I'm specifically talking about the Alien he thinks (and I agree) is overused though - it already seems Fox don't understand just what it'll take to give this series legs again, never mind beardy with his artistic righteousness

It wouldn't surprise me if it only got to this stage cos of the 3D aspect...

It's not going to be the same Alien that we were introduced to in the first film.
If you think about it, over the course of the first four films, the creature transformed and metamorphosed throughout. It's safe to say that the alien we saw in the first film was also the process of a transformation.

Mark

Yeah that's what I was thinking, but it's always been humanoid IIRC (even the Dog Alien to an extent), and I'm wondering how much the Fox bean counters will push for that - I honestly believe they'll need to make it genuinely scary again and/or give it quite an overhaul.

By the way, always loved the fact it took on characteristics of the host

Yes, a great concept that the Alien of the first movie had elements from the Space Jockey and from Kane. I do hope that they can get Giger back in the fold though, I think there'd be a chance that he would come up with something suitable.

Just as a matter of interest for anybody who's not seen these, here's the artwork which Dan O' Bannon and Scott decided to use as the basis for the Alien.



And the top figure here was used as an initial design for the Space Jockey

If you can get your hands on the full, oversize version of Giger's Necronomicon I'd certainly recommend it.
It's a brilliant book chronicling the work of the artist.

Mark

Mine is hidden safely away along with Giger's Alien. Both are well worth tracking down.

I love the imagery, but I've often wondered if Giger ever did get round to seeing a psychologist

IIRC, he offered O' Bannon opium on their first encounter. O' Bannon asks him why he smokes it and Giger says, 'For my nightmares', before displaying what became the Alien in his sketchbook

The argument about the Alien in the first film is that it had not fully developed and we saw fully mature ones in Aliens. This is obviously some rather nice post-sequel speculation on the part of James Cameron, as I doubt that Scott or Giger had a sequel in mind.

The Dog Alien was actually an ox alien - the original screenplay (which was used for the novelisation) had one of the oxen used to pull the escape pod out of the sea infected. Only later, to pace up Alien 3, the dog was replaced. The Special Edition in the Quadrilogy set uses the ox as the host - and much better for it it is too.

I like the idea of the Alien using DNA from the host - or at least having the host influence the creature to a certain extent. However, we also have to bear in mind that the Alien appears to be a hive based creature, and, much like ants and termites, there are different classes of the creature, and the “Dog Alien” could just have been a certain form used in the protection of the Queen embryo - which is what its function appeared to be in the film. Social insects, such as ants, beets, wasps etc can develop differently depending on their feeding or treatment by other members of the colony. There is enough natural precedent to be able to argue that the host has no influence over the development of the final hatched creature, BUT that other environmental factors would.

I am really interested to see what Scott comes up with for the prequels - should they get off the ground, and should Fox not want to get too involved. However, as we know, the have serious form with the franchise.

His nightmares are chiefly centred around a train journey (or at least they were around the mid '90s), that was very badly realised in the film Species. It's informed his work for a very long time indeed.

Mark

Good old Dan O' Bannon. Not only the writer of Alien, but also Dark Star, Dead and Buried, Lifeforce , Return Of The Living Dead ("Send more paramedics!") and Total Recall, amongst others.

Well Ridley, well.

The AvP films should just be forgotten altogether in that debate:







And this is what happened when a Facehugger met a croc (would that actually work? Must've had strong legs or the croc was asleep lol):

Love these:



http://www.ugo.com/therush/gallery/alien-hybrids/668/8/

(scroll down for others)

Another great Alien/Predator pic collection from all forms of media:

http://aliensandpredators.tumblr.com/archive

Alien prequel gets studio approval



http://www.totalfilm.com/news/alien-pre ... o-approval

Not one bit of that inspires confidence in me personally