Ridley Scott Talks Alien Prequel
Ridley Scott is going back to where it all started and will direct the prequel to his "Alien". He recently spoke to MTV and gave us some great insight to the upcoming film.
Here's what Scott had to say about where the production is currently at.
As we speak, I've got a pile of pages next to me; it's like the fourth draft. It's a work in progress, but we're not dreaming it up anymore. We know what the story is. We're now actually trying to improve the three acts and make the characters better, build it up to something [we can shoot]. It's a work in progress, but we're actually making the film. There's no question about it, we're going to make the film.
He goes on to explain that he is working on getting the screenplay complete so they can find out how much is will cost to make the film. He's also got people working on the films designs. The story is set, the characters are in place, and here's his description of where the story is headed.
It's set in 2085, about 30 years before Sigourney [Weaver's character Ellen Ripley]. It's fundamentally about going out to find out 'Who the hell was that Space Jockey?' The guy who was sitting in the chair in the alien vehicle — there was a giant fellow sitting in a seat on what looked to be either a piece of technology or an astronomer's chair. Remember that? And our man [Tom Skerritt as Captain Dallas] climbs up and says "There's been an explosion in his chest from the inside out — what was that?" I'm basically explaining who that Space Jockey — we call him the Space Jockey — I'm explaining who the space jockeys were. It's Weyland. Weyland hasn't joined Yutani yet, so they go and see Weyland. [The film] is about the discussion of terraforming — taking planets and planetoids and balls of earth and trying to terraform, seed them with the possibilities of future life.
Scott will be making the film a stand alone movie, so that the audience wouldn't have to have seen any of the other Alien films.
Well, the main character [in the prequel] will be a woman, yeah. We're thinking it could go down that route, yeah. When I started the original "Alien," Ripley wasn't a woman, it was a guy. During casting, we thought, "Why don't we make it a woman?"
Now because of the fact that there were several other Alien movies after Scott's original, films like Alien Vs. Predator, Scott feels that there needs to be a redesign of the alien creature for the prequel. Here he explains,
The thing about "Alien vs. Predator" is, I know it's commerce, but what a pity. I think, therefore, I have to design — or redesign — earlier versions of what these elements are that led to the thing you finally see in "Alien," which is the thing that catapults out of the egg, the face-hugger. I don't want to repeat it. The alien in a sense, as a shape, is worn out.
Of course he will bring in the original alien designer H.R. Giger to help redesign the creature!
Yeah, he's still around. Once I get more serious and get going, and the big wheels start turning, we'll certainly talk. And maybe we'll come up with something completely different.
The director say's that he hopes to have the movie in theaters in late 2011, or maybe the best date in 2012. So it looks like they will start shooting the film fairly soon. Now Scott has said he would never do a sequel to a movie, but technically this is a prequel, not a sequel. Here's what he had to say regarding that making an Alien sequel.
Honestly? They've squeezed the franchise dry. The first one will always be the most frightening, because the beast we put together with Giger and all its parts — the face-hugger, the chest-burster, the egg — they were all totally original, and that's hard to follow. ... I've always avoided sequels, unless I felt there was something fresh.
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