Should you ever go back, is it ever a wise thing to do?
From the track record of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, you would have to say probably not. Lucas’ Star Wars prequels and Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull were shocking examples of what happens when you try and reignite the fire of a time in your career when you made absolute perfection.
In the case of Sly Stallone, you would say he did a decent enough job with Rocky Balboa and Rambo, better than expected, and he clearly still had a chapter to tell from his life that resulted in two good movies. But returning to a franchise after a THIRTY YEAR gap is whole new ballgame, not one I think we’ve ever had to deal with before.
Variety have confirmed friday morning that Sir. Ridley Scott will direct a prequel to the Alien franchise he himself started in 1979, with Jon Spaihts handling the screenplay. From the sounds of things, Spaihts pitched an idea to Scott who liked it so much he decided to return to the franchise he has always held interest in the back of his mind to revisit someday.
This won’t be Spaihts first screenplay as he’s had a couple of science fiction drafts bought out by studio’s, it’s just to date none of them have been put into firm development and a final film produced.
My guess would be that the prequel will focus on whoever it was that left the empty ship to warn the crew of the original film of the alien creature, and we will probably delve into the origins of them. Too much backstory, too much information, could be disastrous and potentially harmful to what Scott originally created (Lucas and the midi-chlorians syndrome).
But then again Scott’s 1979 film is the best in the series and surely one of the greatest science fiction films of all time. If he still has a passion for it and a story to tell, then who better?
3 Comments
I agree that Ridley Scott’s original Alien was the best in the series. It’ll be great to see what he can do with a new movie. But for the love of Sigourney Weaver, why, why, why are they doing a PREQUEL? Enough with the prequels, please. (And for the record, James Cameron did a fine job with Aliens and David Fincher’s Alien3 was underrated. Heck, I even enjoyed Alien Resurrection and the Alien vs Predator flicks.)
Foolish article by a person who neither deserves the movies he’s getting nor is qalified enough to critic them. Not only was Indy 4 a fine film it was also infinitely superior to dreck like Rambo. Just because the film did not meet your particular expectations of what it should have been doesn’t make it shocking.
Lucas’ Revenge of the Sith was damn fine too.
The only thing that disturbs me about the new Alien project is that it’s a prequel.
I’m not suprised he’s doing a prequel as it means Scott does not have mention anything that went after and he can do whatever he wants, have to admit though he’s gonna have a hard time making a better film than Cameron’s “Aliens” for my money that was a much better film than “Alien” and we got to remember Scott is no where near the same film maker he was 30 years ago, does he really still have the hunger to make a great Alien film in him? i’m not so sure judging by some of his films in recent years!