Okay, now we’re talking. The movie could still be a hot mess but goddamn does the new alien look amazing in action. It’s amazing what one awesome trailer will do to get me completely sucked into the hype tornado again.
All these dudes are gonna be eaten. I can’t wait.
Yeah, yeah, I know this is over a month old at this point but I finally decided to write a little bit about the best look we’ve gotten so far at Ridley Scott’s newest attempt to drain any remaining life out of the Alien franchise.
WARNING: Only watch the trailer if you don’t really give a shit about spoilers. Really. This trailer gives away a lot.
The only thing really hidden in the trailer are the monsters themselves (apart from the facehugger). The ad runs as a giant “THIS IS WHAT YOU GUYS WANTED, RIGHT?!” from Ridley to all the fans of the franchise that were disappointed/gutted by 2012’s Prometheus.
I could go on forever about the story and how I thought Prometheus was terrible and that prequels are just a terrible idea but we shall instead focus on what Ridley has always been phenomenal at: his visuals.
The film looks gorgeous. From the set design, to the choice of lighting and shots. It looks properly scary and vast at the same time. I haven’t cared about spoilers for the film as the real enjoyment for me will come from actually seeing what’s on the screen. I’ve been hearing cool things about how the effects team actualized the monsters in the film so I was pleased that most of all that was hidden in this teaser. The back-buster scene has caused a lot of buzz among the members of the press who saw a preview of the sequence so I’m certainly looking forward to that. Since the story will almost certainly be rubbish, the fun that remains will be in seeing how these monsters (chief among them being the Big Chap) will be realized with modern special effects.
I can’t resist commenting a bit more on the story for the film. It does seem that David is being set-up as the creator of the Alien. This would be tremendously dumb for a dozen different reasons. I feel strongly that if we have to see how the Aliens were created, the creator of this supreme life form should be female, not Michael Fassbender’s android character. This makes narrative sense to me. The aliens themselves are designed with intense gendered imagery in mind and the one who ultimately stops them in the series is a woman. We’ll find out in May if David is truly revealed to have such an important role in the saga.
Another interesting thought that I came across while reading hundreds of comments and articles on Covenant is that now that it appears that Neill Blomkamp’s Alien 5 is pretty much dead in the water, one wonders if these movies are intended to set up an eventual showdown between David and Ripley. That may be a bit too far-fetched. A bit more likely is that, if Covenant is a big hit, this will lead to Fox trying out Alien Vs. Predator again as they try to create a bigger cinematic universe akin to Marvel and DC’s films. Again, I can’t help but think that there is a creative black hole when it comes to ideas for what to do with the Alien franchise. Retcons. Prequels. AVP. Doesn’t anyone have any decent ideas for what to do with Giger’s amazing monster? No? At this point the only person who I think could write a new Alien story with anything truly twisted and new in it is Clive Barker.
I’ll rant some more when the next trailer for the film appears.
It’s like Ridley Scott and Fox really want me to forget that this is the sequel to Prometheus for some reason.
I do like how the alien here reminds me of the ‘ol chap from Alien 3, which is an excellent take on the monster before it became a sludgy mass of poop-drool in Alien: Resurrection.
Could be good but they’ve gotta work hard to impress me after Prometheus.
Ridley Scott and Sigourney Weaver on the set of 'Alien'
Twentieth Century Fox officially announced today that Ridley Scott’s upcoming science fiction film will not be a prequel to the Alien film series but rather a brand new story that has grown out of the initial ideas for an Alien reboot.
The new project will be entitled Prometheus and will star Noomi Rapace who played Lisbeth Salander in the swedish version of The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo. Rapace will play the lead character who is named ‘Elizabeth Shaw’.
This is quite a drastic change in the production as Twentieth Century Fox has been unofficially calling Scott’s new science fiction film the ‘Alien prequel’ all the way through pre-production so far until today.
Prometheus will indeed be a science fiction film but rather than being another installment of the Alien franchise it will be something the ‘last thing that anyone expects’. Here’s a quote from Damon Lindelof who is co-writing the script for the film with Scott:
“In a world flooded with prequels, sequels and reboots, I was incredibly struck by just how original Ridley’s vision was for this movie. It’s daring, visceral and hopefully, the last thing anyone expects.”
Here is a quote from Ridley Scott himself on the project:
“While Alien was indeed the jumping off point for this project, out of the creative process evolved a new, grand mythology and universe in which this original story takes place. The keen fan will recognize strands of Alien‘s DNA, so to speak, but the ideas tackled in this film are unique, large and provocative. I couldn’t be more pleased to have found the singular tale I’d been searching for, and finally return to this genre that’s so close to my heart.”
Overall this sounds very interesting and I am very much looking forward to new announcements surrounding the project. Although I am dissapointed that it will not be a continuation of the Alien series I am still glad to see Ridley Scott working on his first science fiction film since Blade Runner.
Update 1/27/11: Actor Michael Fassbender has joined the project as one of the primary characters. Fassbender will be playing an andriod alongside Noomi Rapace’s character Elizabeth Shaw. Ridley Scott also hinted that he has some sort of connection to the Bishop android in Aliens.
Just a day after this announcement several sources in the production are claiming that Prometheus is indeed part of the Alien series despite the official announcements made by Twentieth Century Fox and Ridley Scott that it was a new project entirely. Here are the reports posted on Sky.com from their ‘inside sources’:
“They’ve built the ‘space jockey’ cockpit at Pinewood as seen in the original Alien film, so it definitely takes place in the same world as Alien.”
“Despite that press release that seemed to indicate there were no aliens in the movie, the familiar HR Giger-style aliens do appear. Big ones apparently.”
“Part of the film will be shot in Morocco. I’ve heard that some sort of archaeological dig where they discover alien DNA takes place there and that DNA gives them the coordinates for an alien world. I’ve also heard Morocco is being used for alien planet landscapes so I’m not sure if it’s an archaeological dig on another planet.”
“The main spaceship in the film will be piloted by an enormous head which I assume will be CGI. Yep, sounds weird but I assume some of the technology will be sort of biomechanical.”
Whether or not H.R. Giger’s aliens are in the film or not it is clear that Ridley Scott is having a lot of fun. It also makes sense to me that Scott wishes to promote the film as a new project rather than just ‘Alien 5‘ as there are already many sequels, prequels, and remakes filling up the film schedule of 2012.
Sadly, the one official word we have gotten from Twentieth Century Fox about Prometheus aside from the casting of Michael Fassbender is that the release date has been pushed back to June 8, 2012.
This article was just to interesting not to post again here. Satoshi Kon and his staff working on The Dreaming Machine made a list of 100 of the movies that came up the most in conversations at the studio.
This list has a few typo’s but in general it includes a really interesting selection of films, many of which if you should check out if you haven’t already seen them. This is a bittersweet post after Satoshi Kon’s recent passing, but I wanted to post this on Teatime as it shows what kinds of movies Satoshi kon enjoyed talking about.
Also, as pointed out on the makiko itoh blog, it is interesting to see that there isn’t a single animated film mentioned on either the primary list or the ‘films that didn’t make the list’ section. It should be noted that the order is not important, but just there for convenience.
Do you remember Ripley’s awesome Reebok sneakers from Aliens? You don’t? Either way, you can own a pair of them for yourself this fall.
Reebok is re-releasing the ‘Alien Stomper’ tennis shoe in two different styles this September after a extremely brief release back in 1983 when the James Cameron’s sequel was first shown in theaters.
The bad news? It looks as though they will be on sale primarily in Japan and will go for $125. Of course, there are no laces on these babies, only velcro. They’re from the future remember?
Order them here?
The other style is posted below.
Bandai Entertainment announced today at it’s Comic Con International panel today that it has acquired the rights for all 50 episodes of Yoshiyuki Tomino’s Turn A Gundam series.
Although more than a little eccentric and not without it’s flaws, it is no secret that Turn A Gundam is my favorite installment in the franchise.
Released in 1999 as part of the 20th anniversary celebration of the first Gundam television series it features designes by Syd Mead (of Blade Runner and Alien fame) and music composed by the master herself, Yoko Kanno (of Cowboy Bebop fame). Turn A Gundam is also so far director Yoshiyuki Tomino’s last contribution to the franchise apart from a short film made for last year’s 30th anniversary entitled Ring of Gundam.
No release date is set yet but I am happy just to know that this series has been picked up for release in America.
20th Century Fox is releasing the four primary Alien films remastered on Blu-Ray later this year. The collection will be called the ‘Alien Anthology’ and it will not feature the two terrible Alien vs. Predator films. The new collection will include many hours of new extras that will go far beyond what was included in thebonus material of the ‘Alien Quadrilogy’ DVD boxset that was released in 2004. Aside from a variety of new featurettes, the most exciting announcement for me has to be the news that the extended edition of Alien 3 is getting its audio issues fixed. Since a ‘director’s cut’ doesn’t exist for Alien 3 (due to director David Fincher not wanting to have anything else to do with the project) the people at Fox decided to release workprint footage that had been cut from the original release of the film to create an ‘extended edition’.
The problem with this is that certain scenes weren’t actually finished in post production so entire segments of dialogue had to have a subtitle track go along with it just to understand what the actors are saying. This new Blu-ray release of Alien 3 apparently fixes this problem due to some of the actors returning to re-record their dialogue. the release date for the box set is rumored to be Christmas of this year and there will of course be a few different versions of the release including a collector’s edition which will have the box set contained in an Alien egg. Very, very cool. Early design pictures of the anthology set are included below. Personally, as cool as the special edition looks, I really hope that it contains the white Alien Queen cover of the Blu-ray box because that cover picture is just simply awesome.
Ridley Scott was interviewed this week by MTV and revealed some interesting pieces of information about the film. He is currently working through the fourth draft of the film and it is set in the year 2085, which places it about 30 years before the first ‘Alien’ film from 1979. Scott also commented that although Sigourney Weaver won’t appear in the film (which makes sense — Ripley wouldn’t have even been born yet) the film will still feature a woman as the main character. Ridley Scott then comments that, as rumors suggested, the film would indeed explain the mystery behind the ‘Space Jockey’ that appeared in the first film. Prior to the Alien eggs being discovered, the away team finds the remains of another creature which had also been killed by a chestbuster…or so it seemed. This new film will reveal the what the Space Jockey truly is. Perhaps most interesting is Scott’s comments on the design of the creatures themselves: ” The alien in a sense, as a shape, is worn out”. I agree with his comments.
The design of the creature worked wonderfully for the original four films and has become an icon of both science fiction and horror films and has had nearly as many action figures as Godzilla. However, we all know and instantly recognize the creature now. We’ve watched the films dozens of times. The only people unfamiliar with it are the few people who have perhaps heard of the films but have never seen them….which, to me, is just unbelievable. Scott then comments that when the film gets closer to being ready for pre-production he will be talking with the original designer H.R. Giger to possibly come up with something completely different that no one has seen before….”I have to design — or redesign — earlier versions of what these elements are that led to the thing you finally see in “Alien,” which is the thing that catapults out of the egg, the face-hugger”. Scott ends the interview by saying that he hopes to have the film released in late 2011 or sometime in 2012. Ridley Scott has a new film arriving this summer, ‘Robin Hood’, which is sadly being totally overshadowed due to his announcement of returning to the Alien franchise.
You can read the full interview for yourself here: http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1637638/story.jhtml
The video posted above is the original trailer for the first ‘Alien’ film from 1979.
‘Alien vs. Predator:Requiem’ is not only the worst film in the Alien and Predator franchises but I also firmly feel that it is the worst movie ever made. This is for any number of reasons. The fact that the lighting in the film is so terrible you could just barely see the action (even on the big screen). Acting that is so impossibly atrocious that you can’t possibly feel anything at all for any of the characters. Or that it blatantly rips off some of the best scenes from the earlier movies and makes them terrible. I could, and have, (sadly) spent hours ripping this film apart. However, I also feel that the one good thing to arise out of the whole schlocky mess that is the two ‘Alien vs. Predator’ films are these posters for the Japanese release of ‘Alien vs. Predator: Requiem’ from 2007. The first poster is just totally awesome and the second poster makes the film seems like a Godzilla movie just with smaller monsters. If only the film that these posters were advertising was half as good as they made it seem to be.
Teatime with Godzilla 