Amph On Earth, Everyone Can Hear You Scream: The Prometheus / Alien Discussion Thread (Romulus)

So I am to understand it's over with Covenant? No Alien Awakening? I mean, more films from Disney and all but.

 

Covenant to me really suffered from being pulled in two directions, both looking to return to the horror aspect of the original and focusing on Davids character and for me didn't do full justice to either. Its true David was by far the most interesting character in Prometheus but after Covenant he seems to have become a bit more generic "robot who develops a god complex and turns on his creators" to the degree I'm not sure theres the same interest in seeing more of him.

As I said in the Terminator thread I do feel all of these franchises(Terminator, Alien, Predator) have suffered from focusing on building up this extended lore to appeal to fans in a geekish fashion. The originals were all fairly simple concepts that made it much easier to hang a good dramatic story on them.

Robocop I spose scoured people on reboots but honestly that was always a franchise linked to a certain era/style that was going to struggle updated. I would be much more interested in seeing Alien given to a quality director/cast to reboot, don't think its as tied to a certain era/style and always had more mainstream credibility plus I think room to rework the concepts/ideas a bit. Give it to someone like Jonathan Glazer(maybe using Johansson again if she's done with the MCU by then) for example and keep the budget relatively modest so it doesn't have to end up too bland to get an ultra wide appeal and I'd be a lot more interested. I mean remaking horror films for a different era used to be something with credibility, Bodysnatchers, The Thing, The Fly, etc so I don't see why it couldn't be again.

 

There's two 40th anniversary articles by Variety and Hollywood Reporter that those quotes came from. Good reads, the THR one has the best quote that is so very Ridley Scott

“I wasn't too popular with some of the actors because I’d say, ‘If it catches you, it's going to take your head off and stick it in a dark place. That's your motivation.’ I wanted it to be very icy in terms of, ’It’s only this.’ I don't want to know about where you came from, who your mum and dad was, all that crap. I avoided all that conversation. They didn't like that. But, you know, at that moment, I'm responsible for the film.”

Also later on in the article Scott reveals one of his production tricks to enhance the scale of the set, put two of his kids and one of the cameraman's kids in spacesuits so it looks bigger - good ole' child labour!

 

I agree. It feels like Scott wanted to do his android story a la Blade Runner, but the studio wants more xenomorph bloodiness. I'll say Covenant is one of those ones were I liked individual scenes, perhaps moreso than in Prometheus, but Prometheus felt more consistent and cohesive, if that makes any sense.

I made my own retrospective on Alien for it's 40th, and intend to do a look at the fan-made shorts once they're all out, if they aren't already. Between those and the high school play, it does feel that it's these sorts of projects giving the series it's share lately.

 

here's the playlist of the shorts, still haven't seen them but there's 6 of them now so that would be at least a solid hour or so

 

Yes I wouldn't disagree with that, I mean relative to the other franchises I mentioned I do think Alien has benefited from Scott still being a director of quality(even if I don't think its at the level of the late 70's/early 80's anymore) were as Predator/Terminator have had the feeling of "B-grade" around their productions for me for years however large the budgets might be. Still they seem like films were he isn't totally in the driving seat, where the studios have significant control over the writing process resulting in the confused and questionable work we've gotten.

Maybe its going to take a really significant flop for this culture to finally die off and a quality director to really be given a free hand in the franchises again.

 

Remember when everyone criticized this from Prometheus...




In real life during a panic...

 

Happy Alien Day!



While this video is set against a background of Stirring Dramatic Inspirational Music, I did find it odd that the Feel Good Music hit a climax point when they showed the chestburster ripping out of Kane. I mean, maybe it was a good moment for the baby Alien but everyone else not so much. Anyway, fun to see fans still out there and like Disney said it's highly improbable they'll just keep this franchise on the shelf.

 

So with all the news that has dropped tonight I’m not surprised this one went unnoticed.

 

Yes.

 

It'll be interesting if they try to incorporate Prometheus/ Covenant mythology into the show if it's on Earth and not too far in the future. Scott is apparently going to be involved somehow so we'll see what happens.

Anyway, Hawley, so I'm expecting chestburster musical numbers or something like Spaceballs at one point hahah

this season of Fargo Hawley had some good existential horror monster dread creeping at the corners like something from Legion so I expect him to lean into that.

 

Both near future and Earth as settings are off putting to me, and I don’t care about continuity at all and I don’t think any Alien projects should care either.

 

The Alien RPG makes good use of pretty much all the Alien material, including Isolation.

 

The answer is pretty obvious. Because an Alien series can be cool all by itself, with nothing to do with anything that came before. If you're asking why a series instead of a movie, well, because I think the franchise would work well in a series.

The story in Prometheus and Covenant is total trash and not worth caring about, much less connecting to.

 

It's not just Aliens, I'm expecting/hoping for Androids too so maybe we'll get some Weyland beta-version Androids, probably origins since the timeline is Earth/not too far future. Like the Nostromo crew was surprised Ash was an android but they weren't apparently surprised at the existence of androids. Also whenever I watch Rasied by Wolves and they have white blooded androids I keep mentally retcon-ing head canon-ing it into the Alien-verse.

 

The 'official' timeline (which I know can be altered/ignored) has Wayland inventing their prototype atmospheric processors in 2016 - effectively saving the planet from global warming - and builds the first android in 2025. The first interstellar spaceship is built in 2034.

 

Prometheus and Covenant are the two most frustrating genre films in memory. I LOVE David as a character; and unlike many, am keen on the conceit that the Alien is the masterpiece of a nihilist raging against God, the Engineers and Man.

But everything else about those movies is so riddled with flaw upon flaw...I just can't reconcile the brilliance with the mediocrity. It's the rare occasion where I would happily read a well-written fan-fiction reconception, just to get a perfected version of a nifty idea.

 

I really liked Prometheus. I understand why people criticize it, the lore doesn't connect very directly to the original trilogy and the scares get kinda goofy at times, but I thought the performances were great, and the themes are the most interesting of the franchise. It's also just a beautifully crafted film, and one of the few post-Avatar films that looked amazing in 3D.

Not going to get my hopes up for Disney Alien, but it's piqued my curiosity. Is Scott going to be a producer for it? I enjoyed his HBO series Raised By Wolves.

 

Prometheus was ok. So was Covenant. But for me after the first 2 it's a downhill slope. The first 2 are in my top 10 of all time.