Ridley Scott Abandons Alien Prequel

An anonymous reader writes "With Ridley Scott and 20th Century Fox announcing that the much-vaunted 3D Alien prequel has now mutated into an original SF film project called Prometheus, starring Noomi Rapace, the author of this article recalls his 2007 interview with the late Dan O'Bannon, who presumably is happy about the news, wherever he is. Asked what he'd like to see happen to the xenomorph franchise, the Alien co-creator said: 'I'd like to see it stop. A horror movie's a fragile thing, and once you've gotten past the original, it isn't scary anymore. So you do a bunch of sequels to a horror movie, all they do is drain any remaining impact out of the original...it's not as effective as it would have been if you had just left it alone.'"

Comments

sequels are usually worse

[Jodka]

As this graph shows, regardless of the genre, sequels are usually worse than the original.

Re:Applies to all movies

[GrumblyStuff]

That dull drivel has some entertainment value though not at all due to the efforts of Lucas and Co. Might I direct your attention to reviews (with a meta-story among these and other reviews) of The Phantom Menace, The Attack of the Clones, and The Revenge of the Sith? These are video reviews and very much NSFW (but still very analytical and all the movies are thoughtfully picked apart). They are also rather long, each over an hour.

Re:Applies to all movies

[MightyMartian]

I don't think it's better. Alien still is an incredibly effective horror film, a sort of space-based locked room mystery. Aliens was more of a military SF-style movie, so in a way they are considerably different films. I enjoy them both, but they are almost in two different genres.