Alien: The Prequel

[Feralkid]

Okay, still trying to verify this but a screenwriter mate in LA has passed me what appears to be the script for that Alien prequel Ridely Scott's doing.

Jesus-tap-dancing-Christ.  If it's an actual genuine proposition for a sci-fi horror film everyone involved is insane. 

In a nutshell the story focuses on two humans wprking as slaves for the Space Joeckys on a pastoral world which the jockeys are terraforming.  The Aliens as we know them exist there, but only in a smaller more insect like form.  Their ant colony like nests seems to be linked to the SJ's terraforming.  Another slave race is present, the Grunts, described as looking like bipedal mules.  They don't speak and when any of them die the Jockey's roast them and have a barbecue.   Meanwhile, in a weird B-plot, we see the crew of another vessel respond to a sighting of an alien craft.

Frankly the whole thing is very, very odd.  There's a lack of overt sci-fi horror action and the main characters find themselves in a Midnight Express style same sex union apt to annoy middle America.  The guys are called Adam and Steven and there's some clunky referencing of the Book of Genesis going on.  Along with mind rape, wrist nipples and a king fu fight with a cat alien.

Further research reveals that the script, called Alien Harvest, has been on the net for a while.  Has anyone else read this? 

[El Unicornio, mang]

Here's the script:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4083772/24549638-Alien-Harvest.pdf

Haven't read it but it sounds silly, although the idea of an Alien prequel is very exciting to me. At the same time though, the mystery of the Space Jockey is part of it's appeal.

Incidentally, some good news about the upcoming Alien Anthology Blu Ray, regarding the infamous scene of Burke cocooned, which has never been seen before bar this pic:



http://www.bbfc.co.uk/website/Classified.nsf/0/B1A9BDE9B0CE078E80257757003E5537?OpenDocument

[Big Jack McBastard]

Oh I'd hate to have him explained, he's such an abiding image of my youth and a delicious bit of mystery that just hangs forever after seeing the film for the first time. I think I prefer it like that, though the fact that Ridley Scott is doing it gives me mild tingles.

On a side note though I'm not a fan of the Aliens vs Predator film (not seen the second but it's floating around somewhere) the idea is lovely and surprisingly well executed (if thin on details) in of all things the AvP game, perhaps that's where it's best left until a decent brilliant director and actors come together that can do it justice.

[El Unicornio, mang]

The AvP comic book that came out in 1989 is very good, they kind of used the same story for the film, but set it on Earth and changed some other aspects. The first few Aliens comics (which continue the story after Aliens, as Alien 3 hadn't been released, so it's kind of an alternate timeline) are excellent too.

[Beagle 2]

I read this as "Allen - The Prequel" and was alreadt wondering how much makeup Coogan was going to need to shave 25 years off his age.

[biggytitbo]

Alien the Prequel would be a lot better if one of the lead characters was a bear.

[glitch]

The Space Jockey has already been explained in the comics...

I'm a big fan of the Alien/Predator franchise and really hope they don't make this film, it sounds fucking dire.

The AvP comic book that came out in 1989 is very good, they kind of used the same story for the film, but set it on Earth and changed some other aspects. The first few Aliens comics (which continue the story after Aliens, as Alien 3 hadn't been released, so it's kind of an alternate timeline) are excellent too.

Prey? I don't remember that being at all like the first (or second) AVP film. They really ought to have just made Prey into a film instead of either of their attempts so far.

[Big Jack McBastard]

The Space Jockey has already been explained in the comics...

Ah but by virtue of not having read them I can remain blissfully unaware, if a bloody film comes out I'll be on it like a fly on a rather pungent turd despite my reservations.

[El Unicornio, mang]

The Space Jockey has already been explained in the comics...

I'm a big fan of the Alien/Predator franchise and really hope they don't make this film, it sounds fucking dire.
Prey? I don't remember that being at all like the first (or second) AVP film. They really ought to have just made Prey into a film instead of either of their attempts so far.

I've never seen the film, just basing it on what wikipedia says:

The concept of Alien vs. Predator originated from the Aliens versus Predator comic book in 1989, and was hinted at when an Alien skull appeared in a trophy case aboard the Predator ship in Predator 2.[2]  Screenwriter Peter Briggs created the original spec screenplay in 1990–1991, which was based on the first comic series.[2]  In 1991, he successfully pitched the concept to 20th Century Fox, who owned the film franchises, although the company did not move forward with the project until 2002. A draft penned by James DeMonaco and Kevin Fox was rejected by producer John Davis, who hoped to give the film an original approach by setting it on Earth.

[mobias]

That leaked script reeks of bullshit if you ask me. Ridley Scott has already said he wants the movie he makes to be truly terrifying in the same way Alien is. He's also spoken of wanting HR Giger heavily involved in it right from the start. That latter point is the most important in my opinion. I've always thought HR Giger is the true star of Alien, its his baby more than anyone else's. That's why I hate Aliens. Its a very well made movie but it totally does away with what Giger created in the original, there was never meant to be any queen alien or any of that nonsense. None of the sequels paid respect to his designs and concepts which is one of the reasons they all paled into inferiority to the original.

[Ginyard]

The concept of Alien vs. Predator originated from the Aliens versus Predator comic book in 1989, and was hinted at when an Alien skull appeared in a trophy case aboard the Predator ship in Predator 2

One problem I always had with Predator here is that an Alien is obviously a much trickier bitch to hunt than a human, so why bother hunting humans? Its the equivalent of a lion hunter going into a Derbyshire field and blowing away a flock of lambs with a tommy gun.

[Fawwaz]

One problem I always had with Predator here is that an Alien is obviously a much trickier bitch to hunt than a human, so why bother hunting humans? Its the equivalent of a lion hunter going into a Derbyshire field and blowing away a flock of lambs with a tommy gun.

Also, the Predators apparently only go after dangerous pray, creatures that will challenge them, won't attack someone who's unarmed etc . But in the trophy room (alongside the Alien skull), there's a triceratops skull. How would a triceratops be challenging to a predator -- they're lumbering herbivores whose only weapons are their horns, which are no match for Predator technology. A T-Rex or summat would have made more sense.

[Cerys]

Maybe the humans and the triceratops are the equivalent of crayon pictures stuck to the fridge door.

[Ginyard]

Whatever, that first Predator that had his slimy jaw handed to him by Arnie must have felt like the Porky's Peewee of the Predator world. Slapped down by a lambkin; an embarassment that no nucleur watch and a B-movie mwahaha! can fix.

[Detective John Kimble]

That's nothing compared to getting killed by Danny Glover, on home turf, in front of all your mates.  You can almost hear the muffled whispers of "always thought he was a whoopsie".

[Mary is not amused]

Also, the Predators apparently only go after dangerous pray, creatures that will challenge them, won't attack someone who's unarmed etc .

Isn't this the point?  They hunt for sport.  There's little doubt they'd cream their enemy, if they, as a race, waged war on either us or the Aliens, due to sheer technical might.

But they do it for sport.  I'd imagine Aliens provide a purely physical contest.  But homo sapiens?  Now you need wits and cunning, not pure might, to prevail one-on-one.


_{^{These are my thoughts on fictional motion pictures.}}

[Fawwaz]

Yeah, I understand that. I like the idea it's just for fun, but that they want to hunt creatures that require a bit of work to catch. No-one wants to shoot fish in a barrel.  My problem is that slow-moving, relatively harmless vegetarian dinosaurs don't really fit that remit, which is why it bugged me that the prop people put a triceratops in the trophy room, when more deadly -- and more sporting to hunt -- dinosaurs existed.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

It's not dissimilar to men with guns hunting rhino or elephant is it?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to the Predators thread to discuss the Alien films.

[Mary is not amused]

My problem is that slow-moving, relatively harmless vegetarian dinosaurs don't really fit that remit, which is why it bugged me that the prop people put a triceratops in the trophy room, when more deadly -- and more sporting to hunt -- dinosaurs existed.

Ah, my response was aimed more towards Ginyard, but I didn't make that clear.

An (admittedly unsatisfactory) answer could be that archeology has painted an inaccurate picture and, in fact, the triceratops were actually a bit tasty?

[Ginyard]

I'm not sure about the wits and cunning. It seems all you need is physical superiority, some kick-arse armour and an invisibility shield and then you can drag any old hispanic mercenary up into the vines for a good old-fashioned skinning. Its like dressing up as a medieval Knight then charging round a primary school hall beheading a class of year 3s. With the Aliens you're in the same suit of armour but you're facing a batshit crazy baboon with acidic blood that'll rot your helmet off.

[Mary is not amused]

I'm not sure about the wits and cunning. It seems all you need is physical superiority, some kick-arse armour and an invisibility shield and then you can drag any old hispanic mercenary up into the vines for a good old-fashioned skinning. Its like dressing up as a medieval Knight then charging round a primary school hall beheading a class of year 3s. With the Aliens you're in the same suit of armour but you're facing a batshit crazy baboon with acidic blood that'll rot your helmet off.

Wider bell curve, innit?

Aliens are ten-a-penny.  All rock-hard fuck-nuts, but all the same.

Homo sapiens?  Sure, you cut through a couple of dozen without breaking a sweat, but then you meet the unrelenting diamond face of an Arnie or a Glover. 

Spoiler alert

fuck, i really typed that

[close]

[scrambles the cat]

It's not a Triceratops though, it's a huge meat-eating space bastard.

It's probably the equivalent of the animal that appears early on in Avatar.

edit: http://www.avpgalaxy.net/predator-movies/predator-2/ bottom right picture, which I'm doing a terrible job of linking to.

[Mister Six]

I'm not sure about the wits and cunning. It seems all you need is physical superiority, some kick-arse armour and an invisibility shield and then you can drag any old hispanic mercenary up into the vines for a good old-fashioned skinning. Its like dressing up as a medieval Knight then charging round a primary school hall beheading a class of year 3s. With the Aliens you're in the same suit of armour but you're facing a batshit crazy baboon with acidic blood that'll rot your helmet off.

Maybe it's like actual hunting parties and the ones we see in the films going after mercs and crackheads are actually accountants on holiday? That's why they've got all the fanciest kit, too.

[Cerys]

It's not a Triceratops though, it's a huge meat-eating space bastard.

Certainly looks more like a t rex than a triceratops to me.  But what is Feathers McGraw doing there?

[Feralkid]

That leaked script reeks of bullshit if you ask me. Ridley Scott has already said he wants the movie he makes to be truly terrifying in the same way Alien is. He's also spoken of wanting HR Giger heavily involved in it right from the start. That latter point is the most important in my opinion. I've always thought HR Giger is the true star of Alien, its his baby more than anyone else's. That's why I hate Aliens. Its a very well made movie but it totally does away with what Giger created in the original, there was never meant to be any queen alien or any of that nonsense. None of the sequels paid respect to his designs and concepts which is one of the reasons they all paled into inferiority to the original.

Well with Aliens Giger was too busy working on Poltergiest II to commit.  As for the Queen, well Giger didn;t devise the Alien's lifecycle and there's nothing about the Queen that's out of sympathy with what we saw in the original theatrical edition of Alien.  As for the latter sequels, Fox simply didn;t want to pay Giger any more money and thus tweaked the Alien designs so that they could legally claim that they were distinct and different from Giger's.  As for Ridley wanting to make something truly terrifying, well maybe he thinks that script is truly terrifying.  His recent work certainly suggests he's lost any grasp of story or sense.  He is still pushing Monopoly the movie as a concept after all.   

[mobias]

Well with Aliens Giger was too busy working on Poltergiest II to commit.  As for the Queen, well Giger didn;t devise the Alien's lifecycle and there's nothing about the Queen that's out of sympathy with what we saw in the original theatrical edition of Alien.  As for the latter sequels, Fox simply didn;t want to pay Giger any more money and thus tweaked the Alien designs so that they could legally claim that they were distinct and different from Giger's. 

Not much of that is true actually. Firstly James Cameron didn't want Giger involved in Aliens because he wanted to exert as much of his own stamp over it as possible and wanted it to look and feel like 'his' movie and not Giger's. It sounds like he used Poltergiest II as a bit of an excuse, you can read Cameron's letter to Giger explaining himself here http://www.hrgiger.com/james_cameron.htm

Secondly Giger most certainly did design an entire life cycle for the Alien. True none of it was used in the original theatrical cut of Alien but he did design it. There was a whole scene that Giger designed that was never filmed for lack of money where by John Hurt, when exploring the derelict space ship, discovers a huge mural painted on a wall showing the Alien life cycle. Giger has always been strongly opposed to the idea of a queen alien. You can see his idea for the gigantic mural here http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_RNrl2Gr0VwI/Sy3yBczU3aI/AAAAAAAAB7o/UcScoa6LUUQ/s1600-h/AlienHieroglyphics.jpg

Thirdly Fox and David Fincher did actually commission Giger to work on Alien 3 and Giger worked on a whole load of designs for them. In the end it seems due to Alien 3's highly troubled production everybody fell out with everyone else and only some of them were used. http://www.hrgiger.com/alien4f.htm
It was only with the fourth Alien movie that 20th Century Fox wanted all ties with Giger cut and so tried to redesign the Alien as mush as possible. And what a pile of shit that movie turned out to be.

[El Unicornio, mang]

I quite like the "life cycle" aspect of the original story as it's creepy and disturbing, although it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but I think the queen alien was a masterstroke. Both films are 10/10 for me, anyway.

[mobias]

I quite like the "life cycle" aspect of the original story as it's creepy and disturbing, although it doesn't make a whole lot of sense,

Its definitely creepy and disturbing but I don't think it really needs to make sense. I'm not one for having everything explained in movies, I like having a certain amount left to my own imagination and interpretation. I always thought the queen alien idea was totally obvious and naff in the same way a fair few of James Cameron's ideas are. It just made the whole alien life cycle insect like which is pretty far from being original or clever, or for that matter disturbing. I know a lot of people out there absolutely adore Aliens, and to be fair fair its an incredibly well produced and at times well directed action flick that does built its tension very very well. But where as it could have really built upon the, as James Cameron puts it,' bizarre psycho-sexual' horror of the first one it dispenses with all that and gives us this big shoot em up instead. That letter from Cameron to Giger says it all really. On the one hand he could have had the opportunity to work with this incredibly original, gifted and truly disturbing surrealist but instead he wanted his well known planet sized ego to be all over the film. People can say what they like about Ridley Scott, at least he knows the strength of a good collaboration.

[JPA]

It just made the whole alien life cycle insect like which is pretty far from being original or clever, or for that matter disturbing.

The insect thing was around from Alien though, here's Ron Shusett on it:

People have read all kinds of things into it that we didn't intend, not even subconsciously. But there was one thing we did do. It was our idea that it would be the life-cycle of an insect. The way a wasp will sting a spider, paralyse it and lay its eggs in it; its eggs grow off the living spider, like a surrogate mother.

[Cerys]

A brief aside.  This afternoon I summarised the whole alien tetrology for Bethan.  She wanted to watch it.  I explained that it wasn't Bethan-friendly, but that I could find her some pictures of the aliens.  Her response to the Queen alien action figure was that it was 'quite nasty', and demanded that we play Alien some time.  She wants to play Ripley.  I was cast as Newt.

RIPLEEEEEEE!