Archives
After the beating Prometheus took from critics and fans, the rumor is that Ridley Scott proclaimed, “They want Aliens? I will give them f___ing Aliens.” And so the Prometheus sequel morphed into an Alien Prequel. Set ten years after Prometheus, we are introduced to a ship called the Covenant. It is carrying thousands of colonists (and embryos) and is headed for a distant planet suitable for human colonization. Piloted by a crew… Read More
Resurrection seemed to kill the franchise. But after two Alien vs Predator films, Ridley Scott became very annoyed and wanted to right the ship. Kind of. The vaguely titled Prometheus would be set before Alien, but it was not a direct prequel. Rather, it would be Alien Adjacent. This certainly made for an intriguing idea, and trailers showed a lot of hints of the unfamiliar future with brief glimpses of familiar sites…. Read More
In spite of a lukewarm reception to the third film, the studio wanted to take another try at the Alien Franchise. Although they managed to pump this one out in just three years, it is a bigger mess than the last one. This film is set around two hundred years after the last one. It establishes a new wrinkle in the xenomorph mythology. Not only do they borrow from their host, they… Read More
The success of Aliens had the studio rushing to try and get an Alien 3 going. There were a lot of false starts and bad ideas that led to what we got. Good scripts got tossed aside for weird ideas. There were questions on whether Weaver wanted to return. While she did finally return, she pushed for this to be the end of Ripley’s journey. Music video director David Fincher was given… Read More
About seven years after Alien, hotshot director James Cameron brought the franchise roaring back to life. Rather than make a generic sequel, Cameron made a bold choice. The first film was a haunted house movie, Cameron opted to make a war movie. Ripley is awakened 50 years after the first film to find everything she knew is gone. On top of that she is plagued by nightmares of the alien creature. Ripley… Read More
This film, in part, was a response to the 2011 Thing prequel.In early interviews, (Harbinger Down Director) Alec Gillis had emphasized that it was going to be a mostly practical film. Even the special features show an awful lot of practical work in the behind the scenes. The studio “had a change of heart” and decided the film should favor digital over practical. There is a place for the tool of digital. But… Read More
So, Ridley Scott announced the title to the sequel to Prometheus. And I was a bit surprised they caved this early. I was one of the few who at least generally liked Prometheus. It had some problems, such as the whole “what I choose to believe” thing was never grounded tightly enough to make sense as a solid philosophy and the final act is pretty crazy messy to the point of confusion. Adding… Read More
