When Ridley Scott was interviewed at the Hero Complex Film Festival in June, he gave considerable insight into the Alien prequels that will be shot using the new Digital 3d format.
Ridley Scott, Hero Complex Festival June 13 2010
Whilst mentioning that he was never approached to make any of the follow-ups which somewhat skewed the franchise, he developed an interest in returning to the world of Alien by taking the story back to it’s origins.
I sat thinking about the franchise which died on the road way back and lying in the dust and I thought, ‘ What I should do is go back ‘ To me, a prequel is interesting, much more interesting than a sequel. They never asked me to do the sequels.
Ridley also stated in an earlier interview with MTV that he would also be consulting with original Alien designer H.R. Giger to redesign and offer a new interpretation that would be fresh for audiences.
…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… I don’t want to repeat it. The alien in a sense, as a shape, is worn out… maybe we’ll come up with something completely different.
Since the announcement of plans to make the prequels there has been considerable speculation of the story which is set in 2085, thirty years before the original. Though as Ridley divulged the premise is from a scene in ‘Alien’ that takes place prior to John Hurt’s character finding the fateful egg chamber.
When the Nostromo crew members embark on their mission of reconnoiter, they soon discover what appears to be a giant skeleton in a fossilized state seated in-front of a telescopic device. It seems that this life-form was also responsible for initiating the warning system which had been broadcasting for countless years until the Nostromo was drawn to the unsurveyed moon.
[jwplayer config=”ws_movie_2″ mediaid=”1032″]The Space Jockey scene – property of 20th Century Fox
What we’re going to try to do is squeeze in two prequels. . . if you explain who he was and where did he come from. . . then you may want to find out where they came from, you might want to go to him and go to the place where his people come from.
H.R.-Giger-original-Art
Referred to as the Space Jockey, the artist responsible for much of the films creative vision, H.R. Giger actually referred to it as ‘The Pilot’.These race of travelers have been the focus of video games, Alien and Predator books and the graphic novels which have helped propel the mythos.
The creator of Alien Dan O’Bannon developed a back-story for the ‘Space Jockey’ race which was documented by John Mollo and Ron Cobb in The Alien Portfolio included in the DVD extras. The story tells of the race finding the eggs on the dying planet then unknowingly taking them aboard until one of them hatches. The efforts to kill the Xenomorph leads to the crashed ship found eons later by the Nostromo, and as the race dies out the last space jockey sets up the warning transmission to deter other travelers .
The Jockey's hulled ship on moon LV-426
Another version of the back story made popular by Mark Verheiden’s graphic novels depicted the race as malevolent who intend to use the eggs as potential weapons for the purpose of colonizing earth. In the Alien commentary Scott suggests that the Jockey’s ship was a bomber that would drop the eggs on a target planet and wait for the inhabitants to be killed as they spawned.
The prequels are being written by John Spaihts who’s an acclaimed sci-fi writer and it’s possible that these concepts are the foundations for the new films. When Spaihts pitched his script to Ridley and brother Tony, it seems they flipped and thought the concept was great, deciding this was the time to act.
MTV asked the filmmaker what change his mind to return to the world of Alien:
Honestly? They’ve squeezed the franchise dry. The first one will always be the most frightening, because the beast we put together with Giger and all its parts — the face-hugger, the chest-burster, the egg — they were all totally original, and that’s hard to follow. … I’ve always avoided sequels, unless I felt there was something fresh…. We’re hoping to have it in theaters in late 2011, or maybe the best date in 2012.
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