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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.'"
Actually, this is very good news. Alien and Aliens will never be bettered, fact. The rest (including A vs P) either ok or poor. Anything new will be guaranteed disappointment.
Who actually wanted to know where the xenomorphs came from? Whatever happened to imagination?
Larry Niven wrote a series of novels with consistent backstory, physics, and an evolution over time -- the Known Space series. J. K. Rowling knew there would be 7 Harry Potter books, and J. Michael Straczyinski (sp) planned Bablyon 5 to have a story arc over 5 seasons. Asimov intended the Foundation Trilogy as a cohesive whole; I think that his later additions to that universe, including the tie-ins to the "I Robot" universe were motivated more by publishers than by his original vision. Perhaps Dan O'Bannon never wanted to create a universe, or a self-consistent backstory... he just wanted to make a scary movie with a surprising powerful alien. The second movie also worked as a suspense/thriller, even though we knew what the aliens' abilities were.