Discrepancy in the level of tech

Ridley has spoken directly to that issue, saying more or less 'been there done that, in fact implying he pretty much was among the first to 'grunge' things up

I seen the interview of Ridley & he says ... with much technological advancement today I cant portray a very gloomy movie... ALIEN was 1979 ... Prometheus is 2012..

Mind you.....Nostromo was a freighter. Prometheus is a science vessel. Its the same in our world. Compare a tanker to something like a warship.

Just product of waiting 30 + years to do a Prequel. Would Apple geeks be up for a film with clunky key entry and a Mother PC that uses Appliance light bulbs wall to wall????

This is discussed in several topics. Not again, please.

Dont be dissin Mother....those light bulbs and the slow breathing sound effects in the mommy chamber were totally aws...

Surely a mentat is able to compute the reasons for such a discrepancy. If the tech was the same as Alien, anyone who does not have serious affection for that movie would be turned off. The upgraded tech makes sense and is one of the smaller artistic licenses they can take to help ensure the movies success. Off Topic note: Who here still wants to see Ridley's take on Dune? I saw an interview where he says he was set to make the film but his brother passed away suddenly and he needed to take time off to sort things out. Maybe that is Shai Hulud coming out of Shaw's belly ; )

The simple point is, its 2012 and audience's expect WOW factor. If they were to have scrounged some 40 column green monochrome monitors off Ebay and have a giant computer cpu bay with 10,000 light bulbs, YOUNG people with NO connection to Alien whatsoever would simply laugh this production off.

Compare something like Alien (1979) to something like Forbidden Planet (1956) and you pretty much have your answer--although some of that set design was the epitome of '50s retro cool. As science fiction goes, you have to take what you have learned and how far we have come into consideration, otherwise your story/film would become a campy retro future depiction. Going even further, you also have things like nano, genetic, quantum research to contend with--it's one of the main reasons why any sort of direct "prequel" to a thirty year old film is asking the creators to handcuff their creativity. You just have to allow the update and use your imagination for how that tech may or may not have been incorporated into your own ideas for the ALIEN film. Regardless, with something as sophisticated as Ash as part of the '79 film, is there really any doubt that the tech you see in Prometheus wasn't available?

That's the point, Prometheus moves away from the Sci-cult movie area to the plain blockbuster kingdom. Some sequences in the the trailer make my think in that way (hopefully I'm wrong).

I have to think that I am going to give Ridley Scott more credit than that. Many people dont even realize that Alien was only his second major film. It literally put him on the map, and people have been questioning him on the "origins" of the story for more than 3 decades now. The guy is into his seventies now and has been at this probably longer than 85 or 90% or the people commenting here have literally been alive. Im thinking he sees this project as part of his legacy, and he is REALLY going to try to do the story justice. Sure it may look splashy as you described, but that is the nature of the beast today. Audiences are accustomed to way out visuals now, and basically demand it for wanting to pony up the hard cash and time it takes to go out a see a movie. But the fact is, sure its going to LOOK GREAT, but I think the STORY is going to be very provocative.

as for the tech, you can see that if you remember that in Alien, the ship is basically a long range tug and barge, while in this movie, its a top of the line science outfit. you would see such tech gaps in real life. That, and you get the sense that it wasn't the first rodeo for the Nostromo.

I started a new thread on this in the alien forum, i said: I was thinking about how timeless these movies look, except one of the giveaways is the old DOS based computers...then I tried in true geek tradition to try and explain why they are so simple I was thinking maybe the distances across the universe are so vast and turbulent, that data needs to be kept concise and minimal, so old DOS prompt interfaces are more favoured over high tech user interfaces, for sheer practicality Another explanation is maybe a war wiped out most of technology, leaving behind a mad max type civilisation of scraps..Mankind then tried to rebuild the technology they once had as the knowledge is there, however this was done in uneven steps, some technologies which were very advanced were rescued with band aid methods and stuff that has been recoded is reminiscent of the old dos systems

I also commented on this ... but after hearing others saying 'it's ok' then I have excepted it also and don't mind the differences ... I'm very anal at continuity but also like to see 'new things' in a sequel as it will have the lastest tech, there's no getting away from it ... Talking of continuity ... here's one already ... lol ... no I'm not slating it ... brb ... knock at the door ... [b]Continuity Error-01:[/b] [img]http://oi39.tinypic.com/ie40at.jpg[/img]

I just bought last week 1500 dollars of furniture from probably the largest furniture chain in the second largest city in the country, and i was rung up from a DOS terminal. Im not at all concerned in the differences in technology between Alien and Prometheus.

Maybe the Nostromo was built before the Prometheus as an interplanetary tug, and was upgraded to ftl after the events of prometheus. It was easier to give the new engines old fashioned interfaces than rewire the entire ship. I assume both ships have ftl drives. As even at light speed stars are decades away at best

How are they on the wrong side of the hangar? If rt-02 is on the left when we're looking out the hangar towards the pyramid, then rt-02 should be to the right of rt-01 if we're looking towards the hangar and they're coming towards us. Isn't that what you're showing us? Am I missing something else that you're pointing out?

Hey, at least it's not as bad as the discrepancies in the Star Wars saga.