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

Applies to all movies

[Troll-Under-D'Bridge]

So you do a bunch of sequels to a horror movie, all they do is drain any remaining impact out of the original

I'm sure this applies to any hit movie. I mean, the first time they made Scary Movie, it was a guilty pleasure. Now it's, well, just dull. There are few exceptions. Empire Strikes Back thematically seems better than Star Wars. The revelation of the relationship between Luke and Darth Vader was good enough to be parodied by Toy Story (was it 2 or 3?). But the Star Wars prequels? Maybe the producers should take a hint.

Re:Applies to all movies

[drinkypoo]

I don't think that I really agree. Nobody is forcing you to watch the sequels or prequels. I still haven't seen Alien 3, even though I've liked all the other ones. I just treat them as different movies rather than different parts of the same movie and I win.

Re:Applies to all movies

[TheLink]

The first movie might have been a horror movie, but I'd classify the other ones as "action thrillers". In my opinion future movies could still succeed as action thrillers even though it'll be hard to do a new horror movie based on aliens (since a part of horror is in the unknown, and the aliens and their limits are now mostly known).

Re:Applies to all movies

[cybrpnk2]

It certainly applied to how the Borg were handled in the star Trek franchise.

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.

Re:Applies to all movies

[martin-boundary]

In my opinion future movies could still succeed as action thrillers

I have to agree. What the Alien franchise really needs is a badass superhero type with witty one liners and a catchphrase, maybe "yipee ka yay" or something, and an emo teenage sidekick who can complain throughout the movie but saves the day when the Alien queen is about to bite off the hero's head. And a chihuahua alien hybrid who can do funny tricks (for the xmas merchandising).

Good news

[calzakk]

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?

Re:Good news

[Barny]

The original Alien was horror, true suspenseful horror. The reason it worked, despite a lack of modern special effects was that they didn't show too much, they let your imagination fill in the blanks as only a good horror story will.

The human imagination can still come up with things a hundred times more scary than special effects can achieve, if only because they are tailored to that persons one fears. This is doubly so these days when pretty much every kind of scary thing has been shown to us on the big screen with crazy high definition special effects, anything new either has to be so picture perfect its not funny (see district 9) or, as with alien, leave us jumping in our seats at some perceived scary part.

Another good example is the ear cutting scene (or lack thereof) in reservoir dogs.

Creating a movie vs. creating a franchise

[TreeInMyCube]

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.

From TFA

[Suki I]

Prometheus will star Rapace as scientist Elizabeth Shaw (cast by Scott after the director was impressed with her work in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), with Charlize Theron and Angelina Jolie mooted as possible co-stars in a script that previous rumours have outlined as featuring a female-manned spaceship crew with a distinctly lesbian atmosphere.

Now, what was wrong with the old outline?

Re:From TFA

[Dogtanian]

And what the hell is a "distinctly lesbian atmosphere"? 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen and 1% oestrogen?!

sequels are usually worse

[Jodka]

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