In a recent interview, master filmmaker Ridley Scott talked his career, his life, movies, and eventually got around to that little two-part prequel to his classic 1979 horror, Alien.
Looking back, it’s clear that Scott has rarely failed, and that he likes a good challenge. The 72-year-old director has been going strong for many years, but some wonder if even he can pull off a critically and financially successful new take on his own great mythos. The Alien prequels have been in the news quite a bit since whispers first began, but Ridley was able to share just a tiny bit of detail on where he may go with it.
First of all, James Cameron’s Avatar was brought up, and how it set a new mark for “alien” or other-worldly blockbusters. Scott joked by saying “Jim’s raised the bar and I’ve got to jump to it. He’s not going to get away with it.” For those excited about a new Alien, this means Avatar may have moved it ahead of one or two of the director’s many potential projects.
This is where things got a little interesting, as Scott talked about where he might go with the movies and the alien creatures he had created.
The film will be really tough, really nasty. It’s the dark side of the moon. We are talking about gods and engineers. Engineers of space. And were the aliens designed as a form of biological warfare? Or biology that would go in and clean up a planet?
Would Mr. Scott really create a movie which presents us with the explanation that these iconic aliens — a staple of all-time horror movie monsters — were genetically engineered as weapons? I can only imagine the painful cringe of the most faithful fans of these movies as they read these words.
This is Ridley Scott, and the man knows what he’s doing. I can’t see him moving forward with anything that might damage the world he’s already created, so if this does happen, it would have to make a hell of a lot of sense, and the best possible storyline for these movies.
Even I, being someone who likes the Alien movies but has only seen them but a few times, has to think that things would be better off if the aliens were left actual aliens, natural to their world as everyone assumed they were. But I guess we can only wait and see how it plays out.
What do you think of Scott’s cryptic description? Is there a chance he might go the genetic engineering route, or would that ruin everything for you as a fan?
[Sources: The Independent via Cinema Blend]
