I have thoughts on the Alien franchise that I want to share.

So, science fiction news broke this weekend about the Alien franchise that is now moving to a television series headed by Noah Hawley. I've very much liked Noah Hawley's takes (episodic television series and not movies) on Fargo and Legion. Heck, based on Legion alone, I think he will bring a really interesting creepiness to the Alien franchise. With the ability to expand outward in episode after episode, he won't be constrained by time. He won't have to resort to the idea that people are just trapped on a spaceship, or they are trapped on a planet, or they are trapped in one situation or another. This is how Alien movies have been done up until now. And I think this is a great opportunity to step away from the movies and tell a different story about the Engineers (visible in the Alien prequel of Prometheus), and the danger of corporate greed looking for a biological weapon to keep those who don't support their interests in line.

However, Ridley Scott is not a fan of the idea. He doesn't like that the story will be set on Earth. In Hawley's words he wants to explore the idea of "What happens if you can't contain it?" And then wants to follow up with (assumedly) the destruction of Earth, which I think could be incredible television. Ridley Scott (who coined the original idea of keeping the aliens away from Earth) says that "It'll never be as good as the first one." In the interview with The Independent Scott said that having the xenomorph creature at the center of the story is not what audiences want.

Okay...I think that Scott obviously knows his own creation better than anyone. But I want to put forth another idea. The thing that puts Alien in its best light is the mystery. It is the impending horror without showing a thing. It's very Lovecraftian in that way. If I was going to do something with H.P. Lovecraft's work (and I had the resources to do it well), I wouldn't show the Great Old Ones on the screen except in very rare instances to inspire awe. I believe the same thing could also work in an extended series...with the horrific elements of the xenomorph being talked about and shown in contrast to the actual creature itself. Of course, Aliens showed us that massive amounts of xenomorphs being slaughtered with futuristic weapons can also be nice, as it all felt very hopeless despite all that firepower.

Scott's take on Hawley's ability to play in the universe he created also feels really defensive. In other words, why would a show be measured against one of (arguably) the best horror movies ever made?" And whether or not you like any of the sequels, you have to admit that Alien by itself is a masterpiece. In my humble opinion, the plot is simple yet deviously smart, with subtle layers to it that one doesn't even realize until the film has played itself out. To explain further, I don't know if Hawley's Fargo is any better than the movie it's based on either. But it doesn't matter, because I enjoy them both.

Anyway, when I learned that this project is going forward, I felt a rush of endorphins. It will probably be coming out next year, and it will air on the FX network, which is also where Hawley's other series tend to land. I guess we will soon see if Alien can make the transition to television and obtain a whole new demographic of fans.

Prometheus Review With Spoilers

This is a picture of Shaw's baby (the tentacled monster) taking out the lone
 space jockey on the planet that the crew awoke from a 2000 year-old hyper sleep.
 When the space jockey woke up, he was pissed and started killing everyone.
There was no explanation. He shares the same genetic code as a human, but
 clearly was very unhappy that humans had landed on the planet and had
 one thing in mind: pilot a ship filled with biological weapons to destroy Earth. Shaw
stopped him and basically opened a door that had the monster tentacled creature
 behind it that grabbed the space jockey that would have killed her. This was the biggest
face-hugger I have ever seen. It was really impressive.

Well I saw Prometheus at the midnight showing last Thursday, and I absolutely loved it. Here are the elements that fired my imagination:

1) The 3D was stunning. It wasn't too dark or too light, and it didn't feel like they were purposely going out of their way to make trick shots for a 3D audience. This is definitely a "big screen" film, and I feel that if you are a fan of these movies, you definitely want to invest the money to see it in IMAX if you can.

2) Michael Fassbender as David was the most interesting android ever. There are parts where he is on the spaceship, engaging in sports by himself to clearly wile away the time and then he also emulates Peter O'Toole's character in Lawrence of Arabia (by the way Fassbender looks a lot like a young Peter O'Toole, and I had previously not noticed this connection). Anyway, why would an android need to use old movies and sports to entertain himself unless he was bored? And this begs another question...can computers be bored? I have no idea. But it's an intriguing concept. Roger Ebert pointed out in his review that Peter Weyland referred to David as the "son I never had". Charlize Theron plays the daughter of Peter Weyland and there was definitely sibling rivalry there as well as a startling physical appearance (both blond, both tall, etc.). But Peter Weyland strips David of humanity by declaring him soulless. Is this statement true though? I don't know.

3) The concept of parents. David the android says in one scene that "all children secretly want their parents to die". I thought this was fascinating that someone would even say this. I for one don't want my parents to die. I kind of feel that having my parents die will be the thing that makes me really aware of my mortality--that I too can and will die. And I kind of wonder if David said this because he's essentially immortal and wants to know what it will feel like to die and doesn't believe he can do so UNLESS the ones who created him perish.

Additionally, in Prometheus, one of the characters named Shaw is obsessed with finding an explanation of "where do humans come from?" She's Christian in the movie, which suggests to me that she already has an answer. So why then is she doing all of this searching? Does she want proof? Is belief not enough for her? Maybe there is something to the statement "All fanatics hide a secret doubt". What do you think?

Basically, I see Shaw's quest as a search for parentage of some kind and when she finds it, the parents are not what she was expecting. In fact, they're pretty terrifying. Physically, the "space jockeys" look like the most muscular humans on earth, only half again as tall. Take the offspring of NFL superstars like Eli Manning and Tom Brady and couple that genetic code with really tall supermodels for about three hundred years and then smack that offspring with an ugly stick, and you'd probably end up with a space jockey. So really...not all that far-fetched.

And the gist of Prometheus is that this "super race" created humans (basically destroying all of her beliefs in one fell blow) and to top it off, they're jerks. They offer no explanation for what they did, and it looks like they changed their mind about humanity. In other words, the stuff on the world that the Prometheus visits is a biological weapon. The alien xenomorph is a creation manufactured in a lab somewhere and meant to deploy against the human race to wipe us out. But why?

4) The unanswered questions. The end of the show has Shaw zooming off in a space jockey ship with David along for the ride and she isn't going back to Earth. She's going for the Engineer's (space jockey) homeworld. But what does she hope to find there? They clearly wanted humans dead. However, it's been 2000 years since the engineers on this world were in touch with their core civilization. Did something happen to them? Did they get wiped out by their own biological weapons? Or maybe they were designing a weapon to take out their own parents (the ones that created them).

All in all, Prometheus is the magnificent film that I was hoping for, so I'm pleased. I just hope it makes enough money to warrant a sequel. I want answers that the film didn't provide. And I would also like to see how the first Alien movie and the events in Prometheus connect. Where did the derelict spacecraft on LV-426 come from as well as the huge cargo of eggs. The end of Prometheus showed the birth of a xenomorph, but that's basically a harmless lifeform as the planet had no indigenous population really (unless the alien could learn to pilot an empty ship).

H.R. Giger's Alien movie concept art revisited in Prometheus

H.R. Giger is in my opinion, a mad genius. I own a couple of his "coffee table" art books, and they are scary stuff. I own Biomechanics, H.R. Giger's Alien, and his Necronomicon. In reading about him, I discovered that within his lifetime he has rubbed elbows with just about every major artist in the world including Ridley Scott and Salvatore Dali. He's had a girlfriend that committed suicide, is the atypical primadonna with huge demands and uncompromising work ethic, and is notoriously difficult to work with.

But his art captures my imagination the same as artist Michael Whelan (if you don't know who this is, you could google his name). Or, you could just visit my post that I wrote on Michael Whelan HERE. I also talk about him extensively on a post on general cover art featuring books by Patrick Dilloway, Cindy Borgne, and Andrew Leon. You can find that post located HERE.

In my ever growing excitement for this summer's Prometheus, I revisited the afore-mentioned H.R. Giger's Alien, and it looks like to me, from the trailers that are now available for viewing online, that Ridley Scott is revisiting the ground-breaking artwork that this crazy guy created for 20th Century Fox (that was scrapped from the 1978 film). Here are my comparisons.

First off the Alien Pyramid concept in which H.R. Giger originally wanted 20th Century Fox to use on the planet LV-426 (NOTE: You can click on these to make the picture bigger for your viewing pleasure).

Contrast this image above with the one that I pulled from the Prometheus trailer below:

And then there is H.R. Giger's Alien Heiroglyphics which also got scrapped from the original 1978 film:

Compare this with the heiroglyphic sequence that I captured from the theatrical trailer in which Michael Fassbender utters "Tell me that you can read this..."

And of course, they are still going with the original design for the derelict spacecraft, the space jockey pilot, and the interior of the ship--all of which was designed by H.R. Giger. Since the derelict spacecraft features so prominently in the trailer, I'm not including screen captures of it. But it is identical to the drawings below. Note the odd shape of the portals that lead into the derelict spacecraft from the original Alien movie. They are intentionally shaped like a vagina because H.R. Giger uses a lot of phallic symbols and vaginas in his artwork (and I mean tons).

Interesting, eh?

A King has his reign, and then he dies.

Those are the words spoken by (I believe) Noomi Rapace's character at the start of the amazing second trailer for Prometheus, which was unveiled at Wonder Con just this weekend. Knowing just a smidge about this film, I think that the words are chilling because the context may be a double entendre.  The "king" may also refer to man's domination of the universe and how it may eventually end:

And here is the viral Weyland Industries birth of David the Android

that was also released this weekend.

For those of you who are new to my blog, ‘Prometheus’ is a sci-fi film based on the Alien universe. It stars Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender, Noomi Rapace and was shot on the RED Epic cameras and the Element Technica ATOM 3d rig. It releases in June 2012.

Director: Ridley Scott
Producer: Tony Scott
Cinematographer: Dariusz Wolski

Dariusz Wolski had this to say about the Epic camera and his work on Prometheus:

"In my opinion, the new Red Epic camera is about to revolutionize all spectrums of the film industry.

I am amazed with the quality of the image and the fact that you can shoot 5k at 120fps without compromising resolution, and...most of all...the size of the camera. 

Combined with the Element Technica Atom 3d rig, we will be able to shoot a 3d movie with the flexibility of a conventional cinema camera. 

I don’t see anything that comes close to it at the moment. I can’t even imagine the potential Epic will have on the big blockbuster industry as well as independent cinema."

HERE is my post on the TED video wherein Peter Weyland explains the myth of Prometheus.
HERE is my post showing Prometheus fan art.
HERE is my post of the entire Prometheus plot. Warning: SPOILERS! But it's epic.
HERE is a link to my Christmas Post wherein I embed the first Prometheus trailer.
HERE is my first post on Prometheus.

Viral marketing by Ridley Scott for Prometheus

I just came across this Prometheus short film by Ridley Scott. It's about three minutes long, and has Guy Pearce acting as the head of Weyland Corporation giving a TED talk (the evil corporation in charge of the mission in the sci-fi movie and also behind everything else in the ALIEN franchise).

Oh I can't wait for June.

My other Prometheus posts:

Fan Art
Plot Synopsis
My November post that the movie is coming soon
My post where I discuss an actress who is in the Walking Dead who is also going to be in Prometheus

Prometheus Fan Art and a Mystery

This is from a still capture of the Prometheus trailer. Who is that on the right?
Many people online seem to think it is the Space Jockey himself. Oh Ridley
Scott...I want to know more dammit! (Click to make bigger so you can see said
strange looking being in greater detail).

I found these pics online. They look amazing don't you think? These are by artist Rado Javor, and if you're like me, these can possibly hold you over until another movie trailer gets released later this spring. You can click any of these to make them bigger.

Some people are so talented. Have a great weekend!

Prometheus Plot Synopsis

So I just discovered that the Prometheus plot synopsis has been leaked online. I've read it twice now, and it's mind-blowing. Just as a disclaimer...this thing could be fake. However, I don't think so. It's just too good. I'm posting it here for you to decide for yourself. Have fun reading.  All photographs from the set were taken from Entertainment Weekly.

PROMETHEUS

CAST
Elizabeth Shaw...Noomi Rapace
Rayden Holloway...Logan Marshall-Green
Meredith Vickers...Charlize Theron
David 4.0...Michael Fassbender
Jeremiah Janek...Idris Elba
Theo Zedmore...Guy Pearce
Logan...Ben Foster
Ravel...Benedict Wong
Chance...Emun Elliot
Mudow...Kate Dickie
Yuri...Rafe Spall
Aldrich...Frank Kelly
Francis...Sean Harris
Siena...Tal Berkovich
Lettap...James Payton
Tembrook...Tuppence Middleton

Earth. The beginnings of our world. In an opening montage, we watch as our primordial planet is terraformed and bioformed by seemingly all-powerful, Godlike alien entities...the ENGINEERS. The seeds of life are introduced to Earth for the first time by these fantastic extra-terrestrials, who have the power to create and manipulate both mechanical and biological matter at will. The montage ends as the earliest genetic recipe for life is sent forth from the Engineers' massive, towering CITADEL in the dark desert.

The desolate desert of Africa: 2085. The prehistoric ruins of the Engineers' Citadel is discovered by a corporate construction team tasked with building a nuclear-powered comm-array in the wilderness. Amidst the ancient remains are found highly advanced, biomechanical relics with are determined to be of extra-terrestrial origin. This catches the attention of the mega-conglomerate WEYLAND-YUTANI CORPOTATION, who finances a massive archaeological excavation of the citadel in the hopes of reverse-engineering the alien biotech for financial gain. Running the operation is MEREDITH VICKERS, a cold, calculating corporate executive, who recruits intelligent and independent astrophysicist DR. ELIZABETH SHAW to head up the research team. Assisting Dr. Shaw are xenoarchaeologist DR. THEO ZEDMORE and her fellow astrophysicist DR. LOGAN. Shaw uncovers the secret of the citadel when she discovers a chamber of star charts, which seem to lead the way to the home planet of the Engineers. Also uncovered is evidence suggesting that the Engineers had a database of all life on Earth, and may even have been responsible for its creation including Man.

In a partially-submerged MANHATTAN, Vickers meets with Dr. Shaw and an OPO, (Off-Planet-Officer), CAPTAIN JERAMIAH JANEK, and plans a space mission following the discovered star charts in an effort to find and make first contact with the Engineers. For the scientists and explorers onboard, it will be a journey of discovery, but for Vickers, it's merely a way of obtaining new technology so that Weyland-Yutani may retain the lead in the competitive race to establish colonies off-world.

The depths of space: 2090. A highly-advanced, top-of-the-line ISRV (Interstellar Research Vessel) PROMETHEUS decelerates as it reaches its target solar system. The vessel's crew emerges from their cryo-chambers. Along with Elizabeth Shaw, Theo Zedmore, Logan, Meredith Vickers, and Captain Janek, the crew of the Prometheus is comprised of: First Officer MUDOW, Security Officer RAYDEN HOLLOWAY, Navigator CHANCE, Helm Officer RAVEL, Operations Android DAVID 4.0, Political Officer ALDRICH, Medical Officer FRANCIS, Engineer YURI, and Technical Officers SIENA, LETTUP, and TEMBROOK. The crew gets acclimated to their removal from cryo-sleep, their muscles in atrophy from five years without use. Holloway assists Shaw in her physical therapy exercises.

The crew prepares for arrival at the home planet of the Engineers. Shaw and Holloway are instantly attracted to each other, initiating a romantic relationship. However, as they enter the Zeta 2 Reticuli star system, Prometheus encounters a massive disturbance which hadn't appeared on scanners, one even more powerful than a black hole: a wormhole in space. Prometheus is sucked into the wormhole, and after a harrowing ride, emerges on the other end. The ship crashes on a barren planet, which the damaged computer system identifies as the mission's final destination.

The crew sets about attempting to repair the Prometheus, while Elizabeth Shaw leads a recon expedition to investigate nearby structures, which turn out to be a cavernous Engineer temple. Inside the temple, Shaw's team encounters a bizarre BIO-BRAIN, a biomechanical humanoid face set within a towering pillar, as well as thousands of seemingly primitive URNS. David takes several of the urns back to the vessel for analysis.

Investigating the urns, David discovers that they contain the genetic material for thousands of species within a viscous liquid called BIOFORMER which can rewrite any living organism on a cellular level. Basically, possession of the substance gives its owner the power to create life. Vickers interacts with David and seemingly innocently leads to the Bioformer infecting David through a cut in his finger.

Within the depths of the Temple, we find several living Engineers who discover the transgression of the Humans, and remotely rewrite the stolen Bioformer to make it into a weapon. The Engineers capture Holloway and run a number of horrific experiments on him, injecting him with the Bioformer and allowing him to return to the vessel.

Subsequently, the crew of the Prometheus begins to fall victim to the now weaponized substance, as the "carrier" Holloway injects Ravel, Zedmore, Francis, Siena, Lettup, and Tembrook. The victims begin to lose their humanity and slowly transform, experiencing nightmarish visions and hallucinations and making pilgrimages to the depths of the Temple to receive instructions from the Bio-Brain. Holloway, in particular, is resistant to the transformation, fighting against the alien influence with his feelings for Shaw and his responsibilities as security officer. Meanwhile, David finds that the Bioformer is making him into a biological being...making him Human. The crew also finds that their trip through the wormhole took them back hundreds of millions of years and they are actually stranded on primordial Earth, having moved through space and time.

Eventually, as alien influence and the continued lurking presence of the Engineers becomes clear, the crew of the Prometheus turns on each other as the infected human victims fully mutate into PROTOFORMS: vicious, skeletal alien monstrosities which proceed to assault the unaffected Human crew through the halls of the Prometheus.

Mudow, Logan, Chance, Aldrich, Yuri, and Janek end up being destroyed by the Protoforms. In a strange, erotic ceremony, the Protoforms seemingly mate with the Bio-Brain and each other to create thousands of EGGS, the first of a new generation of the monsters. Meredith Vickers is revealed to be a sleeper CONSTRUCT of the Engineers, who are still active in their far future and Shaw's present due to the time-travelling abilities of the wormhole. Vickers was grown in an Engineer lab but escaped, fleeing to Earth while always wanting to her find creators and take their power. The Engineers activate Vickers' secondary GENE PROGRAMMING, and she transforms into an ALPHA PROTOFORM: the STAR BEAST.

At last, the two remaining crew members, Elizabeth Shaw and David, seek to confront the Engineers in the Temple. The Godlike entities prove to be utterly evil, and David sacrifices himself as he's dissolved in the LIFE SEED BIOFORMER which is the basic genetic recipe for MAN: the former android David, it turns out, is the basis for all Mankind. Shaw is captured by Holloway, but he regains enough of his humanity to remotely activate an Engineer vessel for Shaw's escape, then holds the other Protoforms and Engineers at bay. As Shaw escapes, she finds herself in the midst of the initial Engineer terraforming of Earth which we had witnessed in the opening montage, chased by the former Meredith Vickers who is now the gigantic, horrific Star Beast.

Shaw makes to her escape vessel which blasts off for the wormhole, Holloway fighting the Star Beast with both falling into the wormhole and disappearing. An Engineer PILOT detaches from the Temple in a FAMILIAR VESSEL and follows Shaw, but is lost in the wormhole. Shaw emerges above the Earth of her present day; however, she's deemed insane and responsible for the loss of her expedition and confined to a psychiatric hospital by the Company. It's implied that there are at least some of those who believe Shaw's tale, but have silenced her as part of a cover-up.

In the final scene, we see the vessel of the Engineer that was chasing Elizabeth Shaw emerge from the wormhole in the Zeta 2 Reticuli star system, still in the prehistoric past, and crash on a nearby planetoid, the Engineer Pilot helplessly lost and the EGGS in the ship's cargo hold stirring as something alive moves from within...

The Beginning

So what do you guys think? Excited? Terrified? All of the above?

Prometheus is coming...

One month after my book comes out in 2012, I will be going to the first available showing to see this movie.  For those of you unfamiliar with Ridley Scott's roots, the Academy Award winning director made a name for himself by teaming up with legendary artist H.R. Geiger to create the most original science-fiction alien probably ever to grace the screen.  And now, he's returning to those roots to give us a science fiction fable that speaks to the originality of the Weyland-Yutani universe that brought us such quotes as, "I think we should nuke the site from orbit; it's the only way to be sure."

Here is a synopsis.  The film is set in space for the most part, similar to that of "ALIEN"; the jumping off point to this project. The film's name "Prometheus" is that of the space vessel used by a crew of select individuals who set off to explore and investigate fragments of "Alien DNA" that provide tantalizing clues as to the origin of mankind on earth.

This is the Space Jockey creature from the original Alien ship
where the crew of the Nostromo reported seeing "thousands of eggs".

The film itself revolves around the Space Jockey creature; as seen in the original film ALIEN (1979). When a team of scientists embark on the aforementioned journey, they get stranded on an alien world which tests their limits; both mental and physical.  In Ridley Scott's own words, the human crew ends up in the darkest part of the universe in a chilling battle of life and death that some describe as absolutely "terrifying".

Prometheus involves a team of scientists known as "The Company".  Their representatives and robot/synthetics investigate and search for keys to unlock man's ultimate mystery. But in the process, they threaten the future existence of mankind and are faced with unimaginable horrors.

The Aliens themselves are said to be much larger than the original "Xenomorphs" we are used to. However, their overall construction will be easily noticable to that of the original Alien canon.

The genius, Ridley Scott.  I humbly bow before you sir. You are a true visionary.

Prometheus will be much more than just an Alien sci-fi horror. Ridley Scott is digging deeper for this project and Prometheus will unlock many questions and will touch on many aspects of life and existence. A true masterpiece.

Filming has already finished. I bet a trailer will be here soon. I did a YouTube search for one because the Wall Street Journal article I read hinted that there was one that got pulled by 20th Century Fox, but all I could find were fakes.