Director Ridley Scott recently talked to The Independent regarding the upcomingAlientelevision series based on the films of the same name. The upcomingAlienseries will be a different media format than the usual theatrical releases which marks a change for the long-running sci-fi franchise.
Ridley Scott is known for films such asAlien, Prometheusand the recently released historical epicThe Duel. Herecently shared his thoughts on the studios as well as the upcoming television series based on his sci-fi horror film franchise. When speaking about the upcoming show, the director chose his words carefully but didn’t shy away from speaking his mind. When asked about how the new show will do the director said, “It’ll never be as good as the first one… that’s what I’ll say.”
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The director spoke about the studios' critiques of his creative choice for 2012’sPrometheusand said, “I never showed an alien in it…and the studio said, ‘See, it didn’t do so well!’ Really?” For those that don’t know the film grossed more than $400 million. Then for the next film,Alien: Covenant,they put the Aliens right back in the filmbut the sequel only made $240 million. The director continued by saying, “When you’ve got a marvelous beast, it does wear out and you have to actually think again.”
The originalAlienmoviewas known for not showing the monster until the middle-end or climactic scenes of the film. The movie did a good job at playing on the imagination of the viewer. When a monster or threat is lurking in the shadows, causing havoc, while also dropping clues to what it is then it’s up to the viewer to subconsciously fill in the blank as to what it is. The longer this effect remains, the bigger the anticipation and the more unique the threat feels.
When the threat or monster is shown in every single frame, there are large numbers of them, and they get killed easily then the monster or threat instantly becomes less frightening or special.Prometheus & Alien: Covenantare two opposites of the spectrums in terms of displaying the threat.
Ridley Scott’s opinions are incredibly valid as they line up to what has been happening in the world ofAlienso far. The most recent film was missing some of the key elements that made the original so terrifying, and thexenomorph feels more like a nuisancethan it does like a lone solo monstrosity. Hopefully, the television series brings things back to basics for the switch to the small screen.
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