Original Alien vs. Now

Millburn & Fifield: they even sound like a comedy double act. And not in a good way. They are completely out of place on an expensive, ground-breaking, scientific expedition.

In contrast, the cameraderie inherent in the interactions of Brett and Parker, and in turn, those two and Ripley, is realistic and familiar.

Lambert is the embodiment of the audience; her fears amplify our anxieties. Kane antagonises us through her. Dallas's reluctant leadership leaves us vulnerable. And Ash's betrayral violates our emotional trust.

In contrast, I could not emotionally invest in any of the Prometheus characters. In fact, it was schadenfreude to see them all get their comeuppance.

If Prometheus was a stand alone movie with no relations to Alien, It would have been a much better movie imo. Since it was tied to the Alien universe, many Alien franchise fans like myself judged hard one way or another. That is typical of a core fan base.

I love the Law Firm of Milburn and Fifeld.

I also hope for a better characterisation in AC where you get a feel for the characters and what happens to them, like in Alien. Aliens was also good when it comes to characterisation. You could sympathise with (or hate) all of them. Prometheus didn't quite succeed here, I'm afraid.

@chli Agreed.

I think its also because Alien was it's own thing, no sequel/prequel feel to it. It was different and no one knew what to expect. The second Weyland is flashed across a screen now, people are automatically attuned to it and know an alien is coming. The characterization in Prometheus was pretty bad and left the audience almost rooting for the Squid baby and the Engineer to win rather than for the humans to pull it out.

The dialogue in Prometheus is always trying to move the plot along or be representative of "big ideas".  Whereas Alien is elegant in its understatement.  Sometimes we can't even hear exactly what's being said, as in that first moment where we meet the crew as the shot pans around the table.  Ridley Scott's cuts/edits are perfect in just letting looks and inflections tell us the story (ie tension between Ripley and Lambert).  I think it really boils down to how movies are made now vs then.  Now every scene is scrutinized by the studio in a way it wasn't then.  Scott has mentioned being impressed by Texas Chainsaw Massacre before shooting Alien, and wanting to emulate that style of horror in a way.  If you look at that film the characters and dialogue are pretty mundane, which helps with the realistic tension once the horror happens.  Unfortunately from the very first clip of the AC trailer (which seemed gimmicky & fake to me) I could tell this was not going to be like that.  No studio produces movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Alien nowadays.

I agree. This Alien movie will be a hard R rating, but has a campy, generic horror film vibe. Lots of gore and bloody death scenes, a sexy shower scene (hopefully the Xeno will be in the buff for that one), and probably about the same amount of stupid human decision making as Prometheus (Crudup I'm looking at you buddy).

Hicks: Yes, but I think that all of the other films did quite well (when it comes to characterisation): Aliens, Alien 3, Alien Resurrection, and AvP. In Alien 3, for example, you had more developed dialogues, e.g. between Ripley and Clemens (Charles Dance is a very good actor) and other interesting characters among the prisoners. You got a feel for their personalities and how they interacted. It's strange that they didn't quite make it in prometheus. Perhaps they should have cast more established actors (like they did in Alien - except for SW :) ) ?

A3 gets a bad wrap. It was more suspense/character driven than Aliens was. Charles Dance, Brian Glover, Charles S. Dutton, even Pete Postlewaite in a small role brought more to the movie. The dialogue wasn't silly either, when Clemens talks to Ripley about why he is there was especially good. Prometheus didn't have that. They tried real hard (anything with Shaw talking about her beliefs) but it just came across wrong IMO. Character actors seem to fit the bill in these movies better...makes me a touch worried about Franco and McBride's castings.

I wouldn't worry about McBride even though I get your point, he looks dead serious in the trailer.

I get he'll have some one liners. I just don't know if I'll be able to handle him if he's packing a pulse rifle telling Daniels to stay frosty.

Doesn't have to be limited to a scenario such as that. He could be a survivalist rather than a fighter.

I agree, Hicks/Hudson. They lacked too many good character actors in Prometheus to support the leading role. Guy Pearce, Charlize Theron and of course Michael Fassbender were great, though. The only one I’m sure about in AC is Fassbender . . .

In ALIEN the characters felt real. Some of that comes down to the fact that there was little to no rehearsal, and many scenes were filmed as improvised.

After the ship lands causing some damage, and the crew are making their assessment, John Hurt tells Tom Skerritt "Dry dock Tom!" He refers to him by his real name. Also watch Ian Holm jump as the fire breaks out at his console, that's not acting!

That, plus the cramped cockpit, with the handheld camera up close to the actors, gave that scene in particular real gravitas.  

The gritty, grimy Nostromo and the constantly moving camera gave such realism, it was as if you were watching a docu-drama.

I felt really invested in the characters and their plight, there are subtle clues to explain Ash's shiftiness. Plus, we have the wee Mini-McGuffin Jonesy! [For anyone who doesn't know, I love Jonesy!]

ALIEN has been my favourite film for decades, it's closer to Sci-fi perfection than anything else I've seen. 

PROMETHEUS was far more polished, no grittiness or realism to be had. The lesser characters were poorly drawn and their dialogue was often bizarre. Some of the problems arose from the editing, it really should have been a three hour movie.

Mind you, if the intent was to make it a strange trip, it gets full marks from me! 

Michael Fassbender and Ridley's class as a visual director more than make up for any shortcomings. I do think it is a fantastic film, but a longer running time and better writing could have resulted in near perfection!

Lone-

I think you hit a really important point about improv and little rehearsal time- how it makes the characters more real and relatable. Not to say that doesn't happen, but in the case of Prometheus it seems that element was missing- Fassbender being the ONLY exception.

Like many, I too am sniggering at McBride. But I should remind myself that 30ish years ago, a two-bit comedic actor signed on to an action film called Die Hard. The rest is history.

They should convince David Lynch to make Alien 5 instead of Blompkamp.

Another thing that gave Alien its eerie qualities was the fact it was shot on film with low lighting, creating greasy black shadows that were suggestive.  Now everything is shot digitally and everything is super clear in the shadows.  

a few things that would fix the Alien series:

-Cut the budget to less than 20 million.  I know that's extreme, but most of what made Alien scary was the creative ways that Scott cut the film so the monster was more suggestive.  If you saw it for too long it would become too apparent that this was a man in a suit.

- Practical FX.  CGI and digital manipulation should be used to a minimum.  Everything should be done like it was in the 70s/80s, the heyday of horror movies.

-Get unknown actors

One interesting thing that I read in 2008 or so was that Sigourney Weaver and Scott were walking about doing an Alien story that didn't even feature the monster at all...just focusing on what happened after Aliens and what it'd be like for someone who lived through that.  I would still love to see that movie.  There's a lot of room in the Alien universe for different types of stories that fit into the context fo scifi horror realism (ie not Star Wars-y)

Ridley struck gold with ALIEN's cast.

Apart from Weaver, they were well known but non Hollyweird star types. All very good character actors who were consumate professionals and gave their all to make their respective characters convincing. 

You couldn't do an Alien film for less than $20m these days.