Why does Ridley keep changing his mind?

Bear in mind this isn't all Ridley's say. If for example it was his story, his production company and his money then yes, we could hold him solely responsible for changes that occur. 

Example: RS didn't hire Damon Lindelof. But everyone blames him for it (which is in itself absurd, like his writing or not, Lindelof is no idiot, and not a hack but that's the Internet for you). Why is anybodies guess, but I imagine any scapegoat is better than none. The fact is there are many powerful players in the Alien franchise, not just Ridley Scott. He's just the visible one, and he shoulders the stress pretty gracefully while trying to keep things on task, and, publicly, on message. 

This is not to say he doesn't have influence, it's just not all his. Read interviews with Jon Spaights and Damon Lindelof. And keep saying to yourself: 'It's not Ridley's money..'

I agree on all points minus Lindelof.

No, he's not a hack, but he loses focus far too often. He keeps things ambiguous that don't need to be, and keeps adding new twists and turns to keep everyone guessing. Problem with that is, when he himself is guessing at what is going on, the script suffers.

I just think DL gets more abuse than he deserves, and I think the people who spent the money on him should have spent a little more to polish the script. I thought his ideas, and the direction he took the story, were great.

It wasn't all his fault.

Being told "This is an Alien movie" and then in the same breath being told "This is in a similar VEIN to Alien" can turn an otherwise great script into a muddled one.

As I've said before, he's a great idea man. He just can't put it all together sometimes.

One thing i must say about the change in direction of this film probably has a lot to do with Ridley.I've been following the film for years now and Ridley has reported that the film had gone under numerous rewrites over the years.Alien Covenant is likely the result of the script he liked the best.About Prometheus,It was Fox's idea to change the film,they wanted Prometheus to be a new franchise.If there's any intimidation,then it would Alien 5.This film had come along and stole the spotlight from Prometheus 2.

Lindelof poses questions, but then doesn't provide answers. Or even hints.  Which strikes me as a bit lazy.

That said, he was a studio hire because Spaihts wasn't a known writer (by Spaihts own admission).

As for Riddles - if he has a better idea, why shouldn't he change his mind?

id say ridley has more control over the movies than people think. I have heard that when fox sat down with ridley, he said he wanted a lot of control over where the series went. I think he has grown a vision over the last decade or so on what he wouldv done and where hed have taken the franchised had he stayed involved but the more he sits down with people and the ideas start to flow, he will naturally change some aspects of his vision. just look at some of the conversations we have on here and the number of times folk say 'never thought of it like that'. I don't see fox being the ones that changed the theme of Prometheus, my guess is the movie execs wanted a straight up alien movie as that's a proven money maker. yes, lindeloff gave us questions and little answers but that surely, being the first in a prequel trilogy, is the point no? I think it is maybe proving difficult to give us some answers without ruining it and making it easy for us to work out the rest and keep some mystery about it for the next movie. he said he wants to give us more movies and if we got answers and had worked the rest out then whats the point? I like the way hes taking it. hes pacing the story in my opinion

I just hope Covenant is not just a slasher film. That has been done numerous times. Prometheus was something special as it asked questions about origin of man. I was cool with limiting "alien" aspects of it, but now we have aliens in all kinda of flavors running around in Covenant. Hopefully the aliens do not get in the way of what prometheus set out to do. 

I'd like to believe that it's Ridley Scott who has most of the creative say-so, in terms of the plot lines, script and execution of the stories. But like I said, he just seems to be changing his directions and contradicting himself quite a bit.

He originally said that the whole xenomorph alien had been done to death with all of the Alien sequels, and that he didn't want to focus on them with these new prequels. He wanted to delve into the questions which none of the other sequel films did... which was about the engineers, who were they, where did they come from, and how did they come into contact with the xenomorphs in the first place.

But after the somewhat negative results of Prometheus, he now seems to be going back into a straight forward, xenomorph horror film. And I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, but it's a very big 180 degrees from what he originally planned.

Here's another point that makes me wonder about his judgment and/or thinking...

Take for example the scenes in Prometheus where Fifield and Milborn get lost. Fifield is the friggin mapping guy, and he's already set his "pups" to scan the area. How in the world do they head back for the ship and get lost? If ANYONE would know how to get back it should be him. That made absolutely no sense in the movie, and imo, RS never explains it or addresses it.

I don't understand how RS could be watching the dailies, reading through the script, or even editing and not see the flaw in these scenes. Not to mention numerous other scenes in which I feel like RS just rushed through, without any proper context or setup. There's so little character development, other than David and Shaw.

As for the writers, I have to believe that RS had a good amount of say in terms of who he wanted, and what directions they took the story in. So maybe he only had broad ideas, and he let the writers come up with the details, which he liked initially.

Maybe he keeps deciding that he doesn't like certain directions after all, thus he keeps changing his mind, and changing directions. But that makes it look like he's not sure about what he wants, or like he doesn't have any concrete ideas of his own. Either way, that doesn't seem like a good recipe for a quality story or film.

But I don't know why he keeps changing his mind about things. That's why I asked if anyone had any insight.

Personally, it doesn't matter too much to me which direction RS decides to go in. Whichever way he goes, all I care about is the quality. Develop the story and the characters, and use the richness of the "Alien" universe that's been established to create a deep, awesome movie. I love the concept of the engineers and what they represent. I like the idea of exploring that part of the "Alien" universe, so it didn't matter to me if "Prometheus" was distanced from the "Alien" franchise a bit. As long as it's compelling and interesting.

Anyhow, that's my 2 cents.

I am not sure who was responsible for most of what became Prometheus but it certainly lacked things. Fox had a lot of say about how it would develop as far as I remember it so it isn’t just Ridley Scott that affects the movie. A lot of bad things could be blamed on Fox since it seems that they were also responsible for making it less Alien.

Getting Lindelof was a bad decision and I am not sure who was to blame for that but it surely didn’t help the movie. A lot of deleted scenes made sense so maybe it wasn’t just his fault. Unfortunately, he is too ambiguous in his writing to make a good alien connected movie. It is good that he won’t be around for AC.

Hicks/Hudson has a point about the fact that they first said that it was an alien movie and then it wasn’t. I thought that ‘make up your fucking minds’ to conclude what a movie shall be about shouldn’t be that difficult.

RS is well established and highly respected. I think he's pretty much got his own say in terms of direction, especially when it comes to the "Alien" prequels. Let's not forget, he is the one who got them to put a hold on Alien 5, so that it wouldn't interfere with the prequel plotlines and details. And he's co-producing Alien 5.

And RS is the own who has made all of the announcements as to what Prometheus was going to be all about, what the focus was, and where it was heading. He said in would not connect into the original "Alien" movie until the final installment, which would be maybe the 3rd prequel movie. He said there would be no xenomorphs, he said that it would be a parallel story.

Then, after Prometheus, he says it's going to be scary as hell and there will be new xenomorphs, or new aliens.

I'm not saying RS isn't continuing the Prometheus story line, because maybe it does have a lot of connection to Prometheus and the previews just don't show it. But from what he's said and done, and from what we do see in the previews... it sure does look like the Prometheus connections have been toned down.

I'm certainly not thinking that RS has 100% authority over all aspects of the production, but I'd be willing to bet that his authority is very broad. The only areas I think are out of his control are budget and promotion.

Anyhow, I just hope he's not half-assing it. He has taken on a lot of projects the past few years and it makes me wonder if he's giving all of them his full creative attention.

Keep in mind... Stanley Kubrick would work on ONE project for years. Sometimes years of story research and development alone. And then sometimes years of pre-production, production, and post production. He concentrated on one project at a time, one central focus at a time. He may have researched multiple ideas, but once something went into production... that was his only focus.

Ridley may be trying to juggle too many balls at the same time, and he's not a young director anymore.

Just sayin.

*sigh*

^^Ridley is every bit as detail oriented as Stanley Kubrick, the special effects on 2001 took years to finish, whereas that is not the case anymore.

Fast turnover of projects doesn't mean his product lacks depth or quality. I just wish he had produced more Sci-fi, I think he is suited to the genre better than most.

At one time he was going to make The Forever War, but sadly, the rights are no longer his. 

I'm still hopeful that he might yet manage to make WOOL.

Plus there's a list of Sci-fi projects he was once attached to which never came to fruition including versions of DUNE and I Am Legend. 

Is the only acceptable narrative 'It was Ridley's idea'? There's so much more to it than that.

Again, it's not his money. Period. Yes, he has influence, but there are other players with more. Ridley wanted 250 million and a 3 hour runtime for Prometheus. Didn't get it. What effect did that have on the movie that was released?

Delaying Alien 5 was not his decision. Again, it's not his money. If Fox wanted Alien 5, directed by Neill Blomkamp, it would be in production right now. The Prometheus sequel was well under way, had been for years, was being planned even before Prometheus was filmed.

Again, he is the visible figure who has to stay on message publicly regardless of what changes are made, by him or anyone else. He does make changes. But, so do others. Believe me, adding a 'Xenomorph' to the sequel was almost certainly not his idea.

"I'm not saying RS isn't continuing the Prometheus story line, because maybe it does have a lot of connection to Prometheus and the previews just don't show it. But from what he's said and done, and from what we do see in the previews... it sure does look like the Prometheus connections have been toned down."

The biggest Prometheus connection will be David, through him we will learn the history and fate of the elders/engineers and witness the 'evolutionary results' of their experiments.

That aspect is deliberately being toned down in the trailer, as it will be key to the entire story.

"Believe me, adding a 'Xenomorph' to the sequel was almost certainly not his idea."

Precisely... if adding xenomorphs was not his idea, and if it went completely against his earlier vision... then that's an example of RS giving into the pressure of the studio and producers.

He might be somewhat resentful that he has to concede to the commercial and financial pressures of the money machine. He wanted Prometheus to be a side story to Alien, while being within the same universe. He wanted to concentrate on other plotlines having to do mostly with the engineers and their history.

Perhaps some of the backlash and negative responses have caused him to waver a bit in his conviction to the original ideas. Maybe that, and a combination of studio pressures to make the movies more commercial, have led him to make the changes that he has made. The movie titles, the xenomorphs, etc. 

And I'm not saying that RS isn't a committed and dedicated film maker, but in all honesty... Kubrick never had to waver on his visions, or give in to studio pressures, in terms of his creative decisions. Not after he was established anyway.

I'm not dissing RS or trying to make him less than Kubrick. I'm simply making a point that losing any amount of creative control is not an ideal position for any great director, with a firm vision of a project.

For the record, I'm not trying to create arguments or debate with my questions and concerns on this matter. I'm just trying to get a better handle on what's been happening with the Prometheus story, and perhaps get a clearer understanding of what RS is doing, and why.

I appreciate all of the responses and insight.

cmutt Welcome to the boards, it's all good discussion! :)

Perhaps another studio would have given Ridley more room. He is now a proven world class director, yet the strings are still pulled tight, not much has changed in that regard, between A L I E N and Prometheus.

I only hope he gets a longer running time for AC as there is a lot to be covered, but I very much doubt it!

EDIT: Apologies cmutt I see you have been a member since 2012 too, I mistakenly thought you were a new member!

Lone - Yeah, I signed up here years ago, but I very seldom post or check in on the forums. Thanks for the welcome anyhow.

I'm also hoping for a longer movie, because you're right... there is SO much that needs to be covered. I also hope that RS stays fairly connected to the Prometheus story, especially regarding the engineers.

But I also don't mind if he jumps around and splits the prequels up, in terms of chronology. Like if he uses AC to tell another semi-parallel story, and then with the next movie, ties them back in with Prometheus a bit closer.

I just want a great movie and great story.

Hear hear, that's what we are all hoping for!

RS is gonna do his best with what's put before him, and I'm betting he has more resources and freedom this time out than he did with Prometheus, so it's gonna be at the very least artful and fascinating which is saying a lot for a space horror movie. I believe there's every reason to be excited. 

Bear in mind that Kubrick made his own movies with his own crew and equipment. That was a different time. Alien is a huge property controlled by executives and, especially with Star Wars blowing up, God only knows what Fox might be planning for it.

That's why I'm annoyed by all the finger pointing going on with Alien 5. Relax people, it's gonna happen. Ridley couldn't stop it if he wanted to, and I doubt he'd try even if he did. In fact, he's (so far) producing Alien 5 so I'm sure his heart is in the right place. I don't think he cares about any of this the way we do, he just enjoys making movies.

We should just be fucking thankful a true original (and the originator) is putting his final stamp on the franchise. He'll be dead soon, but Alien will not.