grateful for that.
Resurrection had them locked up and experimented on, meaning the creature was given a lot of exposure whilst locked in a cage.
AVP decided the best way to portray the Alien and the Predator was have them wrestle around the floor like two drunken yobs who had just been thrown out of a pub.
In Requiem they were just cannon fodder in an attempt to make Wolf look cool.
And Covenant we have a director who didn't want the Alien in the film at all, so what chance did it have?
The creature can easily be redeemed if put in the hands of a competent director who actually understands what made it great in the first place.
The problem with Alien is that you get so many copycats trying to emulate its success and many get the basics right but they lack such an ingeniously designed creature. Alien on the other hand already has an iconic monster but instead of treating this as a blessing it seems to be a weight that drowns the franchise and encourage filmmakers to decide they need to do something drastically different from the norm.
This is the key point that makes Isolation work. Its very different when the question is what do the characters I'm watching on screen do because the answer will always be pretty much the same things iv'e seen before.
Sharks will be scary again next year when the Stath starts punching them!
I take your point but this is for me the inherent problem with sequels to films like Jaws and Alien. They were never meant to have sequels, they were designed as thrill rides based on a singular, simple premise. When you start making sequels its forcing things that were never meant to be because you can only see a shark stalk and eat someone so many ways before it becomes stale.
What Cameron did with Aliens was genius but its an exception to the rule.
I definitely prefer the horror route, but I agree that as an action film it has more of a mass appeal potential, and I'm fine either way. I don't really care what genre the film will be, as long as they don't misuse the alien in it.
The wheel doesn't need to be reinvented, someone just has to treat the creature with the same tact and care it was given at the start. That's where things go to shit: the filmmakers stop caring about the presentation and start thinking more about cool set pieces they can try out.
And yes, of course the chestburster scene in the original Alien succeeded because Kane was a likeable character. But it wasn't just about him; The scene succeeded because everyone else were likeable characters. It wasn't just Kane dying in that scene - it was everyone else watching him die.
Likeable characters is what sets the stakes. If you don't care about the characters, there are no stakes to them dying. If there are no stakes, there is no threat. If there is no threat, your horror film has failed.
I don't think there' anyone against good characters, but keep in mind that in Alien the characters are archetypes. It's not like the chestburster scene succeeded because Kane was such a compelling character.
I was talking about simply featuring a person with a knife in your film. Those things haven't faded into anything; They are still heavily featured in horror films. The Babadook, for example. This was to counter the argument that knowing what your movie monster does makes it not scary. People have seen men with knives kill people in horror films since at least Psycho. The very fact that slasher films were created in the first place counters the notion that once you know what a monster does, it stops being scary.
You're talking about a film genre, which is an incorrect comparison because the comparison was to the alien as a monster, and the alien isn't a genre. It's just a monster. What bores people today isn't a man with a knife - it's the tropes of the slasher genre.
I could've made my argument with Ghosts and Demons and the point would've still been the same: Just because you know what a monster does, doesn't make it not scary.
Michael Myers is actually a fun example because you knew what he does after the first 5 minutes of Halloween. He stopped being scary in sequels, when people started explaining him away and telling people who he is. He was scary when he had a vague backstory, and stopped being scary once filmmakers started making a point out of telling his backstory. This is very similar to another movie monster we know.
Anything can be scary with the right mood, shots and audio. I find parts of Alien 3 genuinely scary just because of how the scenes unfold. Watching two guys pet a snake beast or someone having a shower with Dr Dre playing full blast definitely isn't on the list though.
They no longer are. That's why the slasher genre has faded into obscurity, and why the law of diminishing returns has hurt all Halloween/Friday the 13th/etc. sequels.
I agree on the Egg morphing, I'm hoping it plays a big part in a possible sequel.
Having characters you care about in a film doesn't make it scary either. It generates tension because you are fearful for the characters survival but that's not the same thing as being scary. I didn't give a damn about any of the characters in the original TCM but it still frightened me. Again, Leatherface hasn't been scary since.
The Alien suffers the same problem, its too familiar to frighten people. That doesn't mean you cant make an effective movie featuring the Alien and for me that's exactly what Ridley has done.
Good to see that your dislike of Aliens doesn't get in the way of at least understanding why the film is so effective.
Or some bullshit like that.
So how are men with knives scary if we know what they do?
Men with knives aren't fictional creatures, dummy.
...but we already know what eggs, facehuggers, chestbursters, and xenos do? How do 'decent characters' change this?
Of course.
So decent characters make a movie scary?
Imo it's more about the threat(s) and how it's presented.
Oh that's easy. Write decent characters that the audience actually cares about.
How can facehuggers, chestbursters, and xenos be scary again after we already know how each one of these kill people?
I could see the producers being the ones who forced Ridley to cut out Noomi from the film sans the few seconds of screen time of her disemboweled corpse
Were lucky that at least we got to see the bombing sequence.
It definitely seems so. Scott even mentions "well I was right after all" or something to that extant, like he was indeed against having Aliens in it. I can see the producers forcing creative control of Alien Covenant.
If you listen to his commentary of A:Covenant you get a very strong sense of someone who's just going through motions,which is a big contrast to his Prometheus commentary where his enthusiam for the film was strongly evident.
Canceling the Alien for the next one and bringing in new (yet lame) creatures won't make the movie any better if your story is shit from the start. If you don't have trust in the creature (which is the core of the franchise) then why make a sequel/prequel? Make something new, but i understand... you can't cash in on the fans then. They don't even have a point up until now, we still don't know how the derelict got there.
I thought Covenant was a step into the right direction for the franchise, going back to the horror elements that were sorely missed from Prometheus, but having seen two big budget movies now i think Alien works better in smaller yet more powerful and inventive films.
I think they should really just totally reboot the franchise, set it after all the Alien films with brand new characters (No Ripley clones please), you can have the classic Alien and new creatures and make it all much more interesting.
Ok cheers, that's helpful to know.
It's quite similar in structure to Bone Tomahawk, in that a big chunk of the book is about the journey towards confrontation. However, the villain of the piece isn't anything like the cannibal troglodytes. He's very much human. A really nasty piece of work with a particularly horrifying technique when it comes to torture. It's definietly horrific in places, but it's not a horror story.
I've never read a western before and I'm not sure if I'll like it but then it is described as being like a horror so that intrigues me. Would you view it as horror?