MacCruiskeen wrote:RI appears to be dying, but nobody's allowed to say it's being killed. That would be paranoia.
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by Wombaticus Rex » Wed Oct 24, 2012 9:43 pm
MacCruiskeen wrote:RI appears to be dying, but nobody's allowed to say it's being killed. That would be paranoia.
by brekin » Fri Mar 22, 2013 5:14 pm
In 2004, a satellite detects a mysterious heat bloom beneath Bouvetøya, an island about one thousand miles north of Antarctica. Wealthy industrialist Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henriksen) assembles a team of scientists to investigate the heat source and claim it for his multinational communications company, Weyland Industries. The team includes archaeologists, linguistic experts, drillers, mercenaries, and a guide named Alexa Woods (Sanaa Lathan).
As a Predator ship reaches Earth's orbit, it blasts a shaft through the ice towards the source of the heat bloom. When the humans arrive at the site above the heat source, an abandoned whaling station, they find the shaft and descend beneath the ice. They discover a mysterious pyramid and begin to explore it, finding evidence of a civilization predating written history and what appears to be a sacrificial chamber filled with human skeletons with ruptured rib cages.
Alien 5 and sequel
Before 20th Century Fox gave Alien vs. Predator the greenlight, Aliens writer/director James Cameron had been working on a story for a fifth Alien film. Alien director Ridley Scott had talked with Cameron, stating "I think it would be a lot of fun, but the most important thing is to get the story right."[37] In a 2002 interview, Scott's concept for a story was "to go back to where the alien creatures were first found and explain how they were created"; this project eventually became Scott's 2012 film Prometheus. On learning that Fox intended to pursue Alien vs. Predator, Cameron believed the film would "kill the validity of the franchise" and ceased work on his story, "To me, that was Frankenstein Meets Werewolf. It was Universal just taking their assets and starting to play them off against each other...Milking it."[38] After viewing Alien vs. Predator, however, Cameron remarked that "it was actually pretty good. I think of the five Alien films, I'd rate it third. I actually liked it. I actually liked it a lot."[38] Conversely, Ridley Scott had no interest in the Alien vs. Predator films. When asked in May 2012 if he had watched them, Scott laughed, "No. I couldn't do that. I couldn't quite take that step."[39]
by beeline » Wed Jun 19, 2013 3:42 pm
by brekin » Wed Jun 19, 2013 4:07 pm
Now, Variety is reporting that Sir Ridley’s Scott Free Productions has hired Jack Paglen to write the script for a ‘Prometheus’ follow-up, and for anyone still wondering what happened to Dr. Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and the humanoid cyborg David (Michael Fessbender), this will be good news. Rumor has it that, unlike the first film, which tried to manufacture the Alien mythos as well as address mankind’s place in the universe, the proposed trip to the Engineer’s planet – where ‘Prometheus’ left off – will be more of a stand-alone experience. Both stars are expected to return, though Scott’s part in the project remains sketchy. He has not confirmed a return to the director’s chair.
by brekin » Wed Jun 19, 2013 8:32 pm
A guide to the literary, artistic, and political tropes alluded to in Ridley Scott's sci-fi blockbuster
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainmen ... 57/#slide1
Ridley Scott's long-anticipated Prometheus took in $50 million at the weekend box office, and with its heady mixture of sci-fi spectacle and metaphysical speculation is already generating passionate debate.
Set in the year 2093, the film depicts the crewmembers of the spaceship Prometheus as they journey to a distant moon to search for the origins of humanity. The team is led by scientist Dr. Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace), a Christian believer who has discovered a series of ancient pictograms convincing her that the moon is home to mysterious "Engineers" who created the human species. Shaw is accompanied on her vision quest by a robot with ambiguous intentions played by Michael Fassbender, an icy corporate executive played by Charlize Theron, and a crew of scientists and technicians. Once they arrive on the moon, they find a mysterious dome-shaped structure that contains horrifying forces with the potential to destroy humanity.
The striking images Ridley Scott devises for Prometheus reference everything from Stanley Kubrick's 2001 to Leonardo Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man and Mario Bava's Planet of the Vampires. Scott also expands on the original Alien universe by creating a distinctly English mythology informed by Milton's Paradise Lost and the symbolic drawings of William Blake.
The following guide unveils the cultural mysteries of Prometheus. (Warning: these slides contain plot spoilers.)
1) The Greek legend of Prometheus
As the spaceship Prometheus approaches the moon LV-223, Peter Weyland, the wealthy businessman funding the venture, addresses the crew in a video. He explains the myth of Prometheus, and says to them mysteriously, "the time has now come for his return."
In ancient Greek myth Prometheus was a Titan who helped Zeus defeat his father Kronos. Yet after he was cheated by Zeus of his reward, Prometheus defied the gods by stealing fire from Olympus and giving it to humanity. For this crime, Zeus condemned Prometheus to be chained to a rock for all eternity, with an eagle daily tearing out his liver. Aeschylus' play Prometheus Bound depicts Prometheus as a mad rebel against divine authority. Prometheus barks to the god Hermes: "In a single word, I am the enemy / of all the Gods that gave me ill for good" (975-976), to which Hermes replies: "Your words declare you mad, and mad indeed" (977). This is later inverted in the Romantic poet Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, which portrays Prometheus as a sympathetic figure and champion of humanity.
There are multiple Prometheus figures in the movie, from the mysterious race of Engineers who appear to have been struck down after using a lethal biotechnology, to Elizabeth Shaw who defies the limits of science to acquire potentially dangerous information about human origins, to Peter Weyland who wishes to gain forbidden knowledge of immortality to make himself equivalent to the gods. Finally, a scene in which Shaw and her fellow scientists attempt to animate the head of one of the Engineers with electricity appears drawn from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein—subtitled, "The Modern Prometheus."
2) Milton's Paradise Lost
In the prologue to Prometheus a mysterious figure stands on the edge of a waterfall and drinks a viscous black liquid. Convulsing in pain, his body breaks up and he falls into the waterfall. Ridley Scott has indicated that this derives from ancient myths of princes who serve and then sacrifice themselves to fertilize the earth with their own bodies—but the figure also resembles the fallen angels in Milton's Paradise Lost. Later, as the crew of the Prometheus explore the domed alien structure, they find fallen bodies of Engineers everywhere, reinforcing the idea that they are a "fallen" race imprisoned in a form of hell. The alien rooms even resemble the circles of Dante's Inferno.
Ridley Scott originally planned to title his film Paradise, but then became concerned that this would give away too much about its similarities to Milton's Paradise Lost, so he called it Prometheus instead. With their superhuman size, malevolence, and unearthly powers, the Engineers in Prometheus certainly resemble the fallen angels turned devils in Paradise Lost. Prometheus and Lucifer are even similar figures. Both originally occupied high places in heaven but were cast down for defying the gods—and both thirst for power, knowledge, and revenge.
Reports are now circulating that the sequel to Prometheus may be titled Paradise—indicating that future movies may feature a battle in the heavens between a higher power and the Engineers.
3) The Drawings of William Blake
The Engineers also strongly resemble the supernatural beings depicted in the drawings of the Romantic poet and artist William Blake (1757 - 1827). Blake's best-known images include his illustrations for Milton's Paradise Lost and Dante's Inferno. His highly symbolic drawings are replete with muscular, pale nude celestial beings, chthonian serpents and tentacled beasts, and an elaborate Gnostic mythology that sees the flesh and material existence as a prison from which the spirit yearns to break free—an idea that imbues the Alien films.
4) Erich von Däniken's Chariots of the Gods?
The idea that "ancient astronauts" brought advanced technology and even life itself to earth was popularized in Erich von Däniken's best-seller Chariots of the Gods? Unsolved Mysteries of the Past (1968). Among the assertions made by von Däniken is that the miracles described in the Bible and in other ancient religions—from Ezekiel's wheel, to stories of angels and gods descending to Earth in chariots—describe encounters with alien beings. Von Däniken also states that ancient aliens "seeded" life on earth with their own DNA (an idea explicitly referenced in Prometheus), and that they were also responsible for the advanced technology that built the pyramids and created the giant Nazca lines in Peru (recreated in the valley where the spaceship Prometheus lands).
Von Däniken's theories have been thoroughly debunked, and many observers have noted that his ideas can also be found in the earlier work of sci-fi writers such as H.P. Lovecraft. Nonetheless, von Däniken's ideas are typical of the modern attempt to explain spiritual phenomena in quasi-scientific terms.
5) Female scientists
Dr. Elizabeth Shaw follows in a long line of feisty female scientists in science fiction. Ridley Scott often draws on classic '50s and '60s cinema in his movies (see Prometheus' similarity to 1965's Planet of the Vampires). His Elizabeth Shaw character resembles such classic female scientist figures as Kay Lawrence (Julie Adams) in The Creature From the Black Lagoon, and Faith Domergue's sassy scientist in It Came From Beneath the Sea (in which she outwits a giant octopus) and in This Island Earth (in which she confronts a super-intelligent race of aliens and their giant, bug-eyed slaves).
6) Paleolithic cave paintings
The opening scenes of the film depict Elizabeth Shaw discovering ancient cave paintings on the Isle of Skye with her boyfriend Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green). The petroglyphs recall the Paleolithic cave paintings of south-western France (Chauvet, Trois-Frères, Lascaux) and northern Spain (Altamira). Werner Herzog's 2010 film Cave of Forgotten Dreams documents the Chauvet Caves, which contain the oldest cave paintings ever found, dating to approximately 30,000 to 32,000 years ago. What is unusual about the Isle of Sky paintings in Prometheus is that they are said to date to 35,000 years ago, and yet they depict human figures—when in reality the vast majority of Paleolithic cave paintings from this era were of animals.
7) Cinematic Robots
The robot David is perhaps the most fascinating character in Prometheus. David follows in the tradition of such intelligent, uncanny robots in the Alien franchise as Ash (Ian Holm) and Bishop (Lance Henrickson). David also recalls the robot C-3PO from Star Wars in that he studies languages and caters to his human masters much like a butler. Yet unlike C-3PO, David is capable of both good and deliberate evil. David was also influenced by Joseph Losey's The Servant, in which Dirk Bogarde plays a butler who manipulates his master and eventually supplants him.
8) Lawrence of Arabia
David the robot is also obsessed with David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962), one of Ridley Scott's favorite movies. David watches scenes from the film early in Prometheus as he sits alone in the ship, and even imitates Peter O'Toole's dialogue, fixating on the scene in which Lawrence puts out a match with his fingers (prefiguring David's willingness to go to extremes). Later, he quotes Prince Faisal's line "There is nothing in the desert, and no man needs nothing" as the Prometheus crew sets out to explore the alien structure—indicating David's foreboding about their undertaking. Inside the alien "temple," he quotes Dryden's line "Big things have small beginnings" as he examines slime on a canister. This line is also quoted by Peter Weyland, showing that he and David are both aware of the dangerous nature of the alien biotechnology they are about to unleash. David also dyes his hair blond and styles it like Lawrence, evincing a narcissism that is out of place for a robot. This indicates that David is no mere machine, but is developing an independent personality with a dangerous blend of intelligence, narcissism, rebellion, and ambition.
9) Stanley Kubrick's 2001
Prometheus is also replete with visual cues from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). These include the bright lighting and set design in the early scenes on the ship and the appearance of the aged Weyland in a wheelchair (recalling the sequence in 2001 in which an aged Keir Dullea lives out his life in a brightly lit room controlled by unseen aliens). Further, the ambiguous nature of David as the machine-figure in charge of the ship resembles that of the HAL 9000 computer in 2001, even down to his ironic sense of humor.
10) Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa & Vitruvian Man
A number of images play over the video screens on the Prometheus early in the film. These include African and tribal images, portraits of classical composers, and pictures of Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Vitruvian Man. The Mona Lisa possesses an uncanny gaze that is almost "alien," while the Vitruvian Man represents the humanistic belief in the harmony between the human body and the universe. Leonardo Da Vinci (1452 - 1519) is the ultimate Renaissance man, skilled in painting, drawing, sculpture, engineering, music, science, mathematics, and geology. The inclusion of his artworks in Prometheus signifies human faith in civilization and reason—a faith that will fall apart in the face of the irrational horrors that await the crew on the moon below.
11) Ancient Mayan, Mesopotamian, and Hawaiian imagery
Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway give a talk to the crew in which they reveal ancient images—Mayan carvings, Mesopotamian reliefs, a Hawaiian painting—showing human figures all pointing to the same arrangement of stars (a "star map"). All these were civilizations that demonstrated a prowess with astronomy. The Mesopotamians and the Mayans built observatories from which they took detailed measurements of the celestial bodies, and the Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders traversed enormous distances across the Pacific thanks to their skill in navigating by the stars.
12) The original Alien movies
From the moment that the Prometheus crew enters the structure on the moon LV-223, we know we are within the world of the Alien films. The circular tunnels with their uncanny rib designs, the dead Engineers with their elephantine helmets resembling that of the original "Space Jockey," the vast chambers with their eerie canisters that recall the original alien eggs, the enormous control room of the derelict ship, and of course the tentacled monsters who emerge from the depths—are all emblematic of the Alien franchise.
Ridley Scott had originally wanted to depict more of the civilization of the mysterious Space Jockey in Alien, and H.R. Giger had created drawings for a pyramid temple that the crew of the Nostromo would explore. However, the sequence was dropped for budget reasons. Prometheus finally gave Ridley Scott the chance to tell this story—and Giger's pyramid temple evolved into the pyramid/domed structure of the Engineers.
13) H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness
H.P. Lovecraft's sci-fi horror novel At the Mountains of Madness (1936) is one of the primary sources for the Alien franchise. It recounts the tale of a scientific expedition to Antarctica that discovers a race of ancient alien beings, the "Elder Things," who came to Earth millions of years ago. When the expedition is assaulted by reanimated Elder Things, the remaining explorers set off and find an enormous, abandoned alien city. They discover that the Elder Things who built it were wiped out by a race of amorphous gelatinous creatures known as the "Shoggoth" who were their slaves and then turned on them. A horrifying confrontation with one of these Shoggoth in a tunnel almost drives the protagonists mad—with the creature's morphing quality resembling that of the mysterious black alien liquid in Prometheus.
Guillermo del Toro had planned to film At the Mountains of Madness in 3D (starring Tom Cruise and with James Cameron producing), but recently abandoned the project when he learned about the plotline of Prometheus—claiming that the stories were too similar.
14) The designs of H.R. Giger
Swiss artist H.R. Giger's macabre "biomechanical" designs for the original Alien movies were a nightmarish fusion of biology and technology. Giger even used molds made from real animal bones to model the ribbed corridors and chambers of the derelict Alien spaceship, designs that reappear in Prometheus. Writer Timothy Leary placed Giger in the tradition of such artists of the grotesque as Hieronymous Bosch, Salvador Dali, and William Blake. Giger himself was influenced by H.P. Lovecraft (adopting the style of his name) and Edgar Allen Poe.
15) Colossal Stone Heads
The giant stone head in the inner sanctum of the Engineers is one of the most memorable images in Prometheus. Representing either a god or a powerful king, the huge head looming in the dark symbolizes all the hubris of this alien civilization.
Many ancient civilizations have crafted such impressive stone heads, from the Olmecs, Egyptians, and Cambodians (most famously in the Bayon of Angkor Wat), to the early inhabitants of Easter Island. In Rome, a colossal stone head of the Roman Emperor Constantine sits in the Capitoline Museum; part of a much larger statue that has vanished, it now symbolizes the evanescence of worldly power.
16) The War on Terror
The captain of the Prometheus, Janek (Idris Elba), refers to the thousands of canisters piled in the Engineer's ship as "weapons of mass destruction." Janek argues that the he must to stop the canisters from reaching Earth, and is willing to sacrifice his life to do so. One could interpret this as a commentary on the Iraq War or even on the current nuclear stand-off with Iran—with the spaceship Prometheus traveling to an arid world to prevent the deployment of WMDs.
17) Halo's the Flood
As described in the Halo novels and video games, The Flood are the ultimate biological horror—chthonian blobs who invade human bodies and adopt pseudo-human forms. Just as the mysterious black liquid in Prometheus is kept locked up in thousands of canisters, the Flood are locked up in giant circular space installations ("Halos") created by an ancient civilization known as the Forerunners (similar to the Elder Things in Lovecraft) until the villainous forces of the Covenant try to unleash them on humanity.
18) The destruction of humanity by the gods
Late in Prometheus, Shaw asks why the Engineers created human beings and now want to destroy them. Her question alludes to both the Biblical myth of the flood with which God nearly wipes out humanity for its wickedness, and also the Greek myth of Deucalion in which Zeus sends a flood to wipe out humans because of their folly. Ultimately it is a righteous couple in both stories—Noah and his wife in the Bible, Deucalion (the son of Prometheus) and Pyrrha in the Greek myth—who survive and regenerate the human race.
19) Forbidden Planet
The Prometheus story also resembles the '50s sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet, a futuristic retelling of Faust legend, as well as Shakespeare's The Tempest. Forbidden Planet (1956) depicts an Earth space ship that visits a planet on which an amorphous force has wiped out most of a human colony. They find out from one of the remaining survivors, Dr. Morbius, about an ancient civilization—the Krell—who became so advanced that they were destroyed by their own technology. The Krell left behind giant, mysterious structures and a nameless force that feeds on the human id to create protean monsters—a warning to humanity as it becomes ever more technologically advanced.
20) The Planet of the Vampires
Mario Bava's horror/sci-fi cult film The Planet of the Vampires (1965) strongly influenced not only Prometheus but also the original Alien. The crew of the Prometheus wear fitted navy space suits with red piping similar to those in Planet of the Vampires. Other parallels between Planet and both Prometheus and Alien include the crescent-shaped space-ship, the mysterious signal from outer space that draws the crew to a bleak planet, the amorphous evil that attacks the crew, action that plays out in the shadowy corridors of a space ship, crew members who are attacked by alien forces and turned into zombies, and a wrecked alien spacecraft with giant alien skeletons inside (directly influencing the "Space Jockey" in Alien).
21) The Thing
Prometheus, and the overall Alien series, were also inspired by The Thing—both the original Howard Hawks film from 1951, and the 1982 John Carpenter remake. The Thing was based on John Campbell's short story "Who Goes There?" about an arctic expedition that discovers a space-ship with a malevolent, shape-shifting alien inside. That story was in turn inspired by Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness. One can also see strands of these stories emerge in the "venereal horror" movies of David Cronenberg, such as The Fly. All these tales ultimately depict monsters from the id who challenge human identity by attacking it and assimilating it—the ultimate horror hinted at in the end of Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness.
22) Joseph Wright's A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery
Joseph Wright's 1766 painting A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery directly influenced the scene in Prometheus in which David unleashes a 3D holographic map of the solar system in the Engineer's control room. The whirling stars and planets around David reveal that the aliens' ultimate destination is Earth. As for Wright's painting, by using fine art to depict a scientific subject, it symbolized the Enlightenment's high valuation of rational inquiry.
23) The Faust legend
At its core, Prometheus is a Faustian fable. In both its medieval form and in Goethe's epic poem, the story of Faust is that of a scholar who trades his soul to the devil for knowledge that normally only belongs to God—with tragic consequences. This has become a common metaphor for the modern age, in which every advance of science appears to bring with it new perils to the human race. The legend of Faust is a warning to be aware of the limits of science and ambition. The alien Engineers in Prometheus have nearly been destroyed by their own unnatural scientific knowledge, and the quest for this knowledge on the part of the Prometheus' crew nearly undoes them, as well. In the end, it is love that redeems Faust's soul. Perhaps this ennobling force will also prevail in the sequels to Prometheus.
by elfismiles » Fri Jun 27, 2014 3:13 pm
Skunkboy » 06 Jul 2012 02:53 wrote:From Chris Knowles website.
http://secretsun.blogspot.com/2012/07/a ... f-sci.htmlAlex Jones, Prometheus and the Death of Sci-Fi
SPOILER ALERT
<snip>
by IanEye » Tue Dec 02, 2014 1:11 pm
by brekin » Wed Dec 03, 2014 1:20 pm
At first glance, the alien Ixtl also appears to be an inspiration for the film Alien,[2][3][4] though those involved with the film denied any influence on its part. However, when Van Vogt initiated a lawsuit against 20th Century Fox for plagiarism the studio settled out of court.[5]
by brekin » Fri Dec 05, 2014 5:57 pm
brekin » Wed Dec 03, 2014 12:20 pm wrote:Recently read A.E. Vogt's The Voyage of the Space Beagle which I was tickled to learn was an unacknowledged source for Alien.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Voyage ... ace_BeagleAt first glance, the alien Ixtl also appears to be an inspiration for the film Alien,[2][3][4] though those involved with the film denied any influence on its part. However, when Van Vogt initiated a lawsuit against 20th Century Fox for plagiarism the studio settled out of court.[5]
The specific story thread that Vogt has of the alien Ixtl kidnapping space ship members and seeding them seems to be inspired by wasps laying eggs in other insects. The alien is in a way more complex but simpler then later incarnations of the Alien and their creators in the films.
The book is fascinating on many levels other than being the blue print for the later Aliens franchise. Vogt it is an interesting guy because he was an early Korzybski General Semantics proponent and then also got into Dianetics in the early days. He did a series of sci-fi novels outlying in dramatic form General Semantics (The World of Null-A, The Players of Null-A, etc) and in The Voyage of the Space Beagle the main protagonist is basically a General Semanticist (Nexialist in the novel).
Writing wise the three books above are a little wooden and uneven plot wise, but concept wise they are still pretty interesting and topical. I don't know how well they make too many of General Semantics concepts more accessible in general, but there are flashes of brill now and again.
It was implicitly about rape -- and especially male fears of penetration, according to screenwriter Dan O'Bannon, who said many years later: "One thing that people are all disturbed about is sex... I said 'That's how I'm going to attack the audience; I'm going to attack them sexually. And I'm not going to go after the women in the audience, I'm going to attack the men. I am going to put in every image I can think of to make the men in the audience cross their legs. Homosexual oral rape, birth. The thing lays its eggs down your throat, the whole number."
Van Vogt was also profoundly affected by revelations of totalitarian police states that emerged after World War II. He wrote a mainstream novel that was set in Communist China, The Violent Man (1962); he said that to research this book he had read 100 books about China. Into this book he incorporated his view of "the violent male type", which he described as a "man who had to be right", a man who "instantly attracts women" and who he said were the men who "run the world".[9]
At the same time, in his fiction, van Vogt was consistently sympathetic to absolute monarchy as a form of government.[10] This was the case, for instance, in the Weapon Shop series, the Mixed Men series, and in single stories such as "Heir Apparent" (1945), whose protagonist was described as a "benevolent dictator".
by semper occultus » Thu Feb 26, 2015 12:14 pm
![\<]](./images/smilies/confused0044.gif "confused")
by gnosticheresy_2 » Fri Feb 27, 2015 5:24 am
semper occultus wrote:Alien 5: Sigourney Weaver will reprise Ripley role in new movie, says director Neill Blomkamp
Neill Blomkamp has confirmed Sigourney Weaver will reprise her role as Ripley in the forthcoming Alien film.
The writer and director has been working with the Oscar-nominated actress on new sci-fi film Chappie, and said it inspired him to cast her again in his reboot of Ridley Scott’s Alien.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-enter ... 72055.html
....reboot of Alien...this is gonna get confusing...
by semper occultus » Fri Feb 27, 2015 6:32 am
by semper occultus » Fri Feb 27, 2015 7:51 am
by elfismiles » Fri Feb 27, 2015 12:22 pm
semper occultus » 27 Feb 2015 11:51 wrote:....they're all at it now....
Harrison Ford returns to Blade Runner sequel
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-31657466
by Nordic » Sat Feb 28, 2015 5:27 am
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