Alien is Awakening! Ridley Scott says the Alien: Covenant sequel needs to re-evolve the story!

"Derelict on LV-426, the Engineers and why such a creature was created in the first place."

So, Ridley finally understood the beauty of the Alien: Engineers script? xD

By the way, he had two attempts to tell us of these things. But he preferred to throw bait (drive us by nose) to hook us for the next films (provide him with a stable income). Or maybe he was simply embarrassed to openly show his ideas in films?

Whatever.

It is this indecision or deliberate avoidance of those things for which the sequels were filmed and brought Alien franchise to limbo. Not xenomorph.

I am not sure this really gives us anything New to go by, RS does have a Habit of changing his Mind a LOT...  after Alien Covenant and when he had dropped the name Alien Awakening he had mentioned that he Felt he was ahead of the CURVE with Prometheus, and the Next Movie would NOT be about the ALIEN but about what KIND of a World that David would Create.

However in a Latter Comment he had Suggested that you could go a Few more Rounds with the Beast, and it HAS to be about HIM, but you have to Evolve Him...

Even Latter he had said that you can still go back to the Beast but you have to EVOLVE it and look at other ways of Procreation.

So i think they still DONT have a Story or really know where to GO with it, do they ONCE again take on-board what they Felt the Fans had complaints about?

Which could mean a U-Turn again to show the Xenomorph was a Ancient Weapon, that had NOTHING to do with David? You think RS is also going to THROW OUT the Plot about David?

Looking into the Interview i dont see RS suggesting the ALIEN is the Awakening...

"What I always thought when I was making the first one"

This Comment to me seems more aimed at ALIEN and not so much Prometheus or Alien Covenant.  The Answers have Evolved/Changed as we have Progressed.

For RS to suggest we have to RE-EVOLVE the Xenomorph, to me this seems to Suggest that he intends the Prequels to CONNECT to ALIEN... and at Present the Xenomorph from Alien Covenant is NOT yet what we see in ALIEN, it has some Evolving to go.

@Leto

I have to agree with your last Paragraph, to a degree....

I fully Understand the Changes from Alien Engineers to Prometheus, there was Quite a Set-up to Alien Engineers a Background of the Engineers that seemed to be left out as Alien Engineers tried to TIE a bit more with the Xenomorph.

If a Alien Engineers was made instead then it would be a case of WHERE do they GO next?  Maybe we would need more Information to WHY the Engineers were Connected with the Xenomorph etc... but the other Plot was about these would be Creators.... what caused them to go from Creators to Destroyers....

This where Prometheus came about as such a Plot was interesting to Follow, the ERROR they made was they FELT you could basically Remove the Xenomorph and Answers.

Then a Sequel could deal withe the Engineers having given us such Very Little to Answer ALIEN...  But then FOX etc felt that maybe NOT giving the answers and showing the Xenomorph was a Mistake and it seemed a LOT of what a Prometheus 2 could have given us, was Brushed aside to give us a more Direct Prequel to ALIEN!

So its BRING the Beast Back... start to indicate its Origins.... but the CURVE-BALL was a Very Bitter Pill to Swallow!

I think what we NEEDED.... was a Prometheus 2 that would have been more like Alien Engineers... i mean its likely the Company would SEND someone to LV-223 and this would have been the PERFECT chance to then GIVE more Answers to the goings on as far as LV-223 and the Xenomorph, the CLIMAX seeing something similar to the Xenomorph but then LV-223 being DESTROYED!

But the END of the Movie we have a Survivor or a Message that informs the Company that while LV-223 is Destroyed, one of the Experiments had escaped LV-223 and is Stranded on a Near by Moon of LV-426..... 

This SETS UP the Special Order 937 and closed the DOOR to ALIEN.

Where then another Prometheus Sequel could have followed David and Dr Shaw who would go to the Engineers Home-world which could be Located in a MUCH further place in the Galaxy or another Galaxy where David and Dr Shaw would NOT arrive there until after ALIEN.

What i am saying is Prometheus did-not give any real Closure to ALIEN and Alien Covenant seemed to Sacrifice what could have been Good from Prometheus to introduce the Xenomorph and give some Closure to Alien but in a WAY that is just NOT going to do it any Justice...

We are still in a PICKLE!

We can only HOPE they have a Good Team of Writers in who can make a Way around the Pickle, to  give ALIEN some Closure, while also NOT throwing away the Creation Plot and Engineers....

Come up with a 1-2 Movie Story and STICK to it... if some Fans throw Toys out the Pushchair... Tough Luck.. STICK to your Guns because trying to Chop and Change to Please Every Fan would just be a FOLLY.

But i think you would have to leave it OPEN in a way that they could in Future Expand on more ALIEN Movies that DONT have to go back over and over to the Derelict... but also leave it open for the Engineers to be out there... somewhere to be Explored in Future too.

"As Scott said before, the beast IS cooked and it's time we look behind the curtains and really dissect the mythology surrounding the Derelict on LV-426"

Well Chris we certainly saw that RS felt the Xenomorph had been Explored and Exploited over and over, i am not sure it was COOKED.. but you Certainly Needed a New Recipe to try rather than Humans Discover Eggs on LV-426 and try to Obtain Xenomorph Eggs for a Bio-Weapon... which proves a Folly!

On Screen i dont think you can KEEP repeating that Formula. And so YES looking at WHERE and HOW the Xenomorph came to be was the Direction to take (Alien Engineers).  But ONCE you have Answered that then its a Case of WHAT NEXT?  And so you have to look BEYOND the Xenomorph as far as WHO Created them and WHY, and explore THEM (not the Xenomorph).

OR you would have to look at another END GAME for the Pursuit of a Xenomorph beyond trying to think Gaining a Queen to Lay Eggs that can make a Horrific Monster to then use as some kind of Killing Machine, how many times would Mankind keep trying this?  We have to look at what more can be Exploited from them BEYOND merely a Chest Busting Snarling Killing Machine.

"Originally the Prometheus story arc would have seen David create an Alien race of his own which would come to a head with the vengeful Engineer species"

We can only Speculate as to WHERE it was that a Alien Covenant sequel would go, but INDEED the Comments by RS did seem to indicate that David would be off to CREATE his OWN kind of Paradise on Origae-6 before a incoming Human Ship and then Engineers come to SPOIL the Party!

I have seen some other Interpretations, where Fans seem to think David will SET-UP his Store on LV-426 to try and Mass Produce his KNOCK OFFS... then the Engineers Rock Up.... and BRING their very OWN and ORIGINAL Monsters...

Sounds more like a ALIENS vs ALIENS that would be better suited to a Comic ;)

I know it may NOT please some.... but i think the CREATION/CREATOR Plot is more Important!

While we have STARTED with the David as the Creator Plot... and we know the Engineers were interested in Creation, Evolution and Perfection... it would be more BETTER if some Engineers see Davids Creation that has Surpassed what some of them had Attempted... and then also seen again that David is more Perfect than their other Creations (Mankind)

They see the Scope in David and his Xenomorph and maybe other Humanoid he Creates and they then decide to make a AMALGAMATION of them... and the XENOMORH from ALIEN is Born!

Then we see them think they can go and LOAD up these Amalgamated Creations and take them away... which the Space Jockey soon Discovers is STILL a Folly!

Lesson to Learn.... DONT play GOD, dont mess/experiment with STUFF you cant Control..... but its TOO LATE for our Space Jockey...

Then onto Mankind to make the same Hubris in the ALIEN Franchise.

What's is Davids Endgame?

He's created the perfect beast....what's next?

The perfect mate?  This is what I'd go for.....Heaven help the Engineers if they come and kill his immortally beloved!

Disney went on this buying spree in the last few years and that has locked them into some rather large investments.

A few months back when Disney set up the purchase of distribution rights by purchasing chucks of bandwidth, they did so at a cost of almost 80 billion dollars….subsequently Disney + was launched and now we see Disney’s play into their own pay as you go to watch entertainment channel.

What is most concerning for fans of the Alien properties purchased under the Fox acquisitions stems from the fact that in the past ten years these were larger budget films that although they made money they were potential huge gambles on solid returns.

Disney is certainly interested in generating solid returns for the foreseeable future with other productions that would translate into larger returns. Super hero films along with the Star Wars Universe and the Theme parks seem to be Disney’s strategy for moving forward towards greater profitability.

So I would like to share with all of you a new strategy. One that I think is rather profound and maybe a way into the future where we as the audience can ensure that our needs are met.

For example let us all take the next and last movie in the “David” Alien franchise sequel we would want to see made.

We know Disney does not want to divert cash to this type of project because for right now their production dollars are being turned into higher grossing revenues by producing other titles.

Let us assume that we present companies like Disney with a different mechanism for getting what we want.

Back in the day Ridley might get on the phone with a script he developed and stated to their financial decision makers what do you say can we get this made. Disney looks at their schedule of everything they are producing and says maybe we will get back to you…weeks later they say we just cannot do it because there are so many other films competing with us in the theater that the film you want to do would actually take money away from a larger production we have slated for release.

With the advent of Disney + we are no longer concerned about movie theaters any more. We are concerned with Disney executives understanding that there is a core audience out there that would like to see Alien content delivered at the right price on the pay preview channel weekly….we want at least one new show and we want a new feature film and we willing to pay for it….however there is a catch.

We control the larger contract of the deal since they own the rights to produce under that name and universe. So we set up a smart contract. Millions of Alien fans literally use block chain smart contracts to pay Disney out a sum of money to watch their subscription produced content when we see they have invested real time and effort into production of said show and movie. So here is how we win. Would 25 million Alien fans be willing to spend 25 dollars up front to see Disney make a show and one feature film for us contingent on them getting the 625,000,000 million once we see what they have made…..if we don’t like their investment they dong get our half billion dollars. So early on their production they better show us the time and effort as well or they get nothing! Cause right now we are getting nothing anyway for a very long time. So it is up to all of us to do something about this and get the content made!

So its easy to set up companies where this happens. Then money is deposited and you can always take it out should Disney not deliver said show and movie by a specified date….no more waiting for 5 -7 years for a new Alien feature to be made….when there is that kind of the money on the table things happen very quickly…..we cannot mess with them on cast and all the rest of the other details; however, we can stimulate them into doing what needs to be done to get our content made without it affecting any of their other core businesses.

Should you all want to do something like this we will make a quick LLC and a payment gateway and start the project….this is not about a quick digital vote lets show Disney we mean business with an email…..this is a lot of hard cash…so much they cannot ignore it no matter what!

It has been a few years since I posted last and I have been busy with some other projects. Have BigDave get in contact with me so we can get some leverage on this quick and get this done.

 BigDave what is wrong with the web site....I have few spelling mistakes and cannot edit the darn thing.....please advise.

@BlackAnt, I'm sure plenty of hardcore fans here would gladly stump up $25 each in advance to get a new movie off he ground. But there aren't 25 million people who would be willing to do that, I'm afraid. 25,000 would be a push.

Keep him away from the story and let him build the worlds, environment. Whenever he touches the story we will get disappointments like that android shit. No one can be good at everything so he should stick to what he is good at, that is my opinion. I almost do not have any trust in him left. Get another director maybe? The director of 28 Days Later did a good job, maybe let him try it. Even though David Fincher is unlikely to return I would like to see what he could do without the studio messing it up for him. Clive Barker could maybe work as a director, he directed Hellraiser for those that do not know. John Carpenter could work, he was involved in doing Dark Star with O'Bannon by the way.

Scott could be a producer but he interferes too much with the story he has got to go. Hopefully Disney understands this and does something about it.

"Originally the Prometheus story arc would have seen David create an Alien race of his own which would come to a head with the vengeful Engineer species once they discovered the tragedy David unleashed on Paradise." Was this true already in 2012? Have you got some evidence?

"It looks like Scott has learned not to listen to the angry fan boy mobs who refuse to give up their ideological views of this franchise and venture off into unknown, more thought provoking territory." Probably he learned to ignore also those like me who like much Prom and hated Covenant. Not because of what an Alien should be in my mind but the fact that the "more thought provoking territory" is a sum of cliche and everything is just nihilistic non-sense. The heroes don't matter and the villain ultimately will be killed by his own Creation. Great.

@BlackAnt I highly doubt that there are millions of fans who would give that RS money to make his movie to be shown on Disney+. Do you know that currently there are about 20 countries where it is available? Why I as a Eastern European would give him money without being able to see it legally? And I never heard about crowd-funding in blind....

@Thoughts_Dreams The director of 28 Days Later was not written by the director Danny Boyle but by Alex Garland who is also responsible for Ex Machina and Devs, both tackling your favorite subject matter AI. 

@BlackAnt

As this is a News Post, then for some reason Unfortunately you cant EDIT your posts Once you have hit the post Button, unlike what you can do with Forum Posts.

I admire the idea of a Fan Funded Project, but am i not really sure that Sufficient Numbers would be willing to give say $25, i am also not sure that Disney has much plans for the Franchise at the Moment.

They own the Rights to the Franchise and so will make Money from Merchandise, Comics, Books, Games and Toys etc.  I dont think they are in any rush to go and make anything as far as a TV Series, never mind a Movie.

While Ridley Scott feels you can continue the Alien Franchise, and it has more MILES left to it... i do suspect the Next Movie we would see would be in 2026 to celebrate 40 Years of ALIENS with a Aliens Sequel.

I feel maybe Disney could put the Prequels as a Forgotten Memory.

ignorantGuy

What I can see Garland did the screenplay for 28 Days Later but he also did a movie about AI. He can write a screenplay but it should not be about AI but like the survival-ism of 28 Days Later. It probably depends on if he stays within the horror genre and focus on the human adventure like 28 Days Later was or if he fucks up and focuses on AI. Option 1 is alright, option 2 sucks.

"I feel maybe Disney could put the Prequels as a Forgotten Memory."

BD, I would rather have that than another David movie.

 I just feel without trying we will never know how large of a dedicated paying fan base is out there to crowd fund new Alien shows and movies....I know that crowd funding works. I also know there are more than few million people that enjoy all these movies! I have loved them for 40 years and still enjoy watching them several times a year...just watched Alien on 4k two weeks ago and the detail is amazing! You have not seen Alien until you have watched it in 4k.

I would also like to share this bit of interesting trivia...we watched one of the most successful advertising campaigns put onto the internet over several months to get Prometheus to gross over a half billion dollars...BigDave will attest to the fact that Ridley's budget was cut and we got the move we got; however, I digress. The point is our strategy moving forward with any project is to raise capital. This was Ridley's strategy too and it paid off big time the way they did all the internet promotional crowd participation activities....you all remember the Weyland video? I do !!!! of we all do and the corporate website for Weyland-Yutani....these were all part of Ridley's strategy to garner interest in the movie before it was released.

We need a similar strategy but not based on vignettes or anything Disney would come after us for because they own the copy wright to this franchise.....I say no we are their boss we are the fans and right now I believe there are a few million fans that want this content....we just have to show Disney we mean business! Disney operates and understands money. 

So NO we are not giving up on this yet!!! NO WE ARE NOT!

I have another mechanism already in place! A top secret one. So down the rabbit hole we all go right now! Huddle round my friends....you are about to see history in the making.

We do the internet thing and raise awareness....I have a server and bandwidth for what we need....this is the funnel! Once inside the server each visitor will pledge a digital amount of cash....that cash is not even real money....it will be in small denominations 10, 25, 50 dollars. Some people have more some people have less....we need the price of at least the admission of one movie ticket....now get this they do not put any real cash in the "Till" only pledge a virtual ammount they will pay contingent Disney gets started and goes into production....we want Disney's respect we don't care what they want to produce or not....the only way to get them to do what we want is to show enough support....that is where 25 million people world wide will pledge digital support....they pay nothing until Disney goes into production....Disney cannot back out either because once they say yes those emails and IM's go out and they click on those phones all that cash....Disney gets nothing until we see commitment....look ladies and gentlemen we are getting nothing from Disney any way for years.....they see this kind of money they cannot say no to it!!!! They will do ask we say....essentially we make ourselves the treasury indirectly....we can raise as much fake cash up front as we want.....but when the time comes and Disney is ready to go into production we better make sure our fans are ready with price of least one ticket....ten dollars each! 

The show must go on and it will! We are not giving up anything we hold are the keys to kingdom! We are Disney's boss they just dont know it yet....we are gonna tell them in the right way though! 

I agree that the Marketing for Prometheus was better....

For Alien Covenant it was really just about PUSHING those Posters of the Xenomorph and Egg down our THROATS!  They seemed to think that maybe Prometheus got some Negativity because it NEVER had the Xenomorph or its Origins..

So they was like LOOK! XENOMORPHS!

Then we got THIS.... a Massive Piece of Miss-Information.

I think some Fans would have Expected scenes like this in the Movie!

I do think it was Disappointing the Budget we got for Alien Covenant seemed like FOX maybe never had too much Confidence and played it Safe!  With Inflation the Covenant Budget would have been like Prometheus only getting $100M and that is about what Alien Covenant had ($30M Less than Prometheus) when with Inflation a $130M in 2011 would have been at least $150M in 2016

But even if Alien Covenant had a Extra $50M its a Question of looking at the PLOT the Draft and the Running Time, then its a case of WHAT difference that $50M may have made?

Improved CGI, replace with some High Tech Animatronics etc? 

Replace some of the Actors with more Well Known Actors?

Again all of these would still depend on the Plot all a Bigger Budget would have done is add some Gloss here and there, but the Fundamental Failures and Disappointments may have remained.

I think the Problem after Alien Covenant was that FOX was Surprised that Alien Covenant did so Poor at the Box Office...  Then they are Left with the Critics over the Plot and Especially the Curve-ball....

They have kind of Wrote themselves into a Corner now, with a Backbone Plot that not so many Fans wish to go and see.

I think a Number of Fans would be willing to WAIT and then have it revealed that the Prequels, and Especially with Alien Covenant were just a BAD DREAM.....

I personally think you have to PICK UP where you have SET-UP and try and FIX it as best as you can!  I am not a FAN of Pretending something NEVER happened apart from when its a Spin-Off like the AVP movies.

Yeah they could go and do a Blomkamp.... as in lets just remove Alien 3 and Alien R and bring back Ripley and have it that Alien 3 etc never EXIST!   So what if some Fans are like Whah Whah! Boo Hoo they Killed Off our Hicks and Newt and then Real Ripley.... Whats done is Done!

You just have to Work Around them...

The same applies with a Continuation to Alien Covenant, but i PITY the Guys who have to come up with a PLOT to go and get us to ALIEN and try and Please the Fans..

I think that Crowd Funding could work as far as to get us some Answers and Closure in a Certain way as far as a Novel or Comic...  But for a Movie then Budget really does have a Massive Impact on what you can show... especially with Space Scenes/Ships and Monsters..

Personally i think maybe we should get a Movie that is set 10 years after Alien Covenant and will BY-PASS most of what David does next....

After Prometheus we had a 10 Year Gap where we would Discover what Happens with David and Dr Shaw, until her Death, and what remained on Planet 4 after the Bombardment and his Experiments in more Detail.  It was like there was a STORY there... one that was BY-PASSED.

I think we could maybe do the Same with the Sequel to Alien Covenant and so we SKIP the Sequel.... and arrive at the Next One which would be the After-Math of what Happens when Davids kind of World goes Tits-Up! (goes to POT)

I then think it would be NICE to then get TWO Novels... ONE which would give account to some of the Time between Prometheus and Alien Covenant, and another to cover say some of the 10 Years after Alien Covenant.

Why do we have to complicate what is easy?! 

Ridley Scott has to follow the events of Alien Covenant and then, he has to make a hell of a movie.

Ridley,  you have to go crazy. Put David experimenting on colonists, in his new giant lab built in origae six, put David experimenting in himself with the pathogen, in a sick and disgusting way. Use the bloomkamp's idea of a deformed Ripley in David. Make a slaughterhouse of prometheus space ship, and show us long flashbacks of the life of David and Doctor Elizabeth Shaw in LV-223,mostly, Dave attempting to transform Shaw in a queen, causing her lots of pain, during the procedures. Make a parallel between the past transformation of Shaw in a queen and present Daniels mutation.  We want to watch the horror, Ridley. 

Re-evolving....Has David had enough of his human flesh, might want to upgrade?  Shaw's up link to Alien AI complete?  Waylands private mission is awares to Central Military intelligence and getting data back from Prometheus Probes ...  War in heaven is brewing 

The only true Constant is that which all other Perceptual Constants is subject to:

Change.

Thats Certainly True ;)

The Franchise and Especially the Prequels do go through a Constant Process of Change...

IF we ever got a Continuation then it is LIKELY that it would be Quite Different to the Plans/Ideas that would have been Floating around the Mind of Ridley Scott in 2017-2018 who knows HOW MUCH of those Ideas would Survive as to WHEN and IF we get a Continuation.

The Longer its Left the Less Likely we would see it about David or having Ridley Scotts input.

Just HOPE we dont get a Lazy Reboot of the Prequels or that they were just Cryo-Sleep Nightmares.

The reason I had the characters use kitbashed hyperdrives as bombs in my book was to eliminate the 'hey let's go back to where we've gone before.'

Nope, and few teratons of insane-scale Nuclear annihilation takes care of that little housekeeping problem.

The future of the franchise is Out There....somewhere amongst all those twinkling and innocent-seeming stars.

The franchise's name itself is a clue as to how and where to go and proceed; A L I E N

Which means MUCH more than one critter. ;)

"The franchise's name itself is a clue as to how and where to go and proceed; A L I E N

Which means MUCH more than one critter. ;)"

Absolutely ;)

The Engineers Plot also opens up more than the Galaxy, how many Worlds have they Seeded, how many Species have they Created, how many Species have they NOT created.  In addition to the Horrors of LV-223 surely these are not Confined to that Place.

And also there could be Horrors in the Galaxy that had NOTHING to do with the Hands of the Engineers.

The Great Thing about ALIEN was the Unknown.... there could be MANY such Unknowns out their.. Unseen Horrors, things we have NOT seen before.

Even if we come across something Familiar... say a Distant World with other Humanoids who seem to be Living some Harmonious Life like Planet 4..... this does-not mean that Encountering such a Species does-not pose a Unknown Threat ;)

BigDave

Agreed completely!!

And while something might seem 'familiar'...well, surface impressions can give way to horrifying realities.

The Engineers...what of the other civilizations they have cultured before Humanity...who might be Challenging their Creators now, or have in the past? What 'leftovers' from those conflicts are there? Do the Engineers have a rival power? It's possible.

And then there's Mother Nature and her endless and ongoing experiments in evolution and selective mutation. What might well be innocuous and harmless on one world might be mind-shatteringly horrific to the Human perception.

...and then, we have the hands of man, and all the works that come about. Humanity's getting pretty advanced with genetic science and manipulation after all.