Why does Ridley keep changing his mind?

"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."

Absolutely Aorta....I am very f-ing thankful!

"Bear in mind that Kubrick made his own movies with his own crew and equipment. That was a different time."

And Kubrick also wrote or co-wrote the screenplays for most of his films, or he made sure he had power to re-write, so he was almost always in complete control of the stories, the scripts, and the productions. Kubrick is probably the most unique director of all time, especially in terms of his commitment and control over his films.

Again, the only reason I used Kubrick as an example was to make a couple of points. Which were that maybe RS doesn't have that type of control over Prometheus and it's sequels. Which can be a major problem for some directors, depending on the level of interference. Look at David Fincher and Alien 3 for example. (and by no means am I implying that RS's situation is the same as Fincher's, I'm simply stressing the interference aspect)

And the other point was that maybe RS is juggling too many projects, and many of them are over lapping, and coming right at the heels of each other. Which could make it difficult for him to invest his full attention and creativity to each project.

And again, it's only speculation on my part, and just food for thought. I just can't help being curious about these matters... but the bottom line is that as "Alien" fans, we all just want to know that it's being done well, and that it's in good hands.

Kubrick is a great example, RS is very influenced by him, and his eye and ingenuity were all over Prometheus.

There's one shot in particular in the first act that I think is brilliant: David is walking through the center of the ship, this is before anyone is been awakened. As he walks through different spaces illuminate or go dark (the sound design here is also quite good and very subtle).

All that lighting was built into the set and was in fact the lighting used to illuminate the shot, with various light sources with various color temperatures, so the set is almost a light sculpture. The result is poetic (I did lighting for 30 years so I'm big on this geek stuff) and for whatever reason reminds me of Kubrick  laying on the floor with a bare lightbulb on his chest, filming hand held the iconic scene of jack Nicholson's head coming through the hole in the door.

That invention, that love of light and framing, are what defines the film maker. Movies were light long before they were sound. But I digress.

I understand your concern about RS being overwhelmed but my point is I think he's in his element. He's always been doing a hundred things at once. I think he loves the chaos and ingenuity of film making and he's surrounded by world class pros to make it happen. If I was him, I wouldn't stop either. 

Christopher Nolan is another example of a director, my favorite director by the way, who works on one project at a time. But I don't think Ridley Scott has too many projects on his plate, he has made lots of great movies. You know what bothers me about studios and Ridley Scott that they still don't let him after all these years put everything he wants in a lot of his films. He still has to put out director's cuts for the majority of his movies or in the case of Blade Runner more than one cut. Let this man make 3 hour movies if he wants, yes he has made a few stinkers but overall most of his movies are good if not great. I certainly hope Alien: Covenant is at least 2 and a half hours or close to it, this movie looks awesome!

Well said.Nobody is perfect,not everyone the Greats Like Scott or Spielberg.I too am very thankful for Scott's return to Alien.Except for James Cameron,every decision has been basically been made by Fox.Between Prometheus and Alien Covenant,these are Ridley Scott's movies.Nobody told him to make them.Were it not for Ridley i  don't think they would be happening.It's like George Miller returning to Mad Max.

@Dr. Curt I so agree. MORE is better with a GREAT film, or one like A:C that has a LOT of ground to cover. Hell, if those LoTRs movies could go nearly 3 hours, then damn...Alien movies should be able to!

@cmutt Sir RS has enough money and prestige that he doesn't have to try and balance a bazillion jobs all at once. He is doing what he WANTS and nothing else. No one wants the stress of overburdening oneself, not even him. 

@Starlogger     Absolutely, can you imagine a close to 3 hour Alien movie! I'm not a fan of Prometheus but if it were longer I am pretty sure it would be a lot better. When a movie moves too fast it takes away from the overall movie and I am so tired of hearing people complain about how long a movie is. If it's a great movie and something you love you don't want it to end so make it long and make it great!

As much as we all agree that RS is a great director, and make no mistake, I think very highly of him too, I just want to point out a few examples where I think he is definitely solely responsible for some glaring mistakes in both execution and judgement.

As I mentioned before, take the Fifield and Milborn sequence in Prometheus. These are supposed to be specialist employees that have accepted a contract for a job, mostly based on the money incentive, because they didn't know the details about where they were going, or exactly what they would be involved with. 

Right from the get go, when Shaw and Halloway make the presentation, they show signs of attitude and negativity. And this is directly in front of their employer, who is... Peter Weyland, represented by Vickers.

They are being paid, and they chose to be there, yet they have the nerve to come out of hypersleep and immediately start talking shit. C'mon, that's unrealistic, considering the circumstances. In my opinion, they would not have been hired in the first place. Weyland would have chosen diligent, yes men, to shut up and do the job that they were being paid to do. Anyway, that's just the start, and that's a small issue.

The larger issue is how they get to the site, and literally, within 20 to 25 minutes of the exploration... Fifield gets in Shaw's face and yells, "I'm not in the fucking dead alien business, and I'm leaving!". Or something like that.

Give me a break, are we really supposed to believe that some employee, who chose to go into hypersleep, and accepted a job under unknown circumstances, for probably one of the most powerful companies in the world at that time... is going to get there... and then make a dramatic chicken shit bolt within less than an hour of exploration?

And the same for Milborn? He's supposed to be what, some kind of a biological specialist, and he wants to leave with Fifield after just that brief bit of exploration? All of that makes very little sense to me, and it reeks of poor judgement.

Now for the point I made before about them getting lost. These guys have just started exploring, they've only gone so far into the site, Fifield has set up his PUPS for scanning and mapping for goodness sake, and they are on intercom, in constant communication directly with the Prometheus ship... and they get fucking lost!!!

I'm sorry, but not only do I not buy that, as a realistic situation, under the circumstances of that mission... but I also find that to be terrible writing, and terrible decision making by the director. 

RS had to have read those scenes through, thought about them, planned out the shots, shot them, and then edited them. Did he never once notice the flaws or discrepancies, in terms of logic?

Even if he like the idea of them getting lost and stuck there, why did he not set it up better, or make a better scenario where it could be explained, and more realistic?

Instead, he chose to leave it like it is. And these are just a few examples of many scenes, and many dialogues in the movie that I think are either rushed, and/or not well thought out and executed.

And believe it or not, I'm a big fan of Prometheus. I think there some amazing and awesome scenes, and I love many of the concepts that are introduced. But I'm just being honest when it comes to some of it's major flaws, and many of them are in Ridley's lap. He's the director.

I wouldn't crucify him for all this. Sure it's been a bit of getting expectations jerked back and forth, but I'm guessing he's had to adapt as circumstances have called for it. Whether it's Fox, fresh ideas from writer change, or catering to the crowd, it's all part of the general considerations that probably should be made when doing something like a 4 movie prequel. Let's see how covenant is before we start questioning the mans judgement at least.

@cmutt     I agree, I don't like Prometheus much at all because of all those things you mentioned and more and like I said he has made some stinkers. I am like you there is a lot of stuff in Prometheus I don't like and I'm glad you can see past those things and still enjoy it, I can't. But he has made some great movies and should be allowed to pretty much do what he wants at this point in his career.

Remember, Vickers was actually responsible for hiring some of the scientists and crew. Whatever her motive or agenda was, I think she deliberately set things up so that the mission was more likely to fail.

Holloway was an egomaniac, while Shaw was in pursuit of her maker. The entire theory was founded on their interpretation of the star maps. Yet, it appealed to the egomania of Peter Weyland who regarded himself as a god and believed that immortality or at least a prolonged life, could be his.

If you view the crew viral videos, Janek was someone who followed his own path and wouldn't necessarily follow orders.

Millburn probably still slept with his childhood teddy bear.

I think Fifield was psychotic, potentially a serial killer who replaced the real geologist! ;)

There was something off about most of the characters. Collectively they amounted to a pretty unstable bunch who made for a bad mix!

Hey Lone,that sounds thread worthy.Would you consider posting "Vickers:Project saboteur?"or something along those lines?

Hi Lone!

Hey guys! *waves*

I think Vickers was eaten up with jealousy and hate because of Daddy issues!

Either that, or she was a Yutani synthetic planted on board the Prometheus! :P

*ducks for cover*

Actually ninXeno, thanks for the suggestion, but those ideas are nothing new, so I'm not gonna open myself up to flack by starting another topic on it! 

...

I could see Alien Covenant as a possible attempt to make up for the disappointment of Prometheus and win back and lot of Alien fans.

Nobody can deny that Prometheus polarized Alien fans, some people liked or loved it, others were either disappointed (like me) or downright hated the film (totally not me...nope...nuh uh.. *is innocent*) 

Now we got Xenos and Facehuggers strategically placed in a trailer, and witnesses of the 15 min preview basically saying that it felt/looked more like Alien again on twitter. We also got a Xeno head on the teaser poster. 

All this even though Ridley has stated that the xeno is cooked and not scary anymore.

On the contrary, and to be fair, the emphasis on the xeno and facehugger could merely be a clever marketing campaign, and maybe the next trailer will turn out completely different with Engineers showing up or something. Maybe Ridley changed his mind on the Xenos?

Also, Ridley has stated that it would take a few films to bridge the gap between Prometheus and Alien, but this sounds like an "after-construction" excuse to me as I believe he said it after all the backslash if I'm not mistaken.

With Prometheus I certainly got the impression that Ridley wanted to move away from the Alien universe when he hired another writer and the script and title was changed.

Now, Lindelof is gone from the franchise (despite the signed 3- film contract) and we're back to an Alien title again with yet another writer.

Regardless of any possible explanation, these changes of going back and forth make little sense to me. I just wanted to point out how I could see the early appearance of AC and the history of production changes, and I agree with cmutt. 

"Regardless of any possible explanation, these changes of going back and forth make little sense to me. I just wanted to point out how I could see the early appearance of AC and the history of production changes, and I agree with cmutt."

That's pretty much all I'm trying to point out and say with this thread. I'm not trying to crucify RS, and I'm not trashing Prometheus.

But I am questioning some of his decisions, for all of the reasons I've stated. And I think they are very fair observations and criticisms.