Sci-fi fans’ hearts were all aflutter over the recent news that Ridley Scott (‘Blade Runner’) would be making a prequel to his 1979 hit movie ‘Alien’ – the deep space flick that forever imprinted the scene of an alien bursting its way out of a man’s chest in our memories. What could be more awesome than a movie detailing the beginnings of ‘Alien,’ right?
Then, to add some confusion to the mix, Scott and his co-writer Damon Lindelof (‘Lost’) announced this past January that it’s actually not a prequel to ‘Alien’ at all. Fans will be able to “recognize strands of Alien’s DNA, so to speak, but the ideas tackled in this film are unique, large and provocative,” said Scott in a press release on the subject.
With a large sigh of disappointment from fans who were highly anticipating the prequel, Scott began casting and secured some powerful names to star in ‘Prometheus.’ If you plan on seeing it – and we hope you do, despite the bad news – you may see such stars as Noomi Rapace (‘The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo’), Charlize Theron (‘Aeon Flux’), Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds), Idris Elba (The Wire), Sean Harris (Red Riding Hood) and Katie Dickie (Red Road) to name a few. All actors on the project have signed a confidentiality agreement so they’re unable to share anything in detail about the movie or the plot.
Even so, in terms of his new role in ‘Prometheus,’ Fassbender recently was quoted as saying “I’m really looking forward to stepping into a Ridley sci-fi world. And the script is really intelligent and has a nice pace to it. Plus, if I’m honest with you, I sort of approach my work as a fan. I’m a massive movie fan and I like to go on an adventure ride as much as I like to see something that has a bit of social commentary to it.”
Still trying to remain true to the confidentiality agreement, when asked if ‘Prometheus’ was an ‘Alien’ prequel Fassbender replied, “It’s a different story, but it’s also got the traditional roots. ‘Alien’ fans will recognize things in it. It’s not ignoring ‘Alien,’ there’s still a link to that world. But it’s a different story. It’s definitely connected, though.”
But there’s some good news for all the tried-and-true ‘Alien’ fans out there. H.R. Giger, having won Best Achievement for Visual Effects for his design work on ‘Alien’ back in the day, has already been linked to this new film as well. An anonymous source close to the project recently confided to SkyMovies.com that “despite that press release that seemed to indicate there were no aliens in the movie, the familiar H.R. Giger-style aliens do appear. Big ones apparently. 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.’”
‘Prometheus’ is due to hit theaters in June 2012. Whether or not fans will recognize aspects of ‘Alien’ in this new movie remains to be seen. Do you have any interest checking it out? Do you find that the fact it’s not a prequel discourages you from going or do you plan on seeing it anyway? What are you hoping to see in this new film?
