Scott: We are going to make another Alien movie

[Huggs]

The behavior between the two films is indeed different, but, I think definitely fits the needs of both films perfectly. Whatever the reasons, the creatures in both films and their behavior was right for the stories being told. I'm glad the first alien wasn't like Cameron's creature, and I'm all for trying a new approach, just so long as we don't know where the freakin things are next time.

[The Cruentus]

I'm not saying one person gets credit in a film, that's stupid. I'm saying it is the movie we're obsessing over because it involved the entire crew. You take an O'Bannon out of the equation of production, you lose quite a lot. Even if his drafts were pretty hokey, the ominous story beats are still there.

Damn right. And that is something that is forgotten too often in my opinion.

Indeed, I was saying something similar in another thread. Basically how Alien was good because it had all the different "ingredients"  which Covenant lacked. People too often forget the Ridley Scott isn't the sole creator. I strongly believe in giving credit where credit is due.

...
I don't know why he wants something new on par with the Xenomorph.
...

The biggest change that occurred with the xenomorph was when Cameron got hold of it. Suddenly it became a savage, animalistic beast, an interpretation quite different from Scott's original concept:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmGzYjJYvU4

You can't tell me this is the same xeno (in terms of behaviour) that we see in Aliens, or any of the subsequent stories. Alien 3, Alien:Res, AvP, even Alien Isolation, followed Cameron's lead on xeno behaviour. i.e. Physically dynamic sprinting and leaping acrobatics, crawling on vertical surfaces, snarling, slashing, etc.

Of course, this is a deleted scene so Cameron has the excuse (just as with the deletion of egg-morphing) that anything not used in the theatrical release is fair game for a re-write.

But I find it interesting that in Covenant even Scott followed suit. Apparently, contrary to what he has said on the matter, in making the prequels he really was influenced by all the other entries in the franchise.

Don't you wonder what the hell Scott would have come up with if he had made the Alien '79 sequel, not Cameron? Something that respected the original O'Bannon/Shusett concept of an alien whose lethality is due to its rampant sex drive and (literally) bestial urge to mate.

TC

***EDIT: I just re-read this and it sounds like I'm dissing Cameron and Aliens. This is not my intention. I love Alien. I love Aliens. But because of this disparity in the two concepts of the xeno (in behaviour, I stress), I've always thought of Aliens as a kind of reboot.

Cameron's Aliens are not that different from the first, they are both animals, they are both savage and they both move slowly and deliberately as well. The difference, other than the slight design change, is budget/the suits. The suits in Aliens were designed so that the wearer had more movement whereas the first Alien suit was encumbersome, I think the poor guy couldn't even sit down sometimes.
In Aliens, the wearers could now perform faster and more acrobatic movements which the previous suit could not, its all about limitations. So when the Warriors were not being stalker-like, they could jump, walk on walls and ceilings and move much more fluidly. Scott would later have his new Xenomorph be just as energetic if not moreso in Covenant. I am willing to bet if he had the budget and better suits, Scott too would have shown it more faster or at least more acrobatic.

[PsyKore]

I don't know why he wants something new on par with the Xenomorph.

Because he's a filmmaker.  I suspect he wants to do new stuff rather than repeating himself.

Yeah I can understand that, but from my opinion I feel like it's a case of trying to reinvent the wheel. Honestly, I think he just needs to focus on great execution of what he already has to work with.

[OpenMaw]

Personally I think the damage is done by this point, but the smartest move would be to go back to what made the first film work so well and that was the sense of realism at play for the time. Make a simple story/framework and get some really strong character actors in it, and make a scary science fiction film. Don't even try to dance with the weirder stuff.

[SM]

What made the first movie work was a low tech environment, setting it apart from Star Trek or 2001, and the monster's life cycle which is beyond clichéd by this point after being copied and referenced so many times.

[NetworkATTH]

What made the first movie work was a low tech environment, setting it apart from Star Trek or 2001, and the monster's life cycle which is beyond clichéd by this point after being copied and referenced so many times.

I think it could work if they beat the f**k out of a ship enough traveling through space with no need to return to Earth, Earth being too expensive yada yada. You end up with these ships made up of duct tape. I mean you could do it, but you would have to completely destroy it to kingdom come and have it barely be usable, and use that as a plot point. A red alarm klaxon blares half circling a mess hall, but it malfunctions at random times. And you only get small glimpses of the alien sniffing around, breathing.

I mean you're right, but having a ship that's even more beat up than the Nostromo would be a fascinating setting you can do a lot with

[OpenMaw]

What made the first movie work was a low tech environment, setting it apart from Star Trek or 2001, and the monster's life cycle which is beyond clichéd by this point after being copied and referenced so many times.

There are other aspects that could be matured from Alien without going into the wacky wacky woo-woo land that the prequels did.

Just one simple tweak that comes up in 30 seconds is, we've had "Truckes in space", and "Vietnam soldiers in space" but there are other similar motifs that could be played with in that vein without being exactly the same.

[SM]

Yep.  Prisoners in space, oh no wait.  Pirates in space!  No, no, hang on.  Scientists?

Colonists?

Oh, I know!  How about just average US middle American townsfolks - but not in space - ON EARTH!!





I'll get my coat.

[Highland]

We've still got future Earth to play with, I dunno why somebody just doesn't go there. The company got it back - it gets out.

Set it in a Blade Runner esk future environment, we've got ourselves a film.

[OpenMaw]

I'll get my coat.

Tell me it's a bright yellow raincoat that makes an awkward amount of "squish" noises when you move.

We've still got future Earth to play with, I dunno why somebody just doesn't go there. The company got it back - it gets out.

Set it in a Blade Runner esk future environment, we've got ourselves a film.

To my mind Gateway Station was the ideal setting for Alien 3. Anchorpoint in the Gibson drafts was fairly close to what I had in mind. Something that is cut from similar thematic elements as Alien in terms of design and characters, but not a replication. They're mostly blue collar workers and civilians and scientists who are put into extraordinary circumstance.

[SM]

Just like dragging your thumb across a balloon.

[The Cruentus]

I'll get my coat.

Tell me it's a bright yellow raincoat that makes an awkward amount of "squish" noises when you move.

We've still got future Earth to play with, I dunno why somebody just doesn't go there. The company got it back - it gets out.

Set it in a Blade Runner esk future environment, we've got ourselves a film.

To my mind Gateway Station was the ideal setting for Alien 3. Anchorpoint in the Gibson drafts was fairly close to what I had in mind. Something that is cut from similar thematic elements as Alien in terms of design and characters, but not a replication. They're mostly blue collar workers and civilians and scientists who are put into extraordinary circumstance.

Gateway station would definitely make a good setting, it worked well in rebellion's avp game, and Isolation had sevastopol station. The good thing about stations is that its big enough to get lost in yet still retains small, claustrophobic hallways. Plus a station like Sevastopol is out of the way and fairly isolated, especially because the travel routes changed I think, which is one of the reason the station failed.

[tleilaxu]

We've still got future Earth to play with, I dunno why somebody just doesn't go there. The company got it back - it gets out.

Set it in a Blade Runner esk future environment, we've got ourselves a film.

It gets out and what then, gets killed by a couple of Weyland Yutani guards? Sounds pretty underwhelming.

[KillCrites]

Personally I think the damage is done by this point, but the smartest move would be to go back to what made the first film work so well and that was the sense of realism at play for the time. Make a simple story/framework and get some really strong character actors in it, and make a scary science fiction film. Don't even try to dance with the weirder stuff.

Actually I want even weirder stuff than Covenant. I want Fox to get really experimental and produce the most off-the-wall insane Alien movie possible.

[NetworkATTH]

I have a serious problem with pointless destruction of a city environment in an Alien movie. Alien is about the remoteness of space and preventing that from happening. For the alien to reach Earth and start wrecking shit would kind of defeat the purpose of Alien. Shit is about deep space, empty, ominous, deep space, with a small ship on an unremarkable planetoid moon orbiting a gas giant. Wailing its ghostly transmission for anyone to come near like a siren song.

Now I doubt it would be like Eric Red's script, but I could see it quickly going out of control into that, or don't get me started on AVP:R. Aliens and Earth do not mix. Ya can't have your x and eat your y too.

That said it works great for predator, but ever since the introductory titles rolled for the first movie it told you what this movie and its sequels was about. The closest "official" attack on a "town" you could call it was Hadley's Hope, and we didn't need to see what happened because the horror levels would be comically over the top. All you needed to know what they cleaned house. The main three are about Ripley protecting Earth from this dragon, and in the end she succeeds. I can't imagine a way they get to a big city without disclosure of their existence being known to the public rapidly, or how it fits with Ripley's arc as a character as a martyr and a kind of Jean of Arc figure, that despite ultimately dying, she won in the end.

Having aliens rampage through a ground based city just sounds like it could get a bit too Gremlins 2 unintentionally. Now on a space station, that's good shit.  Gibson's Anchorpoint (second draft) and Sevestapol were both spectacular ways to deal with the problem. Particularly the latter. It adds the dimension of not being able to escape, being claustrophobic, trapped, and while acid wasn't part of the deal in A:I; introduce that as well. A scared population with guns in a fairly well populated space station to test what would happen. That would be interesting if not a retread.

I just think part of the horror of Alien is the fact it takes place far enough away from Earth trapped, with an absurdly limited time limit to give someone in the audience a stroke. It's a good formula