May 3, 2024
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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
One of these trailers is for a movie that respects its origins and source material, with a talented ensemble cast and a director that understands the genre. It looks moody and atmospheric, and both familiar yet original at the same time. It looks like it will be better than advertised, and quite successful with both critics and audiences alike.
The other trailer is for Dark Shadows.
bah, retconning is the devil
any hopes of another lean-and-mean sci-fi horror r scott flick evaporate more with each new grandiose space-gods ‘we did it to ourselves!’ forced-epic overwrought old-ass ridley reveal.
(dark shadows looked kinda funny for the first few seconds before it inexplicably goes ‘disco’)
So there for PROMETHEUS but the excessive CG physics are not promising.
The first PROMETHEUS trailer was amazing; it gave away just enough to make one LONG to see the film. This one gives away too much. It’s not quite one of those “gives away the whole movie” previews, but suddenly, I have doubts about the actual film. It certainly doesn’t seem like it has the sustained nightmarish quality of the original ALIEN or even BLADE RUNNER.
Prometheus trailer = A.
Well done. Well cut. I still don’t know shit about the story but it looks wonderfully freaky.
Dark Shadows = B-
Looks like Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, or any other hokey Tim Burton comedy. Not that i’m opposed to the idea, but Burton really is the most successful one trick pony in Hollywood.
Leah, again with the retcon talk???
I do not mean this in disrespect, but is it really fair to harp on that kind of thing? I mean, Alien was over 30 YEARS AGO – films were on a completely different stock back then and had a completely different look. There is no way, short of dirtying up the lens, and giving all of the actors shag haircuts/excessive facial hair, that Scott could have really tried to make this look that similar.
Don’t get me wrong, some recent sci fi films have sort of pulled off that dingy space truckers in space look…..Moon and Sunshine (almost) certainly comes to mind. But this is Ridley Scott with all of the tools and budget at his disposal – why the hell would he go out of his way to make the film look dingier? And sorry, the CRT screens and retro-future technology would just look silly.
As I have said before, what makes this film special is NOT how respectful is to the canon of the Alien films – haven’t we kind of accepted since Alien 3 that they are pretty much each their own entity, anyway? Remember that Alien and Aliens looked VERY different from each other just about seven years apart. (Yes, I know they were supposed to take place 57 years apart, but so what?)
Scott and Lindeloff have to make a memorably intense sci fi thriller, which is hard enough – the only film that’s really pulled that off in recent years is Inception. How much content they devote to the “xenomorphs” or “Weyland Yutani” is almost incidental to the quality of the film.
What still concerns me most is the apparent PG-13 rating – I know a lot of folks are harping on that and it’s so easy to get all haughty about it like we did for Terminator or Die Hard. But…..
Given that this is in the Alien “universe,” and being marketed as an intense thriller, an R-rating is more of an assurance that ANYTHING can happen – yes, I know that many think that Alien could be rated PG-13 if it came out today. Not likely, but I’ll give you that we see equally gory stuff on mainstream television today like The Walking Dead.
Still when it comes down to it, using the F-word in these kind of situations just fits – shit gets intense and adults get intense – it’s like making a film that takes place in a casinoe (21???) with a PG-13 rating. And it helps to know that the violence can go in any direction….unrestricted by a PG-13. Don’t get me wrong, recent films like The Dark Knight and Taken had their share of shocks while holding at PG-13’s, but with creatures in space….an R-rating really helps.
Anghus- I think “Edward Scissorhands” was a tad more than just a “hokey Tim Burton comedy.”
With the possible exception of “Ed Wood,” it’s always felt like Burton’s most personal, heartfelt film to me.
true. scissorhands does have a more fair tale love story vibe thing. but his tone, his choices, his design, his eye… has it changed that much? has the man evolved at all?
I don’t know…DARK SHADOWS looks so unabashedly silly and goofy and campy, and it seems like a return to the Burton of PEE WEE, BEETLEJUICE, and MARS ATTACKS!, which to me is always a good thing. This is not what I expected this movie to be, but it looks fun and different.
PROMETHEUS looks spectacular and massive, and I think that trailer defines it as one of big film events of the entire year but especially the summer. I’m curious to how explicit Fox is going to get with the Alien references since, so far, they have kept it pretty close to the vest to the point that, even with a few brief glimpses and clues, only those who follow this stuff would get it. I hope they don’t reveal much more. I love how little has been revealed. I’m psyched now.
geoff, i’m not sure why you have such a bug up your ass about me and my opinions on ‘prometheus’ so that you have to call me out personally every time the subject comes up; i have my opinions and you have yours, fair enough, but this is my shit right here, these are my childhood legends and i’ll tell it like i see it. (you said “what makes this film so special”, have you seen it? i don’t get how you can say that unless you have).
and honestly no offence intended, but i don’t think you know what retconning means: it’s creating a detailed back-story for canon that we’re already familiar with using cues from said canon to weave an ‘origin’ story; this is what i was referring to in my post above, and this is clearly what scott is doing with this movie, not to mention incorporating a lot of derivative imagery from his own alien AND aliens. (also, using logic and reason, considering scott is using ‘weyland’ in his retcon and the actual word ‘weyland’ as part of ‘weyland-yutami corp’ is not used visually at all until cameron’s ‘aliens’, scott and co have chosen to open that can of worms by using a DIRECT link and thus invite comparison to the sequel that followed his own original, choosing to tie prometheus into ‘that world’ and timeline, at least strictly speaking until 57 years after ripley’s original encounter with the xenomorph).
(from watching this new trailer, like daniella alluded to, i’d wager i’ve already figured out about 80% of the story (chariots of the gods/we did it to ourselves!), but only time will tell)
as for the claim that ‘alien’ and ‘aliens’ are not cohesive-looking from a production design stand point, i cry foul, that’s bullshit; in terms of the tech in ‘aliens’, it looks very much a piece with its predecessor, a subtle ‘advancement’ of the same design theme as ‘alien’, incorporating the same style of rather sturdy-looking, utilitarian, straight-edge structure and functional (NOT slick) feel – not at all some suped-up shiny departure, very much a piece with the ‘alien’ design aesthetic (which cameron has claimed he made a conscious effort to achieve, and for my money he did, that’s one of the reasons ‘aliens’ is such a BELIEVABLE direct continuaton of the ‘alien’ story).
Fox on Prometheus…
Im betting they dont say a word about the aliens until after its release. That reveal could help with the legs if the film doesnt open mega huge. If it opens mega huge theyll probably say nothing.
Other than the Alien references, there’s little in the Prometheus trailer that makes me want to see it. If I didn’t know it was Ridley going back to Alien, I’d have little interest.
I also have a problem with the design and CGI of Prometheus looking so much more modern than the movie that is supposed to follow it. It bothered me quite a lot in the second Star Wars trilogy, and I imagine it’s going to bother me here, too.
I went in to the Dark Shadows trailer expecting to hate it, and was supprised at how silly it looks. It definitely seems like the Mars Attacks sense of humor brought to the Dark Shadows story. I’ll wait for reviews, but I’m at least curious about it, which is more than I could say before the trailer.
Retroactive continuity is the change of already established facts, not the addition of backstory, which in itself could possibly stay perfectly within the established facts.
I’m on board for both. Though, on my list of OVER-rated Directors: Burton definitely has a slot. Very few of his movies age well, imho. The Batmans, Big Fish, Alice in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sleepy Hollow are all skipable on cable. but I’ve got a soft spot for Edward Scissorhands, and Ed Wood is by far his best work. Sweeney Todd has a few good scenes, but some AWFUL ones as well. Not saying he’s a bad director but gets a lot of milage that he shouldn’t. DS looks like a fun summer movie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3TGr1lEXLU&feature=player_embedded#!
International Prometheus trailer.
Amazing how much better it establishes the basic plot without giving away too much.
Aliens2-Frost: What are we supposed to use, harsh language?
If Prometheus is PG13, they won’t even have that. I hope it’s R. The possibilities are so much more with an R.
Yes, Tofu is correct. Retconning is about *changing* backstory… not creating it wholesale.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retcon
The Prometheus trailer does give a lot away, but it’s still good stuff even if it’s retconning. Which we don’t know how much of a retcon it is, given that Damon and Sir Ridley stated they tried to take the prequel out of it at Wondercon. If it’s just adding backstory, that’s not that bad of a thing.
The Dark Shadows trailer makes that film one of my most anticipated of the Summer. I have no idea what the fuck it will be, but it sure does hit me like few trailers ever have. Also, when the fuck has Beetlejuice ever been considered hokey? The same with Scissorhands, when have they ever been considered hokey Burton? If any film is hokey Burton, that’s Mars Attack, but you know difference of opinion and the like.
Geoff, the one thing that bugged me the most about “Enterprise” is that we saw technology on the bridge that was clearly more advanced than that presented in the Enterprise of “Star Trek”, which traveled decades later. At least in the new “Galactica” they explained the intentionally primitive controls by stating that if they used computer technology the Cylons might hack in and take over the ship.
Prometheus apparently is falling into that reboot/reimagining/remake nexus that Rise o/t Apes inhabited last summer.
Scott said as much in some Euro interview, (Iceland, IIRC). He talked about walking into Disney World and seeing the original Alien costume in a display. That was the nail in the coffin for him, which was built by all the derivative sequel material. It was not possible to make the alien “alien” anymore.
So what started out as a prequel to be directed by Ridely’s son-in-law, with Scott as producer, became an outlet to rebuild on a core alien concept without erasing the original. A different story set in the same world. Not another sequel. Not a remake/reboot.
I also don’t know how fair it is to criticize Ridley for using visual cues that he authored.
…and the international trailer is 100x better. The US gives away too much.
im amazed how much better international trailers are. it’s as if they trust the audience to not be morons.
Oh, it’s not about them being smarter than us. It’s more a cultural thing because for better or worse, we are a more direct country. We want to know what’s going to happen. While other countries have more patience to let things develop.
ADD, in other words.
Seems to me the Nostromo was clearly established as a more working-class vessel. If the Prometheus is, for example, a top-of-the-line government science ship (versus Ripley’s space version of a big rig), I have no trouble believing it’d be slicker and more advanced. The glass bubble helmets are amusingly Buck Rogers, though.
The real question I have is if it acknowledges “Alien versus Predator” movie continuity. If it establishes that this is an origin point for the aliens, then it is ignoring those two movies and can be called a retcon.
ha, clearly I don’t know the definition of retconning either; i didn’t realise it meant specifically changing elements in the back-story effecting continuity with canon, i thought it was more along the lines of backstory elements being ‘malleable’ so as to introduce new story elements that roughly align with canon. my bad and apologies to geoff for fucking that up and being a jackass.
i have no problem with scott referencing visual cues from his own own movie per se… what i do have a bit of a problem with is seemingly falling back/relying on such blatant repeating of imagery in such a pivotal way (sea of ‘eggs’, acid through helmet, etc) instead of coming up with some exciting, fresh NEW concepts and designs to thrill.
also i don’t buy that ‘the nostromo was a cargo vessel so the tech would be bottom of the line, while a private science vessel made generations (or whatever it is) earlier has an excuse for far more advanced-looking tech’ reasoning; aesthetically a private vessel could be flashier/fancier/slicker, but the idea that tech itself is going to look significantly more advanced than tech in the future – and because of blatant referencing of weyland one must take into consideration the tech featured in ‘aliens’ as well being of weyland-yutami canon – that’s not logical, just an excuse for prometheus to look whiz-bang for the sake of it. never mind the nostromo was carrying billions of dollars worth of payload through the inherntly dangerous and risky environment of deep space, so the idea that such a valuable cargo would be transported by and trusted to a vessel with bargain-basement tech also doesn’t really ring true.
(LYT makes an interesting point about origin continuity re: the xenomorphs, considering the use of weyland throughout the spin-off franchise)
leahnz,
Well said. Ridley Scott has no business doing a prequel to a film that didn’t need it.
As beautiful as the trailer is, there’s not going to be a single surprise because we know where it leads.
This whole nonsense that it’s not an Alien prequel needs to stop. It is.
Didn’t the two AvP movies take place in Present Day? If I was Ridley I’d ignore them completely.
Prometheus looks good to me. Yes the trailer gives away more than I’d like, but I’m more than happy to pay $10 to see it on a big screen.
I expected Dark Shadows to be aiming more for suspense/scares. I’m sure that part of the reason the trailer left me disappointed was misguided expectations. Burton is hit and miss for me and much of the humor in the trailer is pretty lazy and lame.
Cory said “Well said. Ridley Scott has no business doing a prequel to a film that didn’t need it.
As beautiful as the trailer is, there’s not going to be a single surprise because we know where it leads.
This whole nonsense that it’s not an Alien prequel needs to stop. It is.”
Tell that to George Lucas after his $1.1B domestic total from telling a story where everyone knew where it led.
Yeah so what if we know where the story leads. That hardly means a good film can’t be made.
Yeah, even if it turns out to just be a straight-up Alien prequel, the cast plus Scott doing big-budget sci-fi (though I think he’s a pretty overrated director on the balance) makes it seem pretty damn interesting to me. Maybe I’m not a close enough student of the first ALIEN to see every single nod and will be better equipped to just enjoy this as some kind of mysterious sci-fi/horror movie with some connection to a movie I liked.
Glad to see at least a few people are enjoying the Dark Shadows trailer after so much internet-nerd carping. So it looks like a comedy! Is that really so disappointing? It’s based on an old soap opera; does every remake now have to be a grittier, darker version of the original property?
I feel like Depp/Burton are into a can’t-win situation with a lot of geeks/nerds/internet people/whoever. If they do a movie that’s straight up gothic, it’s all “more of this again” and if they do a movie that looks tonally different than anything the two of them have collaborated on previously (looking closer to Beetlejuice in tone than, say, Edward Scissorhands or Alice in Wonderland or Sweeney Todd), it’s all UGH this looks too campy!
So, per anghus, Dark Shadows looks like any other “hokey Tim Burton comedy.” You know, all of those comedies he makes over and over again. Like Alice in Wonderland! Oh, wait, that was more of an adventure/fantasy. But Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! What a ridiculously hokey comedy! Oh, you say that’s another children’s fantasy? Well, Sweeney Todd was SO full of comic shtick, I — oh, wait, it’s a dark musical with only a few moments of levity. Well surely Big Fish, — a drama, you say? Well, surely we can all agree that Planet of the Apes was terrible because of its — oh, right, not a comedy at all, unsuccessful for all manners of other reasons.
Let’s go back further, then. This is just another hokey bullshit comedy, like Ed Wood! Oh, wait, even the biggest Burton complainers like that movie.
OK, got it: THIS MOVIE IS JUST LIKE PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE AND BEETLEJUICE! It is a CARBON COPY of those movies with completely different casts and premises, and a mere TWENTY YEARS of time between them! God, Burton, get a new schtick! Can’t you refrain from making an avalanche of THREE OR FOUR comedies in thirty years?!?!
Not of course every remake does not have to be darker and grittier. I just didn’t find the humor in the trailer to be all that funny. Maybe it helps if you’re a big fan of Burton. I am not.
Leah – honestly, I didn’t mean for my response to come off as personal, it wasn’t. And I am not on this blog nearly as often, but I find yours to be one of the more valued opinions and responded.
From my standpoint, the first two films are actually pretty damn special to me – Aliens was the first R-rated film I saw in theaters and for months later gave me nightmares….and I would still hold up the first Alien as the scariest film I have ever seen. So do not mistake me taking them lightly as iconic films.
That said, I am just not going to allow myself to fall into the traps for Casino Royale or The Phantom Menace – this film has to stand on its own two feet as its own unique entity. I LOVED ‘Royale and it was a solid adaptation of the first novel, but what made it special were many elements that had nothing to do with Fleming’s original text or James Bond canon for that matter. And as I stated a few weeks ago, what made Phantom Menace so disappointing was NOT Midichlorians (as so many fanboys harped on) or even their choice to have Annakin as a child – the writing was flat-out mediocre!
That said if this is REALLY a true Alien prequel, that does take out a good amount of suspense doesn’t it? I even liked the The Thing last fall, but honestly….even if Carpenter had come back and directed it picture perfect, you kind of knew where it was going.
I mean you look at films like Terminator Salvation and Wolverine and it ends up being a lot of sound and fury….leading to a so-so revelation at the end that’s suppposed to blow the audience’s mind and ends up being a complete let-down. “Wow, so THAT’s how John Connor got his scar!!!”
Thinking about it, wouldn’t it have maybe just been cooler for Scott to go all-out sequel to Aliens or something like that? Something tells me his ego would never have allowed that….and there STILl would have been complaints about CGI and more advanced technology because of how much of a departure it would have been from the previous films. It’s almost a no-win proposition, which is probably why he and Fox are just choosing to be so damn coy about it all.
Just glad to see Eva Green back on screen, she seemed poised to break out after Dreamers, Kingdom and Casino and then seemed to drop off the face of the earth, or at least dropped into television. Glad to see her back and in a comedy no less. Probably the biggest selling point for me.
‘so the idea that such a valuable cargo would be transported by and trusted to a vessel with bargain-basement tech also doesn’t really ring true.’
I don’t agree with that at all, imported sportcars and champaign is transported around the globe on the same frieghters as the fake vomit and x-rays specks. In Alien it was a frieghter on a known route that was unlikely to face any difficulty, much different than a research vessel going into an uncharted environment.
And I think the Star Wars argument is that after the Empire took over there was more concern for control than for Infrastructure and production which is why everything else looks so diminished in the future entrys. Think of the Galactic Empire as the Soviet Union, still a lot of beautiful architecture but it all needs a good scrubbing and new wiring.
What’s this about “no need?” I hate that expression. There’s no NEED to make any particular movie. You “need” food and water. Nobody “needs” a film to be made. The issue is, as Rob Laurie has pointed out, only the issue of “purpose.” Is there a purpose (besides making a buck) to PROMETHEUS or DARK SHADOWS? If so, it’s artistically valid to have made them.
I’d be interested in reading your thought on Xmen First Class Geoff.
What is up with the current fad of disguising movies with cagey titles? We’ve got an Alien movie without “Alien” in the title, and a distinctive 70s vampire movie with a title so generic it could have literally been applied to ANY thriller or horror movie. Sure, it’s based on existing stuff, but who today knows what that is?
Sam: I’ve been attempting to steer clear of any spoilers for Prometheaus so I might be mistaken but I believe that their aren’t any Aliens in the movie (at least the Black Acid for blood kind). So it makes sense they wouldn’t name it Alien 5: The Beginning or something.
And I don’t think Dark Shadows is being cagey. That was the name of the property, they are just giving it the Brady Bunch treatment.
DAARK SHADOWS looks nothing like BEETLEJUICE – the humor far more organic. This looks like bad ADDAMS FAMILY — and every clip ending on some lame joke that’s supposed to kill us. There’s a disco ball in the trailer.
no worries geoff, i wish you were around here more but i know well how life can put a crimp in one’s need to blog, i know i don’t have much time at the mo.
i totally get the point about prometheus needing to stand alone as its own unique beast (and as much as it might not sound like it i’m willing to go with that), and perhaps entering that odd ‘re-imagining’ territory you, and i think martin s also, reference; it’s tricky territory scott and co have entered here, given that ‘alien’ – and i think one must include ‘aliens’ as one of the most inextricably tied and celebrated one-two punches of genre cinema – are so iconic and scott has opted to make a prequel/origin story to his own original classic film, which no doubt carries an added burden of responsibility for a film-maker.
resisting the temptation to have one’s cake and eat it too must be hard, but this is the trap prometheus looks to have fallen into to me (based on the trailers of course, which is always suspect anyway, grain of salt and all that). it appears to be a direct origin story for the space jockey and crashed ship on LV-426 – and hints at the origins of both the jockey and xenomorph as some sort of bio/nano creation or some such – which ANY way you slice it is a direct alien prequel.
so if for whatever reason scott felt he just couldn’t leave this delicious mystery well enough alone and it must be cleared up, if he feels compelled to beat that dead horse for ONCE i’d like to see a prequel/origin tale with some real continuity of production design, that doesn’t go the cliche BIGGER IS BETTER overwrought route, where suddenly everyone is much, much prettier and the tech is inexplicably much, much shinier/advanced and the origins must be EPIC and PROFOUND; either get down and dirty and figure out a way to make a proper ‘alien’ prequel with aesthetic and thematic continuity – OR make something really unique and original and its own thing (which is what i thought they were going for) while hinting at the ‘facehugger universe’ so it CAN stand alone; but trying to have it BOTH ways as it would appear just feels too typical and tiresome. i’m not buying it. admittedly i’m a hard sell on this one though, but having said all that i’m still excited to see it; i just have that little nugget of fear in the pit of my stomach after watching particularly these latest trailers.
Wilder, a disco ball in the trailer?!?!?! A disco ball!!!! Heavens to betsy! WHAT COULD BE WORSE?
Well, it’s set in 1972. Not quite the disco era if that’s their riff. Maybe tributing LOVE AT FIRST BITE. And they may as well have thrown in a LAVA LAMP!
Leah – I agree with most of that last post.
In terms of production, IMO, what happened is Ridley found 3D. This is his first prod using it, and he said during the shoot that he’ll never shoot any other way, again. Is it possible to shoot retro and 3D? I would think the 3D process instantly makes things more vibrant.
As for a pretty cast, I blame the agents and studios. They decided to put up the velvet rope to character actors sometime in the 90’s. It’s gotten so out of hand, guys like Arnold and Stallone would not make it in today’s system.
As for the Prometheus story, I’ve watched the trailers several times, and from what I can gather….
The Space Jockey head is a helmet and the Prometheus Xeno seems to be the final form of whomever is infected by the plasm in the canopic jar. So, IMO, it appears early man somehow got rid of the Xeno, and the “invitation” is either a misread warning, or a lure for the Xeno to find its way back to Earth. Either way, the Xeno needs humand to come to it, much like Star Trek V, coughhack…
The Jockey ship now has its host and co-ordinates to head back, but for some reason downs on LV-426. Ridley’s talked about a sequel, so the ship could be on auto-pilot at the end of this one…or LV-426 was once an inhabited planet. The original O’Bannon script didn’t have the Jockey ship, but a temple, which is now certainly apart of Prometheus.
Weyland-Yutani then spends x amount of years searching for the lost vessel and The Nostromo runs across the distress call in Alien. The crew was told it was an SOS, but Ripley finds out from Mother it was actually a warning. That seems to be the bigger question Ridley and Damon were working on – how did Mother know what to look for?
In the original, we’re lead to believe Weyland detoured them as a simple discovery mission and when it turned out to be some new Xeno, they wanted it for research. Prometheus seems to imply the first seen in Alien, (when Mother reads the signal and wakes the crew up), was not happenstance and part of the deep programming for all Weyland ships was to search for this signal. That fits the kind of interlaced writing Lindelof did on Lost.
If this is the case, the first Alien would technically be the third film of a new trilogy, and that would certainly makes this a retcon.
Wilder nails the problem with the DARK SHADOWS trailer. It makes it look like THE ADDAMS FAMILY, and who wants to seen another ADDMAS FAMILY film right now?
All that was missing in the DS trailer was a Sonnenfeld dolly into Depp’s face. Or was that in there?
i’m on board with all that martin s, sounds plausible.
and yeah, you touch on something there i also thought, which would fall under the umbrella of what i thought retconning meant and what it actually means (derp), that is at least the trailers seem to imply that the crashed ship/xenomorph is a known quantity – very possibly of human creation/origin – rather than part of a random search for alien life to use as bio-weapons, the premise for ‘alien’. i like the random search concept much better, there’s something inherently…egotistical(?) and overly operatic about the idea that we’ve created all this drama rather than just being opportunistic specs scavenging around the cosmos and then finding ourselves in too deep with one badass alien life form.
(i’m sure the pretty people was all to do with the studio and being able to ‘sell’ the movie in today’s market, what a pity; can anyone imagine a group of freaking science nerds and spaceship pilots and such that look so beauty/GQ? yeah right, where do i sign up. “hey, you don’t look like kelly mcgillis”)
“and who wants to seen another ADDMAS FAMILY film right now?”
My daughter, for one. I bought the two-film DVD rather cheap a few months ago and have almost come to regret it. She became so obsessed she tried to talk me into buying tickets to the musical when it came to town ($35, each!).
Her classmates are also fully aware of the films and I am certain these tweens would pitch tents in front of any theater that promised AF #3 would be arriving “Soon”.
. i like the random search concept much better,
I do too. It plays into the vastness of space. But that seems to be the difference in eras. 70’s sci-fi was tackling large ideas and not to worry about much else, whereas today, there’s a fear of not being clever enough.
Lindelof made some comment at Wondercon this past weekend about being the fall guy if Prometheus falls short. I know he’s trying to be self-deprecating, but I think he’s quite conscious of the Lost effect on genre material. If he’s done that to Alien/Prometheus, he’ll deserve the scorn. I love a mystery narrative, but not every little facet has to be apart of a grander scheme.
As for the pretty people, it’s funny to compare the original Alien cast to Prometheus. No room for Harry Dean Stanton, thank you.
I was also under the impression Theron was Ripley, but it’s actually looks to be Noomi. I thought it might be a trailer ploy, but it certainly looks like Rapace during the Ripley vs Alien climax redux in the American trailer.
Theron strikes me as being a female android version of Fassbender’s character. It’s a guess of course but Theron has to be playing something different, given that Rapace does indeed seem to be the female lead.
Disco balls have been around for over a hundred years, I think. There is at least one anachronism in the trailer, however: Barry White’s “You’re the First, the Last, My Everything” wasn’t released until 1974.
You know, I get the point of all this “pretty people” talk…but, then how come there are still actors like Paul Giamatti, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and John Hawkes who are just omnipresent in mainstream films in recent years?? Probably not as many of those types as there were in the ’70’s.
Not a huge fan of the show, but they didn’t exactly cast GQ types for the show, “The Big Bang Theory,” either.
And is Noomi Rapaace considered by any one to be conventionally pretty? If you look back at the original Alien, I would still categorize Sigourney Weaver as a more conventional beauty.
Yeah Geoff, Noomi Rapace is considered conventionally pretty. In what world would she not be?
Interesting, SamLowery. So what does your daughter think of the DS trailer? I guess the film could be a hit on the basis of teenage girls alone. Is there anyone out there over 16 who’d go to a new ADDAMS FAMILY, though?
Did we think there was anyone who would go see the earlier Addams Family?
It all depends on how they put it together, they put some talent and effort behind it and i can easily see people giving it a go. I happen to prefer the second film over the first, quite a bit more gonzo with a FANTASTIC turn by Joan Cusack. They compile a decent cast, like the first one without big stars just strong actors willing to go for broke, and I would give it a looksee.
Hasn’t Universal been threating a Munsters movie for a few years? That I would be cautious of.
Leah, if you do not take this opportunity before PROMETHEUS comes out to find out exactly how much Ridley Scott stole outright from Mario Bava’s PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES, I will be VEXED.
Scott had never seen PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES. Dan O’Bannon on the other hand…
Christian, is that true? So the painstaking imitation of even the way the shots are composited in POTV, the design of the Space Jockey, all that happened without Scott having seen Bava’s film? That’s was all O’Bannon’s doing, or what?
Do explain!
HR Giger designed the Space Jockey.
And Scott claimed at the time of ALIEN’s release he had seen almost no sci-fi films. His producer Ivor Powell was the sci-fi nerd along with O’Bannon.
I agree with Daniella Isaacs… and I am ALWAYS ready for a good Addams Family movie.
The entire LV-426 sequence takes so many elements from the exploration of the eponymous planet, and the Space Jockey is damn near identical to a fossilized alien pilot, in Bava’s film (and, in fact, the first stills of the spacesuits in PROMETHEUS also bore some resemblance) — not to cast doubt, but I wonder if you’ve seen POTV, christian? Anyway, somebody made a concerted effort at homage, even though the films are in no other way the same, it would be astonishing if Ridley Scott had pulled that off just relying on his producer, writer, and designer rather than seeing it with his own two eyes.
Yeah, I own POTV. And am an ALIEN geek. And like most ALIEN fans, well aware of the similarities. But Scott’s compositions are Kubrick not Bava. It’s possible O’Bannon showed Scott POTV but I doubt it based on the pretty inclusive Scott interviews from the period. Scott said TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE was the biggest influence. Which shows.
And the space jockey isn’t revealed in the same manner in ALIEN as POTV, so I don’t know how they’re nearly identical. And since Giger was designing ALIEN stuff even before Scott came onboard…
i can’t even connect to the hotblog half the time
yeah the POTV thing is weird, there are such obvious parallels to LV-426 – lord knows we’ve been down that road here before – but nobody wants to cop to it…or it’s some cosmic koinkidink, or a ‘subconscious homage’. or a conspiracy. bit of an enigma.
I’ve been away for a week, and since DS is to Cadavra what TWILIGHT is to Lex, I’m sure you’re all breathless for my opinion on the trailer:
I’m fine with it. It’s undoubtedly somewhat misleading–I really doubt they’ll be using “Superfly” and Barry White in the movie itself–they likely pulled out the snarky one-liners to make it seem funnier than it actually is. (Hardly unusual: the trailer for ONE TWO THREE makes it look like a sex farce with car chases instead of a political satire.) But it definitely seems faithful to the letter if not entirely the spirit of the show, and if the comedy is funny–and Burton’s humor is generally well-judged–then it’s jake with me. And the cast could hardly be bettered.
“Awaiting moderation?” Did something change while I was away?
Just for the record, christian… I really did not mean to call into question your bona fides, although I admit that’s the way it sounded. Your earlier comments were pretty terse, so I was genuinely curious.
And I was being bombastic in overstating the similarities. I honestly did not realize that this is old hat to the Alien cognoscenti. Next time I’ll Google first, try to hit on Leah second.
cadavra, you mentioned someone who is banned. I did that a few weeks ago and got the same message.
No offense, NDB – I love talking ALIEN obscura. To that end, the space jockey’s origins are from a 1976 painting by Giger:
http://alienexplorations.blogspot.com/2011/01/space-jockey-evolution-from-gigers.html
If CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY has become the new standard for Burton humor…what a horrible film.
Sam: Ah, thanks. Good to know.