Quote from: skhellter on Oct 12, 2021, 11:53:55 PM
Anyone else get the feeling that Ridley really truly hates that people tend to prefer Cameron's film to his?
Ridley probably also hates the idea of anyone else playing in "his" sandbox and having more critical success than his other current films (a la Villeneuve and BR2049, i bet Ridley regrets giving that film to Denis..)
I've done a lot of Ridley defending and never liked to assume this kind of shit, but after this interview, I'm starting to agree.
Maybe he really did squash Blomkamp's film out of pettiness.
Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Oct 12, 2021, 11:37:51 PM
Or because of Prometheus' rather lukewarm reception, and the fact that people just really weren't clamoring for another film following up on that one. Aliens in the "flesh" or not, Covenant is, at the end of the day, still a direct Prometheus sequel, and while Ridley definitely seems to favor Prometheus over its successor, in all actuality Prometheus rubbed a lot of the audience the wrong way for reasons that weren't just the lack of Alien.
Prometheus, on a structural level, is an absolute mess of a film. I really dig so much of the core of the movie, its ideas and concepts that it explores, but as a movie itself? It's easily the most poorly made of the six film lot, with a script that's all over the place and editing that is somehow even messier than the script. None of it really holds together under any slight scrutiny. I have a big soft spot for it because it is gorgeous and because I really dig so many of its core ideas, but most people in the general audience are just going to brush off a film as mangled as that one and I don't really blame them for doing so. Covenant, in my opinion, not only expands on Prometheus' core ideas and concepts to make them even more interesting, but is also a much more competently made film with a much tighter script and pacing that isn't headache-inducing... but at that point it was too late for the general audience. I think people just didn't care to check out another one coming directly off of Prometheus at that point, and the presence of a capital-A Alien is really neither here nor there at the end of the day for the audience at large.
Right, I could have just added "or because a lot of people didn't like Prometheus" to my list. My point is that there are a lot of factors that contributed to Covenant's financial failure - and he's insane if he blames it solely on the alien.
Quote from: Evanus on Oct 12, 2021, 03:52:40 PM
I don't really see how another David centric film would work without the aliens being there as well, after Covenant linked the two together so strongly..
This is why I've been defending the idea of him doing a third prequel. The alien narratively has to be there. I always assumed he just wanted to create new creatures and do new things in addition to the alien. I keep assuming people are taking his quotes the wrong way. But with every new interview, it becomes more clear that he's more tired of the alien than anyone.
So whatever. Go make the Gladiator sequel that even less people are asking for and let someone who actually gives a shit take over Alien.