What was wrong with having a direct prequel

[whiterabbit]

imo they're saving the space jockey on lv-426 for Prometheus 2.

[NGR01]

To put it quite simply, we already know how it will end, and Ridley wanted to surprise us with something new instead.

By ending it like AVP?
With a xeno like creature screaming at the audience.
What a surpise indeed.

Thats is the problem here.
I'm all in for not reahashing Alien or ending up with the Derelict on LV426 but then give me something really original.
Not a jason X and AVP ending.

The only thing that's cool with the ending is where Shaw is going.
But if the movie is not a success we will never get to see it or we will see it but it will not be from Scott but from some new hype hack self proclamed PROMETHEUS ultimate fan.

[szkoki]

maybe Scott havent seen avp

[escroto]

The SJ in ALIEN probably happened due to this;

Spoiler

They left the base to terraform LV-426, but were already (possibly unknowingly) infected by the bioweapon they were creating there on LV-223. The engineer-burster hatched upon landing and there you go.

[close]

Man I don't think that the infection going on inside old Jockey's body was unbeknownst to him. I think he landed over there, and while loading the eggs in the Derelict something went f**ked up big time. All eggs were opened (but the ones that were under the last working stasis field, as we can see in A L I E N) and the jockey had to face, not just one facehugger but hundreds, maybe thousands.

I think the problem there in that cave where the jockeys had the eggs in store was very clearly related to the stasis fields. I mean, all of them somehow stopped working, but the one we saw in alien, thus all facehuggers detected the pressence of a living being over there (the jockey) and went after him

[Gash]

Spoiler tags are a wonderful thing, people should use them more often.

[Darth Vile]

Guys, I just read an official review that actually was unhappy that the ending to Prometheus is linked to ALIEN. The reviewer mentioned that the movie was moving along nicely until when Ridley created scenes that tie it to ALEN.The reviewer was happy that the movie at first had an original feel to it.

Now, that's weird!

I don't think that's weird at all as I feel exactly the same i.e. the less overt references to the xeno the better. Now if they were making a movie specifically about the xeno I'd say go for it...

From reading the reviews thus far, it seems that the movie attempts to be both original and yet familiar... and achieves neither. A consequence, it seems, of maybe referencing Alien too much (although I'll try and hold my judgement tll tomorrow).

[Xenomorphine]

What's wrong with finding out who the SJ in Alien was, why he landed on LV, what came out of him, why and how he was infected, what laid the eggs on the derelict, who sent the distress signal, etc etc

I know many of you were against it and wanted a different story and I have never understood why.

There's nothing wrong with revealing any of that, necessarily. But it could all be done through flashbacks and the like, leading into a completely new story.

The problem with doing a prequel is that, by doing so, you paint yourself into a corner. You know there isn't going to be any meaningful threat to Earth and you know that any cosmic mysteries are going to stay with the characters on screen. In fact, you also know that they're all either going to die or remain otherwise unknown to humanity, as a whole.

Hence, certain things hyped in the adverts don't have any resonance, because there are no emotional stakes. By setting it earlier within a given continuity, the audience already knows what are foregone conclusions.

It's one of the major problems with 'Requiem: Everyone knew the Predator wasn't ever going to be in danger of major injuries, let alone death, because it was given out early on that only one of them would be running around. It made every single confrontation with the Aliens feel very by-the-numbers.

Same thing with this. They're making out in the adverts that Earth is going to be in peril, but... We know it won't. It's clearly trying to evoke this famous advert, which made many of us so hopeful and excited, back in the 1990s:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk_x9W1xKng#ws

But we know that all the action needs to be confined to the planet/planetoid dealt with in the film.

Only do a prequel when it's necessary. Otherwise, just do a sequel. It liberates you from preconceptions.

[Mustangjeff]

There are ways to explain the original SJ in ALIEN while still having an original story, but it might be easier in a Prometheus sequel now that we have some background information on the Engineers in place. 

[RoaryUK]

There are ways to explain the original SJ in ALIEN while still having an original story, but it might be easier in a Prometheus sequel now that we have some background information on the Engineers in place.

Spoiler

Agreed...plus I'll also add, while P2 could still answer the real Jockey question taking us towards Alien, there's no reason why it can't then just go off somewhere else on its own. It really now depends on hows it's developed, any ideas would certainly need to be something special and new characters must surely come into it.  I can't really see past a P2 with just David  (the head) and Shaw, while hopefully the Xeno at the end merely serves as some distraction.

[close]

[Xenomorphine]

SPOILER TAGS, PEOPLE.

As someone who has been avoiding revealed information, I really hope you were joking around with some of that information, Roary. Because you just gave away something huge, if not.

[fiveways]

Direct prequels suck because you are generally trying to pack too much story into too little time.  Plus for a direct "Alien" prequel, you probably shouldn't have the human race involved in it.  Which they would.  And that would suck.  Either that or they would make

Spoiler

Shaw the Jockey on LV-426

[close]

.  Is that something you would like to see?  Cause I think that is even dumber.

You can't make a movie without any human characters in it.  Test markets need something to relate to.  If everything in it is slightly off and there is no one they[the audience] can see themselves as you lose them.  No one will fund it.  Sad fact there.

Also, you haven't seen it and are basing it on spoilers.  Which is just silly.  You might love it.  If you based alien on spoilers it sounds like a roger corman shitfest.

"Plot holes" don't bother me.  I like them actually.  It feels like real life if you leave a ton of shit unexplained.  A story should never tie everything together.  Some might call it sloppy writing, i call it realism.  The more you tie together the less realistic it gets.  As i get older [i'm 35] I have more questions then i have answers.  And 99% of them will never get answered.  Movies should be more like that.  The tighter the writer, the less real it is.  I like lots of open ended things.  I like movies to breath.

But I am also kinda against the "visual book" idea that movies became.  Alien is great because it is a paper thin plot based on the images they use.  As a book without a lot of padding like the novel version, it can barely exist.  Sometimes for a movie that is perfect.

Or alternatively, you are an alien, on earth,  in a 2 hour movie and you walk into a church [kinda like shaw and the temple with the xeno and the giant head].  You see Jesus on the cross and a bunch of stain glass windows.  How long are you going to spend explaining everything in the scene?  You're not.  It is background filler [and in prometheus it has some wink wink nudge nudge going on].

[Mustangjeff]

There are ways to explain the original SJ in ALIEN while still having an original story, but it might be easier in a Prometheus sequel now that we have some background information on the Engineers in place.

Spoiler

Agreed...plus I'll also add, while P2 could still answer the real Jockey question taking us towards Alien, there's no reason why it can't then just go off somewhere else on its own. It really now depends on hows it's developed, any ideas would certainly need to be something special and new characters must surely come into it.  I can't really see past a P2 with just David  (the head) and Shaw, while hopefully the Xeno at the end merely serves as some distraction.

[close]

We need a P2 plot speculation thread

Spoiler

I see your point.  You have to introduce new characters since everyone except for Shaw and busted David is dead.  There should be a power vacuum back on earth when Vickers and Weyland turn up MIA.  At this time we get Weyland-Yutani merger, and the new board uncovers the Prometheus project documents.  Maybe the new company sends out a another ship to LV-223 to investigate and they discover the missing juggernaut?

We would also have the Shaw and David plotline running concuurently.  At some point the two plotlines intersect

[close]

[harlock]

@ escroto

Spoiler

Whilst it was said before that the SJ found the xeno eggs on LV-426 and loaded them up, I wonder how much of that is ret-conned in Prometheus, although potentially the SJ could have been sent to find xeno eggs for the Engineers to bioengineer into their black goo. Then the shiz hit the fan.

The real question is whether the xenos really were indigenous to LV-426 and were genetically experimented on within the bases of LV-223 or were actually a bioweapon created on the latter moon. It could be either.

[close]

[Mohawksinspace]

Guys, I just read an official review that actually was unhappy that the ending to Prometheus is linked to ALIEN. The reviewer mentioned that the movie was moving along nicely until when Ridley created scenes that tie it to ALEN.The reviewer was happy that the movie at first had an original feel to it.

Now, that's weird!

Why is it weird that someone would want a new experience and not the same creature for the 6th time.

Direct prequels suck because you are generally trying to pack too much story into too little time.  Plus for a direct "Alien" prequel, you probably shouldn't have the human race involved in it.  Which they would.  And that would suck.  Either that or they would make

Spoiler

Shaw the Jockey on LV-426

[close]

.  Is that something you would like to see?  Cause I think that is even dumber.

You can't make a movie without any human characters in it.  Test markets need something to relate to.  If everything in it is slightly off and there is no one they[the audience] can see themselves as you lose them.  No one will fund it.  Sad fact there.

Also, you haven't seen it and are basing it on spoilers.  Which is just silly.  You might love it.  If you based alien on spoilers it sounds like a roger corman shitfest.

"Plot holes" don't bother me.  I like them actually.  It feels like real life if you leave a ton of shit unexplained.  A story should never tie everything together.  Some might call it sloppy writing, i call it realism.  The more you tie together the less realistic it gets.  As i get older [i'm 35] I have more questions then i have answers.  And 99% of them will never get answered.  Movies should be more like that.  The tighter the writer, the less real it is.  I like lots of open ended things.  I like movies to breath.

But I am also kinda against the "visual book" idea that movies became.  Alien is great because it is a paper thin plot based on the images they use.  As a book without a lot of padding like the novel version, it can barely exist.  Sometimes for a movie that is perfect.

Or alternatively, you are an alien, on earth,  in a 2 hour movie and you walk into a church [kinda like shaw and the temple with the xeno and the giant head].  You see Jesus on the cross and a bunch of stain glass windows.  How long are you going to spend explaining everything in the scene?  You're not.  It is background filler [and in prometheus it has some wink wink nudge nudge going on].

Truth!

[cossack0909]

Guys, I just read an official review that actually was unhappy that the ending to Prometheus is linked to ALIEN. The reviewer mentioned that the movie was moving along nicely until when Ridley created scenes that tie it to ALEN.The reviewer was happy that the movie at first had an original feel to it.

Now, that's weird!

Why is it weird that someone would want a new experience and not the same creature for the 6th time.

To me , it's weird because there are fans saying that the movie did not tie in to ALIEN directly. Yet, the reviewer commented the movie did tie in to ALIEN and he was unhappy because of that.

Another official reviewer was unhappy because the movie did not link to ALIEN very well.

People are perceiving it either as a tie in movie or not a tie in movie.

Weird.