'Prometheus' is one the most anticipated films of 2012, with thousands of fans awaiting Ridley Scott's return to the world of science fiction, with the film that for months he claimed was not an 'Alien' prequel, but we all knew it was, and then he confirmed that indeed, it was. The trailers just scream 'Alien', and it has been a long time since the final 'Alien' movie (not including the AVP franchise), what can we expect from this movie? Whatever happens inevitably leads to the events in 'Alien' in someway or another. Will we find out more about that mysterious crashed alien ship? Will we find out where the Xenomorphs come from? Will we see any Xenomorphs? These are all questions that 'Alien' fans will have in mind before seeing 'Prometheus' next month. This blog entry is all about the films set after the upcoming 'Prometheus', and the world that this movie in now entering. Warning, this entry contains spoilers from across the whole franchise, so you have been warned, but in all honesty, you should have seen all these by now.
What happens in 'Prometheus' directly leads to the events in Ridley Scott's 1979 'Alien'. 'Alien' is about a commercial towing spaceship called the Nostromo, which at the time is on a return trip from Thedus to Earth, hauling a refinery and twenty million tons of mineral ore, and carrying seven crew members in stasis. The crews stasis is disrupted by an emergency transmission of unknown origins from a nearby planetoid. Upon investigation the crew discovers a derelict alien spaceship. The same spaceship we see in the 'Prometheus' trailer. The films revolves around the main protagonist Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), the film was a huge financial and critical success. Ridley Scott managed to reinvent the whole world of science fiction with this movie. There are particular aspects of the film that instantly make it recognizable to the masses, these being the egg and facehuggers (the eight legged, tailed parasite that attaches itself to the victims face and lays an embryo in their throat) and the chestburster which grows up to become the alien/Xenomorph. The scene where the chestburster forces itself through Kane's (John Hurt) chest is one of the most iconic scene in sci fi. At the time it was terrifying, along with the end resulting alien itself. It was such a brutal entry into the world for the creature that it left audiences stunned. The Xenomorph itself is iconic for its mouth within a mouth and its acid for blood, it's almost as if everything about this creature can kill you. It was just so strange to comprehend a creature with concentrated acid for blood, nothing like it had been seen before. The marketing line "In space, no one can hear you scream" describes the exact tone of the movie, because the crew are completely alone, trapped in the middle of space with no chance of a rescue, fighting against a creature they know nothing about (which is more than capable of killing every one of them).
'Alien' instantly threw Sigourney Weaver into Hollywood fame, making her a household name, it also opened the doors for a whole new world of science fiction, along with its own mass media franchise, stretching from numerous movie sequels, to toys, games and books. Although Ridley Scott did not return to do the sequel, they managed to find someone more than capable of handling the task.
In 1986 James Cameron (Avatar and Titanic) took the helm and brought us 'Aliens', which is personally, my favourite film of the franchise. The films continues the story of Ellen Ripley, who at the beginning of the film, has been in stasis for 50 years. She awakens to find her world completely changed, and that colonists have been placed on LV-426 (the name now given to the planetoid). She faces many problems from the start, including having to deal with the aftermath of destroying the Nostromo in order to destroy the Xenomorph. When the company loses contact with LV-426, Ripley along with a squad of colonial marines are sent in to investigate what has happened. Upon arrival they discover that the colonists must have encountered the alien spaceship that Ripley had warned them about. Following the success of 'The Terminator' in 1984, which brought Cameron into the line light as an action director, 'Aliens' was given the green light, along with a $18 million budget. Cameron brings a different tone to the franchise, instead of Ridley Scott's horror motif, Cameron gives in a sense of action and adventure. Basically he takes the first movie, throws in a hundred more Xenomorphs, and marines with big rifles, what more could we ask for? The story is good, the acting is good, the effects are great! The Xenomorphs were created by using a mixture of costumes, puppets and miniatures. A lot of work went into making them as realistic as possible; changes had to be made in order to make the alien more durable, they believed if they kept the exact same design as in the first movie, then the head piece would split through too much movement. The scenes involving the Alien Queen were the most difficult to film (according to the staff). This is because a life-sized mock-up was created by Stan Winston's company in the United States to see how it would operate. Once the testing was complete, the crew working on the queen flew to England and began work creating the final version, which stood fourteen feet tall! It was operated using a mixture of puppeteers, control rods, hydraulics, cables and a crane above to support it. Two puppeteers were inside the suit operating its arms, and sixteen were required to move it. All sequences involving the queen were filmed in-camera with no post-production manipulation, which is truly a marvelous achievement. Even today the queen still stands up against many CGI monsters made for movies, this proves that there is still a place for real, hand made props in the world of film. The fact that the whole thing was hand operated without the help of post-production editing to make it look good, is just brilliant!
With 'Aliens' being so different to its predecessor, it was well received by critics (many believing it to be better) and it was also a financial hit, with a total box office of $131 million. Even today it is classed as one of the greatest sci fi movies ever made, and possibly the biggest achievement for this movie is the fact that it managed to surpass 'Alien' which was already a classic and had left really big boots for Cameron to fill on this job.
Then it begins to go downhill a bit, in 1992 with 'Alien 3', it was the debut of director David Fincher, who instantly had a huge challenge ahead of film, following great directors like Scott and Cameron. I do actually like this movie, but it's a massive step down from 'Aliens'. The story begins with an ejected pod from the Colonial Marine spaceship Sulaco from 'Aliens' crash-landing on a refinery/prison planet, killing everyone aboard with the exception of Lieutenant Ellen Ripley. Unknown to Ripley, an Alien egg was aboard the ship. It is born in the prison and begins a killing spree. The prison has about 20 inmates, each one either a murderer or a rapist, and each has taken on religion and an oath of celibacy (so Ripley's presence there disturbs the peace among the inmates). It tries to go back to the horror theme from 'Alien', but throughout the movie there are moment where you just feel bored, waiting for something to happen. The effects on the new Alien, the 'runner', do not stand up well today, especially next to the previous two films. Stan Winston, responsible for the creature effects in 'Aliens', was approached but was not available. Winston instead recommended Tom Woddruff, Jr and Alec Gulls, two former workers of his studio who had just started their own company, Amalgamated Dynamics. So they're to blame for the awful effects.
I did like the idea behind a different Alien, a look at what would happen if a facehugger attached itself to something other than a human, so it kind of takes the story in a new direction, providing Ripley with a new challenge. Evidently the franchise was supposed to end with 'Alien 3' because Ripley dies at the end of the movie, but in the words of James Cameron "Death is never certain in science fiction". Ironically, he said that about Sigourney Weaver's character in 'Avatar 2'.
The film had a very difficult production, with multiple screenwriters constantly getting involved and dropping out. Fincher was attached to the project very late on and he had very little time to prepare. The studio made the process agonizing for him, constantly getting involved and changing things without his consent. It received mixed reviews and was not very successful at the box office.
Apparently there had been other plans for 'Alien 3', and from the sounds of it, if they'd gone ahead and made that movie instead, then 'Alien 3 and 4' would have been so much better! Originally Brandywine Productions was approached by 20th Century Fox to create two more sequels. After going through several ideas, David Giler and Walter Hill, thr film series producers, "settles upon a complex two-part story that offered the underhanded Weyland-Yutani Corporation facing off with a militarily aggressive culture of humans whose rigid socialist ideology has caused them to separate from Earth's society" Sounds interesing doesn't it? Sigourney Weaver (Ripley) would only make a cameo appearance in the third film, with the lead going to Michael Biehn's Corporal Hick's from 'Aliens'. 'Aliens 4' would see the return of Ripley "in an epic battle with Alien warriors mass produced by the expatriated Earthlings". Weaver in particular liked the Col War metaphor and agreed to the smaller role feeling that her character would become "a burden to the story".
Weaver also agreed on being removed because she disagreed with the studio changes to 'Aliens', which removed scenes of Ripley's backstory that she considered crucial. 20th Century Fox didn't like the idea, but they agreed to finance the story, but asked if Hill and Giler could get Ridley Scott to direct. They also asked that the two films be shot back to back to lessen the production costs, However this proved to be difficult as Scott, though interested, was busy working on three films at the same time. William Gibson agreed to write the script. However, when a final screenplay (by David Twohy) was delivered to Fix president Joe Roth, he did not like the idea of Ripley being removed, declaring that "Sigourney Weaver is the centerpiece of the series" and Ripley was "really the only female warrior we have in our movie mythology". Weaver was then called, with a reported 45 million salary, plus a share of the box office receipts.
So we blame Joe Roth for scrapping what could have been two amazing movies, following the style of 'Aliens', instead we got a disappointing third movie (both for us and him I imagine) and an alright fourth movie, which brings us to the fourth installment.
In 1997 French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet gave us 'Alien Resurrection', from the outset it is better than 'Alien 3'. The film is set 200 years after 'Alien 3'. Ripley is cloned and an Alien queen is surgically removed from her body. The United Systems Military hopes to breed Aliens to study and research on the spaceship USM Auriga, using human hosts kidnapped and delivered to them by a group of mercenaries. The Aliens escape their enclosures, while Ripley and the mercenaries attempt to escape and destroy the Auriga before it reaches its destination, Earth. The story is very far fetched, but it's science fiction, anything can happen. There lot's of rewrites of the script, trying to work out how they could bring Ripley back from the dead, because the studio still wanted her as the protagonist. Originally the film was going to revolve around a clone of the character Newt from 'Aliens'. Joss Whedon (The Avengers Assemble) was brought in to write the film's script. He composed a thirty-page treatment surrounding this idea before being informed that the studio, though impressed with his script, now intended to base the story around Ripley. He had to rewrite the script in a way that would bring back the Ripley character, a task he found difficult. Whedon's initial screenplay had a third act on Earth, with a final battle for Earth itself. He wrote five versions of the final act, none of which ended up in the film. The whole idea of space mercenaries that Whedon used for this film is similar to that which turned into his short-lived series 'Firefly'.
Just like with the previous films, we are introduced to a new breed of Alien, this one is much stranger than all the rest. Apparently something happens in the cloning process that effects both Ripley and the Alien queen, resulting in the eventual birth of the Alien/Human Hybrid. The aim was to make it appear more human than Alien, and they achieve this in the face. I won't go into too much detail, you'll just have to watch it and make your own opinion. It;s an average movie, but it's definitely an improvement from 'Alien 3', but also it's no where as good as 'Alien' and 'Aliens'.
That's us done with the Alien Collection, I'm now going to talk about the extended universe of Alien, the crossover with the Predator franchise.Firstly we have 'Alien vs. Predator' in 2004, which shows an new idea of the Xenomorph's role in the universe, as hunt for the Predators. The film indicates that the Predators brought them to Earth in order to hunt them, and they used humans as hosts to breed them. The film itself isn't bad, the Aliens and the Predators are a perfect match for each other, however it's one of those movies where you leave thinking it could have been so much better. The main advantage of this film is the ending, which sets up for a chance of redemption in the franchise. In 2007, we were presented with 'Alien vs. Predator: Requiem', which follows the story from the end of the last movie. We are introduced to a new breed of Alien, the Pred-Alien, or the Abomination (it's obvious where that came from). Straight away there's a major gap in the story, and that is that at the end of the first movie, the Predators leave on a massive ship, with dozens of other Predators, and the chestburster then appears, but at the beginning of this movie, they're on a much much smaller ship, with only three Predators. Yet again it isn't a great movie, it doesn't quite work because it was supposed to be set in space sometime in the future, but the studio decided they wanted to conclude the story on Earth. Someone made a big mistake with these two film, they could have been really good, they're enjoyable, there's no doubt about that, but it's a wasted opportunity.
So 'Prometheus is entering a large franchise with some very good films to compete with, it does however have the advantage that it's main competition in the franchise was made in the 80s, because all the films made in the 90s and 20s, didn't quite live up the standard left for them. If 'Prometheus is as good as we're all hoping it will be (which I think it will be), it could revive the franchise, there has been talks for years about doing a fifth 'Alien' film. Before 20th Century Fox gave 'Alien vs. Predator' the greenlight, James Cameron had been working on a script for a fifth installment, with Ridley Scott to direct. It is believed that this became 'Prometheus' but there is also more talk that Sigourney Weaver has shown interest in returning for another film, continuing on from 'Alien Resurrection'. Apparently James Cameron actually liked 'Alien vs. Predator, rating it third out of the five 'Alien' movies out at the time, whereas Ridley Scott thought it killed the validity of the franchise.
So what does the future hold? The possibility of a fifth 'Alien' film, but also there has been talks of an 'Alien vs. Predator 3', which would follow the original plan of the second movie and be set in space in the future, possibly giving us more of a look at the Predators home planet, but we only get teased with in 'Alien vs. Predator: Requiem'. At the moment it seems unlikely that it will actually go ahead, but there is more activity going on on the other side of the water. Ever since 'Predators' came out in 2012, there has been talks of a sequel. The first movie was actually toned down in order to made a sequel possible. There's more news! With Arnold Schwarzenegger's return to acting, along with 'Terminator 5', he was apparently asked to star in 'Predator 3', which would be amazing! So if 'Prometheus' does as well as we expect it to, it may set the ball rolling on the rest of these sequels, which could potentially be really good for the world of sci fi.
So there we have it, a brief look at the world that 'Prometheus' is entering. Ridley Scott reinvented sci fi and cinema with 'Alien', can he bring back that same magic touch with this prequel? Let's hope so! As you can probably tell, I am extremely excited for this movie (hence why I spent ages writing this post), and it has all the right ingredients to make it one of the best films this year. It has some tough competition this year, with 'The Avengers Assemble' now the fourth highest grossing film of all time, and with the release of 'The Amazing Spider-man' and 'The Dark Knight Rises' very close on the horizon, we'll just have to wait and see how well it holds up.
