The "Prometheus" trilogy

[_____V_____]

The good news? Ridley Scott is making a new Alien movie.

The bad news? It's going to be in 3-D.

How, exactly, is that bad news?

Because Alien 5 (or whatever it's going to be called -- probably not Alien 5), is supposed to completely revive the franchise. That means restoring the series' artfulness. Here's the deal -- the Predator series, while cool, is a macho B-movie action franchise (one wouldn't mind seeing that in 3-D, honestly). When you mix Alien with Predator, you don't get a highbrow Predator film, you get a dumb actioner with Aliens in it. And that's just fine for AVP, but for the stand-alone Alien series, no matter how dull it got in Alien 3 or how comic booky it got in Alien Resurrection, the series has always maintained a deliberate measure of artsy panache. There's something almost indefinably elegant about the franchise, even at its clumsiest.

An Alien prequel feels unnecessary, but the fact that Ridley Scott, the director of the first and best (you know this in your heart to be true) Alien film was coming on-board to direct had fans thinking that the series would return to something quieter, more adult, less interested in pleasing fans of a blast-em-up video game.

Now, Shadow Locked is reporting that the prequel will be shot in glorious three-dimensions.

Ugh.

Is there anything about 3-D that strikes you as elegant?

Does this seem like a step toward making the upcoming film capture some of Scott's original creeping tone of pitch-black dread?

It sounds like more kid's stuff in the beloved Alien franchise; more of a catering to the youth market than re-selling to the adult audience that declared the original a modern classic. The mere fact that it's a prequel is gimmick enough. Fans don't need another gimmick on top of the gimmick. It's tacky, and the Alien series has never been tacky.

[milktoaste]

Elegant, no. But it comes as no suprise that an Alien movie would be made in 3-D. The Aliens were practically made for it, with there long limbs and retractable jowls, it was only a matter of time.

I've never really been a big fan of 3-D movies, too gimmicky, and usually feels like a bandaid for a shitty movie. (Going to see Alice, maybe that one will be better)

[Deimos]

sigh.....running out of idea's are we!??!!!

[_____V_____]

(via Hitfix & Collider)

Earlier today, Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe sat for an eight-person roundtable during the Los Angeles press day for "Robin Hood," and before the press conference began, the famed director sat and chatted about his recovery from recent knee surgery and how glad he is to not be shooting while he's still on the mend. Crowe was running a few minutes behind him, so talk turned to what Scott might be up to next, with many of us guessing that we knew for sure what his next film would be.

He didn't even make us ask. He just shrugged.

Ridley Scott: Alien, yeah. We’re doing that now. We’re on the fourth draft. It’s alright; it’s pretty good…

There has been a lot of talk about you doing that in 3D.

Ridley Scott: Of course, it’ll be 3D.

Are you going to use the James Cameron 3D cameras?

Scott: No, I think they’ve already moved beyond. Jim said that this technique, which had taken them four years, he’d said that now you could do it in two. Technology’s shifting all the time. I could have converted Robin Hood. They’d said last October, I could have squeezed it under the hammer and got it in as a 3D version of Robin Hood.

But doesn’t it make more sense to compose in 3D?

Scott: It’s not a big deal. People always agonize whether it’s 1.85 or 2.35 and I don’t really give a shit. It’s your eye and how you’re going to fill the frame. If you’ve got an eye, it’s not a problem. If you don’t have an eye, then they turn it into science. You’ve got a lot of conversations going on and that’s why it takes forever and it shouldn’t.

I’ve always heard you want as much light as possible.

Scott: That’s the downside.

But isn’t Alien almost the antithesis of that because the movies have always been about shadow and darkness and hiding things.

Scott: That’s what Jim said. The problem is you’ll have to grade it later. You’ll have to grit your teeth and light it not the way you’d like it. And then later, you’re gonna have to regrade it. Repaint it. In fact, Avatar, when you think about it, is almost a completely animated movie.

Can you now make an Alien movie that has the patience and same style as the first movie and it’ll still work for audiences?

Scott: I think it’ll work. Don’t you?

Yeah. The original still does. But I think audiences are now acclimated to things that have more energy.

Scott: But that’s 29 years ago that film. Now to say, “Do you want to recut it?” at the time, I thought, “Not really. Leave it alone. It is what it is.” But would things move faster today? Yeah. I had no technology at all. I had no digital technology at all. Even the ones that followed started to have tech. Like, digital rails and tracking. I had no computers at all. Alien was literally all physical. Even the spaceship, which would be about as big this table, you’d hang it from a wire and the camera would slowly push in underneath and you’d try and keep it steady as possible with a fan and a lot of dry ice blowing at it to give some sense of movement. That was it. It’s pretty good actually.

With all these movies like Titanic and Star Wars and Lord of the Rings possible going 3D, could you ever see yourself revisiting your previous films and doing a post production conversation? For example a Blade Runner?

Scott: You can virtually order it. I can go to a company saying, “Can you re-3D this?” It’d be quicker if I sat there and did it with them, which I would have. It’s when you’re grading a movie, I’ll sit there with a grader, we’ll flick to one scene, I’ll give ‘em two frames and say, “Like that.” You can do the whole film that way.

Has anyone come at you to consider converting any of your past films?

Scott: Yeah.

And your thoughts are?

Scott: Not really. I’d rather save that energy for something new. We could have done this in 3D, but everyone was so hesitant. We didn’t bother because the film’s good enough.

–

After the interview ended, we went back to asking about the Alien prequel:


You’re developing the Alien prequel, are you developing it as a series of films or a longer storyline?

Scott: It’ll be two. It’ll be prequel one and two. Then Alien 1.

Are you going to shoot the prequels together or shoot them separately?

Scott: At the moment I’m just trying to get the first one out.



While who knows if two films will ever happen, if you’re a fan of the Alien franchise, how can you not be excited?

Rub your hands together in glee for now, Alien fans.

[_____V_____]

(via IGN)

April 23, 2010 - Whether or not you think it's a good thing that an Alien prequel (or two prequels) is being made, said film is nonetheless happening.

The good news, one supposes, is that the original film's director Ridley Scott is behind the new picture. And he's just revealed lots of new details about the films.

MTV spoke to the helmer, who said that they're on the fourth draft or so of the script at the moment.

"It's a work in progress, but we're actually making the films," he says. "There's no question about it, we're going to make the films. … Now it's a matter of, how good can I get the screenplay in the next few weeks so I can get a good ballpark figure of what it will cost. I've already got people working graphically on designs for the various requirements of the films."

Scott explains that the picture is set in the year 2085, some 30 years before the first film, and will "fundamentally [be] about going out to find out, 'Who the hell was that Space Jockey?' The guy who was sitting in the chair in the Alien vehicle -- there was a giant fellow sitting in a seat on what looked to be either a piece of technology or an astronomer's chair. Remember that?"

Oh yes, we remember.

But do we really need to learn about that particular mystery? Wasn't that one of the most appealing aspects of Alien, the ambiguity of things like that?

Anyway, the filmmaker also indicates that Sigourney Weaver most likely won't be back for the films, but that the main character will be a woman.

Also, Scott doesn't seem to be much of a fan of the AvP films, and that fact may lead to a new look for the monsters in the prequel.

"The thing about Alien vs. Predator is, I know it's commerce, but what a pity," he says. "I think, therefore, I have to design -- or redesign -- earlier versions of what these elements are that led to the thing you finally see in Alien, which is the thing that catapults out of the egg, the face-hugger. … I don't want to repeat it. The Alien in a sense, as a shape, is worn out."

Scott also says he's hoping to have the first film in theaters by late 2011 or "maybe the best date - in 2012."

[ferretchucker]

I don't know about this...I trust his judgement but I really don't know about this. To me, the whole finding out who the Space Jockey was is a bit like when Rob Zombie said "We're gonna find out why Michael is how he is." Sometimes as a viewer, it's more unsettling to not know. And as soon as I see this film, whenever I rewatch the original I will know why that Space Jockey is there and suddenly that connection I have with Dallas, Kane and Lambert; sharing their curiosity and wonder...it's gone. :(

One of the best scenes of the films POTENTIALLY ruined...and in glorious 3D. :rolleyes:

[milktoaste]

Originally Posted by ferretchucker

I will know why that Space Jockey is there and suddenly that connection I have with Dallas, Kane and Lambert; sharing their curiosity and wonder...it's gone. :(

One of the best scenes of the films POTENTIALLY ruined...and in glorious 3D. :rolleyes:

I couldn't agree more. It's an amazing detail from the original that truely sparks the imagination. It's meanings and explanations are endless and wonderful, trully a shame to have it laid out on a platter now.

[_____V_____]

Sir Ridley Scott spoke between screenings of his genre classics Alien and Blade Runner during the ongoing Los Angeles Times Hero Complex Film Festival.

The director had a few words to say about his upcoming return to the franchise he created, with the 3-D Alien prequel -- or rather, prequels. Scott explained why there will be two of them; and that writing on the the first of the two has been completed.

"I watched the franchise zip along for the next twenty, thirty years. I let it go, because Blade Runner followed," Scott told a packed house at the Mann Chinese 6 in Hollywood. "I started thinking about the franchise, which now has died on the road somewhere. I thought, 'What I should do is go back and…' In the first Alien when John Hurt climbed up, looked over the horizon and said the immortal lines, 'Good God, what is this?' what we saw was appropriate for 'Good God,' because it was a massive giant lying in a chair, and the chair was either a form of engine or some future technology. I always thought, 'Nobody's asked, "Who is the [giant]?"' He's come to be called 'the space jockey.' I thought, 'Who the hell is the space jockey?' And so it's written and I'm prepping it now."

Scott explained his reasoning behind developing two prequels, which will take place long before the first Alien: "If you explain who he was and where he came from, then that will deal with the savagery of this version, which will be pretty savage. Then you may want to find out where they came from, the place where his people come from."

(***Mark Verheiden's 1990s comics (the adventures of Newt and Hicks after Aliens, before Alien 3 arrived and killed them off) did just this, suggesting that the Jockeys are badass warriors who intend to enslave humanity once they've finished with the Xenomorphs.***)

As far as the prequels' stories go, Scott hinted that there will be a deeper exploration of the science behind the world of Alien, a science he says is very much grounded in our own current technology.

"The first Alien was honestly The Old Dark House -- seven people in the old dark house with a visitor. This will go further into the world of terraforming. We're thinking about doing it. In fact, if Kennedy had been allowed to continue his space program, we'd probably be on Mars now with a population of nine-thousand people. That's how far we should have gone."

John Spaihts has written the screenplays, and the current due date for part one is late 2011.



What do you think? Are two Alien prequels a good or bad idea? Should Scott leave his masterpiece alone, or does he have a lot more to offer genre fans?

Contemplate for now, and wait till further news comes in.

[_____V_____]

Fresh from dusting off the bracken and pulling out rogue arrows from Robin Hood, Ridley Scott is turning his attention to the two-part Alien prequel.

The project has been germinating since that xeno-baby first popped jauntily out of John Hurt's chest back in 1979 and with Lost co-creator Damon Lindoff close to turning in a script and casting announcements presumably not too far off, Scott's vision for the Alien origin story(s) is coming together nicely.

"The film will be really tough, really nasty," he tells The Independent of the 3D two-parter. "It's the dark side of the moon. We are talking about gods and engineers. Engineers of space. And were the aliens designed as a form of biological warfare? Or biology that would go in and clean up a planet?"

Hmm... intriguing, if suitably vague, stuff.

The notion that the death-dealing xenomorphs are as much an instrument of a higher power as, say, the colonial marines has been part of the Alien mythology for years and seems a logical direction to take the prequels.

No mention of space jockeys yet but some friendly banter for his successor on the franchise. "Jim's raised the bar and I've got to jump to it," he says. "He's not going to get away with it."

Mr Cameron, consider yourself warned.

[Elvis_Christ]

The film will be really tough, really nasty

I'm sold and will be looking forward to checking these out.