Sir Ridley Scott made his big return to science-fiction and the Alien franchise after many years away from both with 2012’s divisive Prometheus, and has since remained very involved with the franchise. Though he hasn’t directed an Alien film since Alien: Covenant, Scott has remained involved with the franchise as producer of both Alien: Romulus and Alien: Earth.
And while Prometheus and Alien: Covenant are generally considered divisive, the films do still have their own fans who have been keen to see the conclusion of Sir Ridley Scott’s prequel series. It’s looking like that may not be likely based on new comments made by the director.
Speaking to Screen Rant about Kingdom of Heaven’s 20th anniversary (via The Playlist), Scott suggested that he may not return for any future direct involvement with future entries into the Alien pantheon.
And I was the fifth f***ing choice. Why you offered Robert Altman Alien, God only knows. Altman said, “Are you kidding? I’m not going to do this,” and I went, “Are you kidding? I have to do this,” because it borders and verges on heavy metal.
So that’s where I went, and then it died. A number of years after, I said, “I’m going to resurrect this,” [and wrote] Prometheus from scratch–a blank sheet of paper. Damon Lindelof and I sat then hammered out Prometheus.
It was very present and very welcome. The audience really wanted more. I said, “It needs to fly.” No one was coming for it, [and] I went once again [and made] Alien Covenant, and it worked too. Where it’s going now, I think I’ve done enough, and I just hope it goes further.
It is admittedly not a lot to go on, and I was considering not reporting on this because of how little substance there is here. But if Sir Ridley Scott is signalling the end of him having a direct hand in any future Alien films or series, it’s still quite likely he would continue to serve as a producer through his company Scott Free Productions. Thanks to Whos_Nick for the news.
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I think the RPG works wonders with the black goo. It doesn't need rules, it's a programmable mutagenic substance which is barely understood. It makes monsters, turns people into monsters, or makes people incubate monsters. It's a goldmine for writers to play around with.
You're talking about the "fanbase", I'm talking about normies. Normies are where most of the sales and profits come from. Most of them enjoyed it when they watched it, and then didn't sweat anything around it.
agree. just redo it if it all as a seperate thing.
oh snap
Or idk, maybe that the white albino Engineers, supreme focus on the androids, the black goo, and having the Alien set back just wasn't appealing to most of the fanbase. There is also the writing that wasn't up to par either.
Like for example, I don't even hate the *concept* of the black goo, it's just that the way it works is just so inconstant and everywhere its just like the magic do whatever you want with it. Almost like a cheat code to make something out of one's ass rather than keep a set of rules that challenges writing and thus create something for people that can bounce off story wise.
Or just happy to see the Alien again as a focused antagonist.
Romulus says the exact opposite.
It was just that bad. Like only the people here like it but most of everyone else though it was trash. Even Ridley himself said he thought the Alien itself wasn't relevant no more and went to focus on the android and Engineer aspect of things. Look how that turned out....
That's oversimplifying it by a long shot. Scott has shared his opinions on the Alien series and creature, and decided that it "was cooked". The solution? Make Alien without the Alien? Do Blade Runner again? His approach and intent to the Alien series was alienating to people who even liked the first film what it was while it attempted to explain every nook and cranny. Jockeys are suddenly Engineers? DA GOO created everything? Oh, i guess there goes the magic.
I for one will be celebrating with great festivities and make merry, as for once, Alien does not seem cooked.
But honestly? I'd rather have Ridley at least in the mix somewhere than just leave the franchise in the hands of somebody like Fede just having free reign. As long as Ridley was balanced out by a strong creative voice to curb some of his worse ideas, I don't think I'm to optimistic about him throwing in the towel.
Yeah, agree. I don't like the man, I don't like his big mouth and I despise Alien: Covenant, but I'm sad to see people celebrating "Oh yeah, in his twilight years, this colossal artist announces he will stop working on an universe he participated in initiating and largely contributed to for years".
Simply because they hate big albino wrestlers and black liquid.
The prequels are NOT well regarded outside this forum. People here don't want to acknowledge that the only reason Prometheus got such a big box office number was because the opening weekend was monstrous after a highly successful marketing push that relied heavily on Alien nostalgia. It didn't have much in the way of legs and Covenant was a certified financial failure in its wake.
Granted, Romulus didn't have great legs either but the fact that Fede and Scott only spent eighty million dollars on it as opposed to the blockbuster sized budged the prequels helped offset the fact that there wasn't a hell of a lot of repeat business.
But people were absolutely sneering at Romulus before it opened...because of the prequels, and yeah the crossovers and lesser sequels didn't help but Romulus almost succeded DESPITE the existence of the prequels, not because of them.
The first 4 films tried something new each time while still feeling like they were part of the same universe. Just because somebody isn't a fan of Scott's prequels, doesn't mean that they don't want to see new things and that they only want retellings of Alien and Aliens. Ideally, to me, a film should have a bit of both, a nice balance of old established elements and universe tendencies with actual new concepts and situations.
I doubt most fans want Alien and Aliens 2.0, but that doesn't mean that every and any new idea will be automatically better. Just because something is a retread, doesn't say anything about the quality of the portrayal, as does the novelty of a concept say nothing about its quality. There's always a risk. At this point, Scott's stuff isn't new at all anymore (even ignoring how cliche those elements had already been for a long time). So, if we really want something new, lets actually try something different?
I really liked Romulus, but I do agree the balance there wasn't to my taste either, too many old elements that were treated clumsily here and there, and not enough of actually new stuff. I hope that changes for Romulus 2. And that we see new blood in future Alien cinema.
Ideally, my preference would be to keep the focus on the Alien itself, portray it as actually dangerous, alone and in numbers, make it capable, smart and fast. No need to reinvent the lifecycle, just treat the Alien as a character and make it do interesting things! You don't have to show it a lot, just make sure its presence is important and felt through the story and when it is there, that it's handled with respect and logic. Put our human characters in unique and new, interesting situations. Compelling characters, hard situations, drama unfolding, that's more than enough. Expand the world building slowly if you need to. That's it.
And if you're touching the Space Jockey, birng back the Elephant Man...
Finish on a novel or comic
I don't want the franchise to bow to fan pressure of keeping a cut and paste of Alien and Aliens. Don't give the fans what they want, give them something they don't want. No one asked for the Beatles but they got it and loved it, no one asked for them to change direction and make Srgt Peppers but they got it and loved it. Stop making copies to appease fans and stop with the military tough guy bullshit that plagues the two recent video games.
What?
Who's "we"?
That's exactly how I view it.
For me, whilst it's true that showing the creation of the Alien was the intention of the movie, I don't personally connect what David is doing to the derelict at all, I see them as two different things (and I've always felt there's enough wiggle room for a straightforward retcon in a future instalment anyway) I definitely prefer Alan Dean Foster's explanation in the novelisation, canon or not.
So I simply view it as David is out there, doing his thing, experimenting, sending data back to the company via transmissions (which why they are heavily invested in securing such an organism) whilst at the same time the derelict has been sitting there for centuries.
In this way Covenant has its ending (that's how I've made peace with it anyways). 😂
For so long I've thought of it as a cliffhanger (assuming David's aliens were to eventually end up on the derelict in Alien somehow). But now we're reasonably certain that the derelict is much older than that, I've recently reevaluated Covenants ending as a proper ending. Despite the fact that it wasn't intended to be.
All we really have in our lives is a little bit of time to spend and Alien is a chunk of that time I spent that I consider peak quality.
Rain and Andy can die in interstellar space for all it matters, there's nothing for it to connect to.
Leaves room for little nods in future movies for us to speculate on; I.e; ovomorphs discovered on random planet - natural? Or David? Pick your poison.
I disagree, what is needed is fewer fan boys making pastiche, derivative copies of what has come before. Romulus was so boring and lacking in creativty. Art needs people with a healthy disregard for the world to find new and innovative stories within it to tell. Think Tony Gilroy: Andor, Nicholas Meyer: Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn
We can work out by process of elimination what happened to David by working where he didn't go.
1) Earth
2) The Moon
3) Origae-6
4) Jackson's Star
5) Fiorina
6) Aerodyne
7) Tanaka 5
Only about 293 surveyed worlds left to eliminate. Simple.
Go buy yourself an ice cream, would ya ?
It's funny how I was just yesterday thinking of prequels and how the story ended on a big fat cliffhanger. I was thinking about how I prefer to view Prometheus/Covenant as a standalone narrative rather than leading up to 1979 movie. In a way It's okay that this story ended where it did 'cause over the years fate of Covenant became to me what SJ is to the majority of Alien fans, it's the Flying Dutchman of Alien universe and at this point I don't think there's a fully satisfying answer to what happened with it, David and poor colonists
Covenant is eight years old and didn't set the world on fire and he's done five (nearly six) flicks since that weren't Alien. It's not "sudden".
Huh only abs and arms, too many weak points on physique not impressed
Alien's Greatest Hits Vol 2 plz.
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