Ridley Scott confirms progress with Prometheus 2

[predxeno]

@ predxeno,
are you being unique?
Or just being weird?

Should I take you like AVP seriously?

Some people do.
And in that case you do have an argument!

Horrible taste?
But an argument.

There are people that like the prometheus, and the star wars sequels.
It seems strange to me, but its fair.

There are.

Lets everybody hold hands and heal PredXeno!


Heal...
HEAL....

Weird and unique are interchangeable here, and I never really like the 1st AVP FILM, just the 2nd.

[Xenomorphine]

Who are they? It's Ridley Scott who made the franchise to begin with. So if the franchise crashes and burns, then thank him. After all he started it, so he should end it.

He was only one oar in the water. The film's ultimate creative success was due to a whole lot of people. Saying that Scott was solely responsible for it is like saying Giger was.

The funny part is that a quick look at IMDB says that that script has been re-written by no less then 3 people at this point.

That's what happens in Hollywood. Doesn't reflect on the original's quality. In many case, rewrites can actually make a product worse and even nonsensical.

The idea itself might not be all that novel or clever ("Chariots of the Gods" has been around for ages, etc), but it's the execution of that idea that matters.

Exactly - and a big part of the reason why I was so disappointed with 'Prometheus'. Didn't hate it. Just felt very apathetic about the end result. There was a huge amount of very profound material which someone who's a master of the visual medium could have concocted something truly great from. Ultimately, there was a great deal of squandered potential and what we did get often seemed unrealistic (especially the scientists' behaviour).

All of which were only made worse by it being a prequel to 'Alien', since that was a milestone in cinema which shifted the science-fiction focus very much from stereotypes with ray guns to ordinary people whose motivations and thought processes were relateable to the audience.

When Ridley Scott came back, he didn't even acknowledge the existence of the other movies (specifically the AVP movies) and went on as if they never existed.

That's because, as he later admitted, he's never bothered to watch them and his perspective is coloured purely by others telling him they were terrible.

If he had, I suspect a good number of plot elements would have been changed, due to their obvious similarity to the first film's... Which, amusingly, managed to pull of the ancient astronauts thing in a more effective way.

I agree, Cameron broke the continuity cherry when he added the queen and cocooning became just glue instead of eggs.

Nothing forced him to keep within deleted scenes - especially since very few people were even aware of them, let alone had access to view them, back then. These are different times.

[predxeno]

When Ridley Scott came back, he didn't even acknowledge the existence of the other movies (specifically the AVP movies) and went on as if they never existed.

That's because, as he later admitted, he's never bothered to watch them and his perspective is coloured purely by others telling him they were terrible.

If he had, I suspect a good number of plot elements would have been changed, due to their obvious similarity to the first film's... Which, amusingly, managed to pull of the ancient astronauts thing in a more effective way.

Blatantly ignoring films in your own franchise and not even bothering to watch them is a grievous insult to viewers who try to keep up with continuity.

[Xenomorphine]

Blatantly ignoring films in your own franchise and not even bothering to watch them is a grievous insult to viewers who try to keep up with continuity.

Hey, I'm not defending it. I think it was a mistake, if only because, as I say, there were several key plot elements which were a bit too similar.

It's his prerogative, though.

As someone who's in the process of making a motion-comic fan-film, I'm under no illusions. A lot of other people might think what I come up with is crap. I have made a point of rewatching all the films, though, not because I massively like every single one, but because all of them, even 'Requiem' (which greatly underwhelmed me), still have lessons worth learning - even if it's a case of examining a scene to see how it could have been improved.

In fact, case in point, I remember saying at the time that if the brothers had watched the fourth film in preparation, that scene where Ripley 8 shows off in the basketball court would have been an excellent primer for even a genetic fraction of the kind of reflexes, resilience and strength which Aliens are meant to possess. If you put your Aliens up against a hypothetical Ripley 8 and can see her beating them, then you're not portraying the things right.

It's like bad fan-fiction: Forcing yourself to read a few examples of it can really help you to combat writers' block, because it causes you to instantly reawaken your own creativity.

[predxeno]

I wasn't accusing you, but either way you make an excellent point.

[Gash]

I agree, Cameron broke the continuity cherry when he added the queen and cocooning became just glue instead of eggs.

Nothing forced him to keep within deleted scenes - especially since very few people were even aware of them, let alone had access to view them, back then. These are different times.

Not sure I'd go along with that. The cocoon scene in  A  L  I  E  N  was one of the most famous deleted scenes in cinema history after the spider/chasm scene in the original King Kong. And  A  L  I  E  N  was a successful novelistaion before the film hit the cinemas, with a number of key scenes intact that weren't in the film.

As for other posters points about a lack of respect for the franchise I've always felt that Ridley steered a clever course in alluding to things that lead to  A  L  I  E  N, without ever needing to touch on the where the sequels went. They became one route for the genetic experimentation - nothing in Prometheus destroys continuity, and as not enough is known about the Engineers there's nothing to say it even retcons the original Space Jockey if the idea bugs you.

[SM]

The coccoon scene wasn't famous back in 1986.  The hardcore fans who bought the movie magazine or Book of Alien would be aware of it, and some who'd read the novelisation might remember it from seven years earlier.  But the overwhelming majority of people going to watch Aliens wouldn't have known.

[Gash]

I'd agree that the vast majority of the movie going audience wouldn't have known, but The Book of ALIEN, Giger's ALIEN and the novelisation certainly made it a very famous missing scene long before Aliens came out, and it's reinvention as nothing more than 'glue' in 86 was certainly very obvious to many fans of A L I E N. Ok, maybe 7 years was long enough to dismiss a scene that couldn't be considered canon by its exclusion, on the other hand the watered down reinvention of cocooning and the queen personally bothered me far more for it's messing with the themes of body horror as established in 79 than Engineers being Space Jockeys did in 2012.

It's personal opinion only of course, but I'd hardly say Prometheus messes with continuity more than Aliens did. The vitriol aimed at Scott for his apparent disregard for franchise continuity bewilders me. Aliens deliberately plays down themes that Cameron wasn't interested in and highlights Vietnam analogies and mother/child issues - against a backdrop that pays homage to a limited level of the imagery of A L I E N. For many, the majority, that's enough, for me it felt lacking.

Likewise you could easily accuse Fincher of disrespecting Cameron's themes by nullifying practically everything that happened in Aliens, and go on to accuse either Jeunet or Whedon of wholly disrespecting the tone of the 'franchise.'

And where's any respect in continuity with AVP or AvP:R? There is none. It was the most cynical cash in, and with AvP:R one of the most poorly scripted and shot films I've had to misfortune to catch on TV. Sharknado on SyFy is a more competent load of old shite than AvP:R.

With Prometheus, yes it has a handful of minor flaws - all of which a little more editing time would have fixed, but I see no disrespect from Scott in finding a way back in to the story and opening up the plot to wider themes. If anything he's managed to re-estblish the body horror, including the original fate of Dallas without saying 'oh screw the other films, this is the way it should be.' No, he's let those films live within their own continuity but gone back to look at the warring species that used the alien in the first place.

Honestly I find Prometheus a lot more palatable than any other companion piece to  A  L  I  E  N.

[SiL]

I'd rather a great film that took liberties than a mediocre one which tries to repeat the previous films.

[Space Sweeper]

Well the whole crew is gone only Shaw and David remain and maybe Vickers,
so if they focus only on Shaw and David, then he must come up with a very good story to keep everybody exited.

You realize Vickers was crushed by a giant spaceship, right?

[Rong]

VIKKARS IS A RoBOOBOPPP MANG

[predxeno]

Well the whole crew is gone only Shaw and David remain and maybe Vickers,
so if they focus only on Shaw and David, then he must come up with a very good story to keep everybody exited.

You realize Vickers was crushed by a giant spaceship, right?

I think he's trying to imply that since we didn't see Vickers actually get crushed on screen, there's a chance she might be alive.  Personally I doubt it, but Hicks came back, didn't he?

[Blacklabel]

there's a chance she might be alive.  Personally I doubt it, but Hicks came back, didn't he?

[SM]

Apart from that whole getting impaled thing...


I don't get the whole 'Vickers might've have survived' thing.

Did people really want to see the bloody smear she left behind?  Is not the crunching and abrupt cut off scream not enough?

[Space Sweeper]

Well the whole crew is gone only Shaw and David remain and maybe Vickers,
so if they focus only on Shaw and David, then he must come up with a very good story to keep everybody exited.

You realize Vickers was crushed by a giant spaceship, right?

I think he's trying to imply that since we didn't see Vickers actually get crushed on screen, there's a chance she might be alive.  Personally I doubt it, but Hicks came back, didn't he?

Only took one of the most hilariously, unimaginably terrible played-straight scenes in history to do that.

VIKKARS IS A RoBOOBOPPP MANG

Charlize Robop