Quote from: Protozoid on Jul 01, 2017, 02:33:03 AM
I don't hate Ridley Scott or Pietro Scalia, but they do sometimes frustrate me. Scott would be the first person to admit that he sometimes cuts too much footage from his movies, and Scalia frequently mentions wanting movies to be under two hours. When that harms the final product, the blame will inevitably be placed at their feet where it belongs.
Look. This is unfair. It doesn't belong at their feet that an R-rated film needs to be 2 hours. Ridley is actually looking out for the fans, trying to make sure the film warrants a sequel. If anything you should place blame at the feet of the monopoly of Multiplexes, which have such a vast overhead, they cant make any money unless a film is rated PG13. Many of you dont remember a time when Multiplexes didnt exist. The really took over in the late 90s.
It also doesnt belong at their feet when Fox wants this or that cut. They are contractually obligated to deliver a marketable product for the studio, and the studio has a lot of say in what is in or changed all along. In fact, Covenant and Prometheus took a great deal of risks in their story for franchise films like this. Like David and Walter kissing for instance, and abortion med pod scenes. We owe those types of things to Scott's playing ball with the studio, in areas like these. They trust him because he knows what has to be done.
Furthermore, if there are issues with the runtime its not with the editing, its with the script. A 2-hour script should turn in at around 120 pages. IE Approx 1 page per minute. But a director and an editor can slow the pace down here or there to make things play better. This is why some acts are playing better than others in Covenant and Prometheus. Its in the JOB DESCRIPTION of an editor to make the best R-Rated film he can with the material that was shot, while not messing with the script too much (without approval from the studio, NOT just Scott) while making that come in at the 2 hour mark. These are the kinds of stipulations placed on R-rated films, and they are made by the constraints of the film industry. Any exception to that rule is just an exception proving the rule.
If anything, what you should be thinking is: Make the screenwriters turn in something around 100 pages so the editor and director can slow it down and flesh it out. As an example of this at work - 'ALIEN' for instance is 112 pages. The film is a bit over 2 hours. That extra 8 or so pages are minutes Ridley being allowed to burn slowly in the runtime. It builds tension. Prometheus was 116 pages I believe, and I would argue that like this film, Ridley likes to slow burn some stuff. Meaning, that what normally amounts to 1 minute is 1 page, but Ridley likes to crawl, build tension... He is making some things written as a single page amount to longer than 1 min of screentime, and thats how we end up with something like the first Act of Covenant being longer and better than the rest of the film, because it takes over an hour in Covenant to get to Act 2, and to move along then they have no time to play with the last 2 acts. You see? Act 1 is 1 hour, and its better, but then they have 1 hour left to blow through the next 2 acts.
So if anything: the script needs to be shorter.
Aaaaand
This actually highlights what I think the major difference b/w Alien and its Prequels is, and why the run time is a problem for them. Because they are telling more complicated stories. Unlike Alien, which is very minimal and it can take its time. Prometheus and Covenant have alot more ground to cover in the same runtime.
This is why the scripts need to be shorter.