Cameron on Alien Covenant

Started by 0321recon, Aug 10, 2017, 09:55:22 PM

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Cameron on Alien Covenant (Read 59,792 times)

Snake

Snake

#120
Ridley vs Cameron is like David vs Goliath, but we all know who won in the end...

I totally prefer Covenant over Avatar because it's darker, more violent and a hell of a lot less stupid overall. And it doesn't try to shove that forced on political  message about enviromental issues down your throat! haha ;)
It's also a far more realistic and believable movie. Fact!

IMO Cameron makes sci-fi that is suited 'for all ages', while Ridley is the more provocative director, changing movie history. He's not the man who will make a movie to please the masses and to earn big bucks, but just goes his own way instead. And I respect him for that.

SiL

SiL

#121
Ridley understands that films are a business and is absolutely interested in earning big bucks to ensure he stays in said business.

Snake

Snake

#122
Quote from: SiL on Aug 25, 2017, 02:48:40 AM
Ridley understands that films are a business and is absolutely interested in earning big bucks to ensure he stays in said business.

You're absolutely correct, but he's not trying to appeal to such a wide demographic as Cameron is what I'm trying to say.

SM

SM

#123
There seems to be this constant push to portray Ridley as some 'artiste' compared to other directors.

He started in advertising - he's all about the biz.  I'm sure he'd be well chuffed to get Cameron numbers.

Alionic

Alionic

#124
James Cameron is not a risk taker. He's whole career and style has been about spectacle, and he's been very successful at it. He's a Michael Bay who does not suck.

Snake

Snake

#125
Quote from: SM on Aug 25, 2017, 02:57:17 AM
There seems to be this constant push to portray Ridley as some 'artiste' compared to other directors.

He started in advertising - he's all about the biz.  I'm sure he'd be well chuffed to get Cameron numbers.

I also bet he'd like that, but the fact is he's not Cameron. He didn't direct the world-famous 'Titanic' or 'Terminator'. He just made a low-budget sci-fi horror movie in space about some Swiss monster which everybody loves nowadays...but not back then. I bet the majority of the general audience don't know any of his movies except for 'Gladiator'. You can't compare Ridley with Cameron, not only because Ridley doesn't have such a stable track record as the billion-dollar prodigy called Cameron , but also because Fox would never ever give him the same budget...which will severely limit him as a director. Please keep in mind that Covenant was made with a budget of only 100 million dollars; I was absolutely baffled when I first heard of this! But even so, it's a much better film than any of the AAA-titles released this year who had almost twice the budget. To me that's saying a lot about how well he knows his business.

My point is that any movie that has James Cameron in the credits would probably sell extremely well. But if he would have made Covenant it would have been another comicbook-like flick with big robots and simpleton soldiers to try to appeal to everyone between the age of 12 and 67 and it would have been forgotten pretty damn fast.

I highly doubt he'd ever use Michelangelo's David in any Alien-movie...


SM

SM

#126
Alien wasn't low budget, it quickly became an iconic film that still influences till this day in terms of the design, the monster and the heroine.

Universal gave Riddles $200m for Robin Hood and Fox gave him another $200m for Exodus.

BishopShouldGo

BishopShouldGo

#127
Ahh the condescension towards the "simple" Aliens never ends.

Aliens has more intelligence in its first 30 minutes than the Frankenstein'd Covenant's total runtime. Classical musical, statues, and dialogue about creation don't automatically make a film intelligent. And having people shoot guns and say one liners doesn't make a film unintelligent.

Highland

Highland

#128
Quote from: SM on Aug 25, 2017, 02:57:17 AM
There seems to be this constant push to portray Ridley as some 'artiste' compared to other directors.

He started in advertising - he's all about the biz.  I'm sure he'd be well chuffed to get Cameron numbers.

Indeed. I'm pretty sure John Carpenter responded with a similar answer when faced with the arty farty question about why the studio chose him... because they thought I'd make them a lot of money he responded.

SiL

SiL

#129
Quote from: Alionic on Aug 25, 2017, 03:36:54 AM
James Cameron is not a risk taker. He's whole career and style has been about spectacle, and he's been very successful at it. He's a Michael Bay who does not suck.
$100 million on a movie about a killer robot who's programmed to be a baby sitter for a kid being chased by a liquid metal man was a pretty big risk.

Alionic

Alionic

#130
Quote from: SiL on Aug 25, 2017, 05:04:56 AM
Quote from: Alionic on Aug 25, 2017, 03:36:54 AM
James Cameron is not a risk taker. He's whole career and style has been about spectacle, and he's been very successful at it. He's a Michael Bay who does not suck.
$100 million on a movie about a killer robot who's programmed to be a baby sitter for a kid being chased by a liquid metal man was a pretty big risk.

No it wasn't. It was an action film. Action films were the big budget blockbusters of the 80s and 90s; before superhero films came along.

And this isn't acknowledging how Cameron and Schwarzenegger were already household names at the time.

SM

SM

#131
It was the most expensive movie ever made up to that point - by a big margin.

That's a big risk.

Highland

Highland

#132
Was rated R too wasnt it? R Rated movies don't do well though...or something.

SM

SM

#133
It was.

SiL

SiL

#134
Quote from: Alionic on Aug 25, 2017, 05:28:55 AM
No it wasn't. It was an action film. Action films were the big budget blockbusters of the 80s and 90s; before superhero films came along.
It was the most expensive movie ever made using experimental, unproven technology and an R rating.

Just because action movies were popular doesn't mean they were a license to print money ::)

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