Yes, thanks Blake! It’s one of those movies I love despite the industrial grade suspension of disbelief needed. Your post shed some light on the topic of this thread which is something that puzzled me.
Did that script explain the opening sequence any better?
I can’t help but think that almost all of these changes were made late in the game by Ridley Scott himself once he decided that he did not want Prometheus to be a direct Alien prequel (which it was totally promoted as being all thru pre-production and filming, right up until Scott started denying that it was just a few months before it was released). It seemed like, with all the movie franchises sprouting up everywhere, Scott suddenly felt it would be cheesy to look like he was hopping on the franchise/sequel/prequel bandwagon by going back to his 30-year old breakthrough film for new material.
Big mistake, as everyone (but him) wanted it to be an *Alien *prequel, not just the studio execs but the fans as well. And regardless of all his changes and denials it still totally *was *an *Alien *prequel, and would have been a much better one if he hadn’t messed it all up as above…
Yeah, that original script sounds pretty good. At the very least, it sounds coherent. An alien prequel is exactly what we all wanted.
I sure as hell wanted one. What I got was…a white hot mess.
I mean, it’s arguably worse than the other sequels. I am one of the few people on the planet who actually liked Alien 3. I don’t like that they SPOILER! killed Newt and Hicks/Hudson (I can never remember which one is which) but the movie itself is kind of cool…dark, and a very dark ending, but with interesting characters and premises.
Alien 4 was just terrible. Terrible, terrible, terrible. I don’t like Winona Ryder or Ron Pearlman or half the people in the cast, and suddenly Ripley-clone is sympathetic to the aliens that have dominated half her life? Ugh?
But I still like Prometheus despite all of its flaws.
Why the hell did the get rid of this story?! Did the writers not think for a second ‘Ok this re write makes no sense whatsoever’
That’s a perfect reason, thanks man.
Wow, what Blake posted is a much better movie than the one I saw.
I’m going to post a bit of a contrarian view, then. I preferred the tenuous and uncertain connection between Prometheus and the Alien canon better than a straight prequel. It made it more interesting to me, even with the questions I had after seeing it (except for the question about how the alien in the med lab grew to be so big, I’m not letting that go). Also, the way it was presented really begged for a sequel to answer all those questions, whereas the film as a prequel would have almost not allowed another film between Prometheus and Alien. Therefore no real new knowledge or interest in the Alien universe with Prometheus as a prequel, while as it was released it opened up a lot of new possibilities.
That said, probably it would have been better if that had been the goal from the beginning, instead of switching from a straight prequel to this mixed bag film. Poor planning, I guess.
I would be all in favor of any coherent movie set in that universe, prequel or otherwise and I think most of us here would agree with you.
I don’t even need something that answers all the questions and spells it out for me as long as its coherent. We could apologize for all the aliens in Prometheus by saying that we don’t understand them, but even the human characters are pretty implausible and inconsistent.
I just watched Alien and Aliens. Hicks and the rest are dead at the end, only Newt and Ripley regain the Marine’s ship. Alien 3 (which I don’t have) is based at a prison colony, IIRC. I can remember what happens to Ripley, but not Newt and the rest of the colony. I think Alien Requiem is when they find the temple under the polar ice, which brings in the Predators.
Hicks wasn’t dead. His life signs were real low, but he wasn’t dead.
I assume we don’t need spoilers for movies this old.
Yes, Alien 3 is at the prison colony and Ripley is the only one that survives when their escape pod crashes there at the beginning. I guess you could argue Bishop sort of survives because he gets reactivated (briefly?).
Then we go back in there and get them!
Fuck that!
We don’t leave our people behind!
Aw, man, and I was getting short. Four threads and out.
David originally said this to the Engineer in the Engineer’s language.
The argument I heard was that the engineer had a chest burster inside of it, and went into statis 2000 years ago to avoid having the chest burster grow and mature. When the engineer was woken up he realized he was as good as dead, so he killed the humans who woke him up out of vengeance for killing him by waking him up.
Also he was mad at the humans for wanting more life, and for creating a bastard version of life like David the machine.
Personally I loved the movie, it was the best one in the Alien franchise.
Me too, and I’m not sure why. Maybe because, in place of the gritty ugly corporate-ridden vision of the future in the first films, this one had a vision that included human emotion and aspirations (and stupidity).
So, **Wesley **and others who like this film, why?
Yeah, Hicks (Michael Biehn) was most definitely alive at the end. There wasn’t even any mention of his life signs being low, I think you’re confusing this with the earlier scene inside the APC after the first alien battle where Hudson says this about the sarge (he was grabbed but not killed). But Hicks is pretty much absent for the last third of the film. His last line is when they land the second drop ship inside the atmosphere processor and Ripley is getting ready to leave to rescue Newt. Bishop is warning her how little time they have and Ripley says, “Hicks, don’t let him leave” to which Hicks replies, “We ain’t goin’ anywhere”. The director’s cut adds a short little bit after this where Ripley and Hicks tell each other their first names (Ellen and Duane respectively).
The next time we see him is when they’re back inside the Sulaco but still inside the drop-ship. He’s unconscious and Ripley goes to try and move him and Bishop stops her and says, “We need a stretcher to move him to medical”. Then there’s the queen battle etc. He’s still unconscious (but very much alive) when Ripley seals him (and half of Bishop) into the cryotubes. The film’s last shot is of Ripley and Newt in cryosleep (as opposed to the last shot in Alien of Ripley and the cat in cryosleep).
I’ve seen that movie a few times…
I just watched it the other night. You would think I could keep it straight for a few days. Hail Ants has it nailed down. I was thinking about the crew who were caught in the nest looking for colonists down there.
The premise is interesting of them going to find an Old civilization, but, I always envision Elon Musk doing something similar with his real life Weyland corporation (Space X)