5 Ways Ridley Scott Is The New George Lucas

Specifically when making prequels, there is always the potential risk of severely overdosing on the backstory, or worse, ruining it completely. When that happens, our perception of the original film is often irreparably altered, as the mystery or intrigue of everything we liked is effectively sucked out.

This feeling is all too relatable to those who dislike the Star Wars prequels, feeling they differed to or flat-out contradicted things in the original trilogy. Thus upon every subsequent re-watch, the fans’ minds were polluted with several distracting inconsistencies. For example, it is now harder for many people to accept Darth Vader as a fallen hero, when Anakin was clearly a violent psychopath almost from the get-go.

Scott’s folly however, comes with his baffling fixation on the finer details of his original Alien film. In both Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, there is specific and elaborate attention to the origins of the surreal space jockey, and the menacing Xenomorph - two things that were initially effective because of their eerie mystique.

The space jockey scene, in fact, is definitely one of the film’s best. But unless you’re one of those who can contently pluck things out of canon, you’ll just be thinking of a convoluted jumble involving squid monsters and eight-foot tall blue men.

The upcoming Blade Runner 2049 presents a similar concern. Scott has already touted to the media that the film will answer one famous question surrounding the original, yet this will only be harmful to the film's ambiguous nature.