Scott: I think the Beast is almost run out, personally.

[Alionic]

Questions are what keeps a franchise alive.

Correct. Prometheus and Covenant have plenty of unanswered questions.

[Adam802]

I think Ridley Scott has almost run out, personally.

[Scorpio]

I think Ridley Scott has almost run out, personally.

If/when you get to 79, have 6 movies out in one year, then you can say that. 

[Vin]

This, plus all the preachy undertones of atheism. We get it, we get youre atheist. Nobody cares, we came for the creatures and the space marines and the glory from the novels and comics and more of Aliens. The Engineers were supposed to be alien themselves, not giant people making monsters.

The world and universe of Aliens was what people wanted more and more of. Not...not a thriller, atheism-is-right preaching, philosophical quandrumalation.

His story was boo boo, and he blames the monster. The monster is fine, his writing is horrible and does not belong in the Aliens universe. Make a movie with nothing to do with Aliens at all and name it something like "Ancestors of Stars" or something, and then see what happens. Don't make a tie in to a movie like, oh I dont know, Starship Troopers, and make it about giant space people pooping pyramids, and get mad because people go "Where's the ST stuff?"

[Vin]

Sorry, my last post was trying to agree with Ripp3r's quote:

"Ridley you had your chance.  The problem isn't with the "beast" (alien), it's with the mundane choice of making engineers into just another super-human.  Totally blew the opportunity you had here to create yet another mysterious creature that made viewers raise even more questions about what they were and why they were tangled up with the alien in the first place.  Questions are what keeps a franchise alive.  Instead you either thought the viewer was too stupid to believe that a non-human-like creature could be related to the alien in some way, or your imagination has run dry, and you ended up over-simplifying the entire mystery.  Time to pass the baton along to someone with some actual creativity! "

Ripper nailed it on the head. Completely.

[Kane's other son]

All you guys who think that the beast is not done, exactly what new can you do with it? How many variations of the chestburster and the aliens jumping on people can we have? How would this be any different than what we've already seen, 30+ years ago? Do you really believe that people would show up for a "more of everything" remake of Aliens or that the reason the new films were not super hits was the lack of Giger corridors and an aesthetic that's 40 years old?

At the end of the day, Alien is a monster movie and this monster is very familiar after all these years.

By the way, Isolation was great BUT it was scary because it was an interactive experience, and, more importantly, it was not a commercial hit.

[Zeb]

There is only one person to blame for that. Mr Scott kyboshed a promising sequel/reboot to continue with his own, decidedly average, vanity projects.

[Scorpio]

That pretty much hits the nail on the head.

Every time this series tries to go in a new direction, fans hate it and want a return to what's familiar.  And we get mediocrity as a result.

[Highland]

The series is littered with multiple really bad choices post Cameron's Aliens. I don't think that's the creatures fault.

[Ed209]

If this is really what he thinks then why not just allow Blomkamp to make his movie?!

[Paranoid Android]

I don't understand why people keep blaming the poor alien for terrible script writing. At the end of the day, the alien is just an awesome monster that kills people. It's a prop. Blaming it for being "cooked" is the same as blaming the failure of your film on a gun or a ship.

To bring this analogy closer to home: no director is complaining about how Zombies are "cooked", or Godzilla, or King Kong, or Vampires, or any other movie monster, really. Why are there no "Rogue AI that wants to destroy humanity is cooked" claims? When those things are used correctly, They work; They fail spectacularly when they are used as a gimmick.

The Alien worked in Alien:Isolation because it was used correctly: The developers did a great job recreating the feel of the original film in terms of aesthetics, emphasis on sound and even the story set pieces (takes a while before the alien is introduced, don't waste time on having it introduced via its life cycle, when the alien is introduced, it's a true menace), and most importantly, they built the game mechanics to recreate that fear of the alien even when the alien is not present. In short, Alien:Isolation worked so well because the game was built around making the alien work; Covenant and Aliens:Colonial Marines (just to kill that silly "worked because interactive game" argument) failed because they treated the alien as a byproduct.

To answer "exactly what new can you do with it": The problem isn't that "people are tired of seeing the alien kill people"; The problem is people are tired of seeing directors not caring about how the alien kills people, but rather about new things that don't even work. Alien:Resurrection failed because of the Newborn; Prometheus failed because of its own new ideas not being implemented well (the alien barely was even a part of that film); Covenant failed because of both new ideas not being implemented well and the alien being shoehorned in. Those films don't fail because people are tired of the alien - they fail because of just about everything else. The alien is the one thing people keep coming back for, in case nobody noticed.

[Ingwar]

Scott doesn't understand that. He ain't fanboy.

[SuicideDoors]

All you guys who think that the beast is not done, exactly what new can you do with it? How many variations of the chestburster and the aliens jumping on people can we have? How would this be any different than what we've already seen, 30+ years ago? Do you really believe that people would show up for a "more of everything" remake of Aliens or that the reason the new films were not super hits was the lack of Giger corridors and an aesthetic that's 40 years old?

Ultimately that's not our job. We can talk with our money as cinemagoers but we're not paid to invent new scenarios involving the Alien character. Covenant didn't make as much money as Fox had hoped for but $240million ain't too shabby for a film that was shredded by audiences word of mouth.

The look and shape of the Alien is iconic and we're gonna get further instalments whether Ridley Scott thinks it is played out or not. Hopefully the next scribe is inventive enough to avoid yet another retread of Covenant's last 15 minutes and the next director has enough flair to present the Alien as extra-terrestrial and not a killer hard-on bug.

It's a shame at that roundtable Ridley couldn't acknowledge twice in a row we've been spoonfed dumb, illogical character decisions and maybe we're really burned out by that.

I don't understand why people keep blaming the poor alien for terrible script writing. At the end of the day, the alien is just an awesome monster that kills people. It's a prop. Blaming it for being "cooked" is the same as blaming the failure of your film on a gun or a ship.

To bring this analogy closer to home: no director is complaining about how Zombies are "cooked", or Godzilla, or King Kong, or Vampires, or any other movie monster, really. Why are there no "Rogue AI that wants to destroy humanity is cooked" claims? When those things are used correctly, They work; They fail spectacularly when they are used as a gimmick.

The Alien worked in Alien:Isolation because it was used correctly: The developers did a great job recreating the feel of the original film in terms of aesthetics, emphasis on sound and even the story set pieces (takes a while before the alien is introduced, don't waste time on having it introduced via its life cycle, when the alien is introduced, it's a true menace), and most importantly, they built the game mechanics to recreate that fear of the alien even when the alien is not present. In short, Alien:Isolation worked so well because the game was built around making the alien work; Covenant and Aliens:Colonial Marines (just to kill that silly "worked because interactive game" argument) failed because they treated the alien as a byproduct.

To answer "exactly what new can you do with it": The problem isn't that "people are tired of seeing the alien kill people"; The problem is people are tired of seeing directors not caring about how the alien kills people, but rather about new things that don't even work. Alien:Resurrection failed because of the Newborn; Prometheus failed because of its own new ideas not being implemented well (the alien barely was even a part of that film); Covenant failed because of both new ideas not being implemented well and the alien being shoehorned in. Those films don't fail because people are tired of the alien - they fail because of just about everything else. The alien is the one thing people keep coming back for, in case nobody noticed.

Absolutely well said!

[Alienon]

You wrong Ridley, you so wrong.

[Rudiger]

I don't understand why people keep blaming the poor alien for terrible script writing. At the end of the day, the alien is just an awesome monster that kills people. It's a prop. Blaming it for being "cooked" is the same as blaming the failure of your film on a gun or a ship.

Exactly. Same goes for Jaws. The original was brilliant, the sequels sucked... but not because of the shark.