With Alien: Covenant in cinemas now, a lot of people have been discussing or revisiting the film that came before it: Prometheus. That even includes the director of both films, Ridley Scott, who admitted fan reaction to Prometheus influenced Covenant.
Ridley Scott on the set of Alien: Covenant. Image: Fox
When asked what made him decide to reintroduce the star of the Alien franchise, the Xenomorph, into Covenant (after not appearing in Prometheus), Scott told Yahoo Movies, “The reaction to Prometheus.”
It went straight up there, and we discovered from it that [the fans] were really frustrated. They wanted to see more of the original [monster] and I thought he was definitely cooked, with an orange in his mouth. So I thought: ‘Wow, OK, I’m wrong’.
So Covenant takes the characters and events from Prometheus and links them to the iconic monster, who looms large over the new film. Scott continued:
The fans, in a funny kind of way — they’re not the final word — but they are the reflection of your doubts about something. And then you realise ‘I was wrong’ or ‘I was right’. I think that’s where it comes in. I think you’re not sensible if you don’t actually take [the fans’ reaction] into account.
So pat yourself on the back if you said the biggest problem with Prometheus was the fact it didn’t have the alien in it. Ridley Scott heard you. Now, it will be interesting to follow how fans react to the way the alien is reintroduced in Covenant and how, or if, that will change the “maybe two more” Alien films the director wants to make.
Comments
34 responses to “Ridley Scott Admits Fan Backlash Over Prometheus Influenced Alien: Covenant”
Sigh. Prometheus’s biggest problem was that it was a heavily edited mess with no flow.
Exactly.
Watch the deleted scenes (or the extended edition) and suddenly the movie makes a HELL of a lot more sense.
II wonder if the backlash to Covenant will influence his next alien movie. 😛
Watched Covenant last night and overall enjoyed it. I guess going in without preconceived notions and high expectations helped. It’s probably the same reason why I didn’t mind Prometheus as well.
I wish he’d leave the franchise to others at this point.
Fans wanted Neil Blomkamps vision of the the Alien franchise.
So he actually listened to all the complaints about Prometheus, and his only take-away was…..that people wanted to see the original alien?
I hated it because it was a steaming pile of non-sensical bullshit.
Had nothing to do with the lack of Alien. Just an awful incoherent waste of a film.
For example – I’ve just had major surgery where my abdominal muscles were visibly severed and then stapled. Guess it’s time to go abseiling!
Absolutely rubbish film.
Then you must hate every action movie around.
On the contrary. I love action.
Die Hard. Predator. The Dark Knight. Terminator 2. Aliens. Indiana Jones. Star Wars 4-6.
These are excellent movies. Prometheus was not.
But the example you gave as to why prometheus was bad, well all the movies you listed have just as bad inaccuracies.
If you say so dude.
If you really hold Prometheus up to any of those films then you’re probably in a pretty small group, but glad you like it. Good that somebody does. You’d have to pay me to watch it again.
I loved, Prometheus. Will be seeing covenant tonight.
And godamnit, don’t listen to fans. Half the time they don’t know what they want and they’re wrong anyway.
You listen to fans and you end up with…. the entire Alien VS Predator franchise. Yuck.
I agree that fans don’t know what they want, but he implied that he himself had similar doubts already. The fan reaction just clarified those doubts for him. That I can understand.
Personally I would have loved to see the Prometheus story continued as it was originator envisioned, I loved the first movie (4/5 stars), and was very intrigued by the questions it left unanswered. But I begrudgingly understand the change in direction.
(Am yet to see Covenant)
The entire franchise or the few awful films?
Don’t blame those piles of crap on fans, nobody asked for a rough perversion of a popular series.
ppl make out prometheus was awful and sure there were some dumb things but it was far from a terrible film.
See, ignorant rage based on some kind of generalisation is a good thing! Let’s all pat ourselves on the back for finding so many objective “issues” when not that long ago we merely settled for that weakling; “personal preference”. What a long way we’ve come.
It’s a shame when an artist has to change his plan just to impress people who don’t want to expand their thinking.
I really loved Covenant but some of the things I wanted more information on were obviously glossed over because of this. It’s futile to impress people who don’t want change.
Sure Prometheus had a some issues but at the top, it’s main problem Ridley thought his audience was smarter and more mature than they were but sadly the vocal minority basically just wanted Aliens 2.0.
(Not even Alien 2.0).
Alien fans really are the worse. So many people hate all the other films, these days I don’t even think of them as Alien franchise fans, just fans of Aliens. Like Doctor Who fans who hate everything since David Tennant fans. Are they really Doctor Who fans or David Tennant fans?!
I enjoyed Covenant based on its own merits not on what it fails to be. Because that film in my mind will never exist and it’s impossible to match the greatness of a film who only reach legendary status because of time and it’s place in history.
All I really wanted from prometheus was a cohesive movie that made sense. Am I being unreasonable?
given so many of us got that, maybe the problem doesnt totally lie with the film makers but your tastes?
Maybe? Let’s just say I wasn’t a huge fan of the Prometheus school of running away from things (1 dimensional thinking trope) or Shaws utter lack of surprise at the return of Weyland from his self-pronounced death.
Nor was I a fan of her forgetting that David left her to die or, more specifically, precipitated the infection of Holloway, with the side effect of impregnating Shaw with a proto-xeno baby, and then actively tried to prevent her from aborting the damn thing. I don’t know about you, but if someone tried to stop me from aborting the spawn of Satan, I would probably rip their head clean off their body.
Or Holloway literally ignoring that David dipped his finger in his drink, or Holloway ignoring the alien tentacle growing out of his damn eye, or the scientists ignoring common sense by trying to poke the Hammerpede.
Look, the movie itself was entertaining but it just comes down to a comedy of errors that make the entire thing feel more like , “A Series of Unfortunate (and Laughably Avoidable) Events” rather than a tale of how things could go wrong when attempting to contact aliens.
she doesnt know he infected her hubby. (unless I am forgetting that part) and yes he did all that but she also realises the only way she is going to get answers is by going with them. And then after everything goes pearshaped, she is then the only living person on a uninhabited and uninhabitable world, with a busted spacesuit, with a life raft that had two huge aliens fighting it out. Of course she was going to help David, what other choice did she have?
Why would Holloway think twice about him dipping the finger in his drink? Did he even noitcie? even if he did he was too drunk to care at that point? Even with that why would he think its strange? Most of the humans thought David did strange things anyway? they dont know there is any Alien badness by that point, so really dont see why that is a huge thing for you.
remember they werent an elite unit of space travels, who had trained for a long time, just random employees roped in by a rich old billionaire, on a mission that was fast tracked into happening. most only found out at the start.
PS All Aliens films are about people running away. Even Aliens where they had a huge arsenal of weaponry, they ended up running away. So I am really not sure of seeing your point.
PPS script there are clues that he is still alive all through the film, most are seen through her eyes, so when she saw him, after just giving herself an abortion and still high on all kinds of drugs and pain of course she isnt going to ‘react’ to him
Okay, first up. The running away line is literally with regards to the way both female characters run away from the crashing spacecraft by going along a single line that results in them continuing to be in danger, when at any point they could move 15 feet left or right and avoid disaster.
Second, the hammerpede kills a biologist who has shown himself to be very cautious up until the point where he… suddenly decides a very dangerous looking creature wants to be adopted as his pet? “I shall call him Squishy. Ow.”
Shaw never even acknowledges that David literally tried to use her as a fucking test tube. He does to her exactly what Wetland Yutani do to Ripley in Alien 3 and Resurrection. The lack of reaction to this is just unthinkable on my mind.
Honestly, just having David make some effort to hide his infection of holloway would make the scene seem much more genuine.
Further, some of my complaints are apparently directly addressed by deleted scenes in on the blu ray or stuff that simply never made it to the film which tells me that the film was possibly poorly edited from a better storyline. I guess we’ll never know the real story, because the acknowledgement we get from Ridley Scott is “You want more Alien? I’ll give you more Alien. “
im sorry but the whole spaceship thing is ludicrous, of all the hate this film gets it, thats the one that annoys me the most. It’s moronic. On so many levels. We know what the ship looks like, we know the dimensions etc because we have seen it up close, over years. Person running from it has never seen it, beyond brief look when it was way up in the sky (or on a holoscreen (both with no scale). You presume in that instance they would see the shape, run all sorts of physics and maths equations in their head, calculate through many different possibly falling scenarios, then switch off a humans ‘flight’ response accordingly so instead of instinctually run as fast to safety (which in humans normal means a straight line), they think zig zag. Please.
We know what is falling on them and how, to them it is a shadow and shape in the peripheral of their sight.
The point is though, that the screenplay was written that way. There are SO MANY ways they could have written it to make not seem completely ridiculous but they chose the way that makes final destination seem plausible by comparison.
Name a movie you like I bet I can find just as many plot holes.
Okay. The Matrix. Hot Fuzz. Prisoners.
That sums up most of what I was thinking.
Yep same here.
The last thing I want are movies that shove everything down your throat constantly. Let the viewer cast their own opinion.
Honestly, I wonder how some of the classics would be received these days. I’m sure they would be met with cries of “I had no idea what was going on!!”…..”The story didn’t flow!!”.
I dont get it why is that thing around his face suddenly seven foot tall and very angry. Worse. Monster. Ever. 0/100.
So the emperors new clothes in film form?
Posted twice, sorry about that
Man, this one for my was such a hype up for nothing. Stuff from the trailer not being in it, and other stuff just not playing out to the potential it had.
Such a disappointment.
Fanboys are the worst. pedantic and humourless.
In really confused at this point.
What I’m taking from the comments is that fanboys ruined the film.
That if you didn’t like the film your a fanboy and lacked maturity and intelligence.
This all seems to make perfect sense.
Huge fan of alien and aliens, i really enjoyed prometheus as well. I don’t get all the hate? I swear people just love to find a reason to bitch about something haha Prometheus was always going to be a bit different and an origin story of sorts.
Saw alien covenant on Friday and thought that was pretty good as well. Had a few silly bits, but overall was a good intense sci fi movie! Was a bit slow but the tension picked up as it went on, like it does in most alien movies :p