In this interview with Hero Complex's Geoff Boucher, Scott talks about many of his movies, including the original Alien, Blade Runner, Legend etc. But this is all about the highly anticipated prequel to his first(best?) film.
Here are the main bits. With both quotes from Scott, and bullet points of info..
“I sat thinking about the franchise, which now has died on the road somewhere way back and lying in the dust, and thought what I should do is go back… in the first Alien, when John Hurt climbed up and over the top of the rise… there was a massive giant lying in a chair. The chair was either a form of engine or some piece of technology and I always thought no one has ever asked who was the space jockey?”
- The Alien prequel will be broken into two films. The scripts are written and Scott is prepping it now.
- Time frame is way before Alien. Not only will we find out who the Space Jockey is, we’ll find out where his people come from.
- The first Alien was The Old Dark House with 7 people with an unwelcome visitor. Scott loved the script, but it was a very basic screenplay.
-The prequel will go further into the world of terraforming and will focus on the realities of what it takes to leave for another planet. He mentioned the theory of Near Faster-Than-Light travel, which is complete science fiction at the moment; “Mr. Spock stuff” as he called it, rearranging matter essentially, but theoretically possible. “But what we’re allowed to do by movies is to cheat like hell. But I think the closer it is to the truth, the closer it is to the technological feasibility then it becomes that much more interesting. And if it’s a film like the one I’m going to do, then it becomes that much more frightening.”
Scott also mentioned they're going to be exploring Zeta 2 Reticuli, the same system from Alien. Naturally they'd be going back at some point if the prequel leads up to Alien, but from what Scott was saying it seems like this system plays a large role in the prequels.
- On the Space Jockey: “I think beneath that carcass… it’s not a carcass, it’s a suit. Inside the suit is a being.”
Thanks to Quint over at AICN for the info. Out of all of this, that last part about the Space Jockey being a suit has me most intrigued. That was one part about the first film that I always wondered about. I love James Cameron's Aliens too, and I even think both of the next films have some merit, but Scott's original is not only one of the best sci-fi movies of all time, its up there among the best period imo. I really hope this prequel goes back to the character driven claustrophobia of Alien.
Be sure to click on the link below and check out the full interview for some cool info about Blade Runner, Scott's relationship with Harrison Ford and his first impressions of Sigourney Weaver.
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