Alien | The birth and curious death of HR Giger’s Space Jockey
To mark Alien Day, we head back to the late 1970s to see how HR Giger designed the Space Jockey - and its fate after the film's premiere...
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In my head canon, prometheus has absolutely nothing do with this.
My problem with Prometheus and Covenant is that it explains the mystery of the Alien and that's not what I want.
Part of my fascination with the creature is that we know nothing about it. I didn't appreciate the explanation of the space jockey either. Is it a helmet, is it a skull, it's so weird.
There are comics and novels that go deeper into the Space Jockeys that aren't bad. Getting more isn't necessarily the problem, it's mainly that Prometheus Ave Covenant were genuinely terrible additions to the franchise.
Even though later Alien entries have been objectively worse than Prometheus, especially taking into account they made an Alien Vs predator film, I think I am more upset by Prometheus.
It had everything possible going for it to be an incredible experience and it was let down by the most idiotic script imaginable.
It had the budget; its budget was $120-130 million. It had the talent; Fassbender, Theron, and Ilba can all carry films, and Ridley Scott for crying out loud.
The viral marketing campaign leading up to its release was masterful, and the first two viral shorts are standalone works of art, in my opinion. If you haven't seen them, and only have time for one, watch the Hello David video below. Fassbender is such a talent.
TED Talk: https://youtu.be/JKTXYuHUabU?si=MxMrOebvoyUL6QD4
Hello David: https://youtu.be/RJ7E7Qp-s-8?si=EoECGyfnU4GA1I21
So how could you attach THAT script to it?
The movie served the purpose to move two characters and another's head to a different location. Which wouldn't be so bad if everything and everyone wasn't so stupid along the way.
The "I study alien life, let me shove my face in this scary snake, oh no I am dead" scene is basically the whole film in a metaphor. We get no real answers, not that we wanted them, but instead we get evil robot trope repeated, surprise Wayland's alive, oh no not anymore, and I can't run sideways, next to the super human who can cut babies from her stomach and the run marathons!
I secretly think Charlize Theron refused to run sideways to avoid having to do a sequel film with that quality of script.
I hadnt seen those shorts as i avoided eveything promo wise leading uo to the release because i was so looking foward to the film and didnt want to spoil anything.The wasted talent in that movie is still iritating.