QuoteHe's far more influential than any 'quotable' film maker.
That's another statement I can't believe people would actually say with a straight face. If you honestly think Ridley Scott is more influential to filmmaking and society/pop-culture as a whole than James Cameron, whose movies invented photoshop, revolutionized CGI, revolutionized underwater filmmaking, revolutionized 3D filmmaking, and are largely regarded as the most popular action movies of all time, I don't know what to say.
Ridley Scott is known for four films - Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, and Black Hawk Down. As for the clothing and design thing, I suspect a lot of that "lived in" design could be traced back to Star Wars 2 years prior, not 'Alien'.
QuoteI think he's probably the most important director around
I don't see how anyone could honestly think this, especially since his last several movies weren't very good and there's plenty of other directors who are consistently better, and I'm not even talking "turn your brain off" popcorn movies. Hell, I suspect Ridley Scott would be the first one to admit it. He'd be flattered to think someone thought that of him, but I'm confident he wouldn't agree.
Danny Boyle, Chris Nolan, David Fincher, Guillermo del Toro, Neil Blomkamp, Clint Eastwood, Terry Gilliam, I'd put any of those higher than Ridley Scott if only because Scott's last several movies weren't very good and the last visually iconic, groundbreaking movie he did was Blade Runner, 30 years ago.
I mean, don't get me wrong. I like Ridley Scott when he does things well. Gladiator is one of my favorite movies. I just re-watched 'Alien' on bluray not 2 days ago and I still like it quite a bit. I'm borrowing 'Blade Runner' from a friend so I can re-watch it because I don't have my DVD handy. But some of these claims I'm seeing in this thread are some hardcore cognitive dissonance and hero-worship.