Ridley Scott planning ALIEN prequels … in 3D
Ridley Scott planning ALIEN prequels … in 3D
Apr 26
This news has been kicking around for a while, so it’s about time we weighed in on it with our take. It seems almost too good to be true, doesn’t it? That Ridley Scott would return to the Alien universe three decades later and shoot a prequel — or two — himself? After 25 years of crappy sequels and woeful crossovers, the guy who kicked the whole franchise off is coming back to reinvent the series himself. That’s remarkably good news.
The “What?” news is that he’s shooting in 3D. I never would’ve imagined Ridley Scott going 3D, but he’s joining the likes of Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson and Martin Scorsese and choosing the format for his next picture. I’m still sceptical on the whole 3D thing, but I guess I’ll withold final judgment until all these films (Tintin, The Invention Of Hugo Cabret, and the Alien prequels) come out.
In a recent interview with Collider, Ridley Scott discusses the technical differences of shooting in 3D and how they affect the dark, moody style he adopted for the first Alien film. 3D films are digital by necessity, and shooting digital is a very different enterprise to shooting on film, and it’s good to hear Scott calmly chat about how he’s going to set about maintaining his perfectionist vision in these prequels.
Scott has also confirmed that the prequels will set out to explore who / what the “Space Jockey” (the big dead guy in the chair in the first xenomorph flick) is, and will again feature a female protagonist (but not Ripley, obviously). I’m not hugely fond of the first Alien (I think James Cameron’s sequel is where the party’s at, personally), and that Space Jockey thing helped set up the mystery and horror of the film for me, so I’m not sure going back and explaining it is such a good idea — sounds like the reboot of The Thing, now I think about it.
Scott reckons we should keep an eye out for the first Alien prequel in late 2011 / early 2012. I reckon we should keep an eye on Ridley Scott’s sanity. When have you ever known him to shoot a prequel, let alone two in a row, and in a fad format that may well be dead in a few years’ time at that? It’s time to re-evaluate my understanding of Scott as a more classical filmmaker — not necessarily a bad thing. Heck, I don’t even like Alien or Gladiator that much, so it’s not like I’m super disappointed in Scott’s fall to the dark side.
Okay, maybe a little bit disappointed.
