Why I'm mad at Ridley Scott

13 November 2009

Guest writer: J.C. Hutchins

It's hard for me to be mad at Ridley Scott; the man's one of my favourite directors. Blade Runner -- a brilliant classic. Legend -- flawed, but absolutely gorgeous. Thelma & Louise -- sublime. Gladiator -- visually stunning. Black Hawk Down -- knocked me out of my Asics.

And Alien. My goodness. That film is as compelling, horrifying and inspiring as it was influential. Entire sub-genres of the film business owe themselves entirely to that flick's success. It's The Godfather of sci-fi horror cinema; Cameron's Aliens is its Godfather II.

And yet, I'm fussy at Ridley these days. It's this Alien prequel business. I understand his creative and monetary interest in the project -- and I understand 20th Century Fox's desire to keep the franchise chugging along. I also understand that the best possible way for Fox to breathe life back into the series is to attach a world-class director to the film. Casual fans will perk up at Ridley's return. Meanwhile, the geeks are already drooling like an Alien Queen in heat.

I can't get behind this, just as I couldn't get behind the geek-squee mashup of the millennium: the Alien vs. Predator films. Make no mistake: this SF superfan's heart beats for those unholy acid-blooded critters, and wants to see more stories told in that world. But the direction the Alien franchise has taken is veering far, far, far from what the series' story is truly about.

Ellen Ripley.

Ripley, Ripley, a thousand-times Ripley. Sigourney Weaver's performance of a woman haunted by demons-made-flesh is bar-none the best thing about the Alien films. She delivered a nuanced performance in the first film. She was beyond stellar in the sequel. Even when her character arc flew off the rails at the end of Alien 3 (and was outright aborted in Resurrection), Weaver did the very best with what she was given. Even when the franchise became shackled to its past success and became a parody of itself, Weaver continued to shine.

Ripley provided depth to a premise that in fact has very little depth: giant bugs eating people. The best of the Alien movies added brilliantly-realised characters to complement that depth. The worst of the movies provided a buffet of vanilla-flavoured personalities that did little more than run and shout.

Now I'm no Hollywood insider, but I can read movie credits like anyone else. I'm also a sci-fi novelist who writes about conspiracies (my latest novel, 7th Son: Descent, chronicles a government-funded human cloning experiment), so I like hypothesising about behind-the-scenes stuff. Read the creds, and you'll see that Weaver's creative involvement became more robust as the Alien series unfolded. She was a co-producer on the third and fourth films, and probably exerted some contractually-approved influence over their story lines. Perhaps this affected the quality of the finished product, perhaps it didn't.

But what it clearly did was creatively lock her into the franchise, and made filmmakers beholden to some of that creative control ... something I reckon some suits didn't like. Again, my reckoning: by creating Ripley-less Alien movies, they could shut Weaver out of the process and do whatever they wished with the franchise. And so, they spun the series off into Aliens vs. Predator territory -- sadly, two multi-million-dollar travesties captured on film.

Perhaps Weaver's age is also a box-office consideration. I resolutely disagree with this premise, but then again, I'm not very interested in catering to the teen audience in my own fiction. Write a good enough story, and a zillion adults will flock to the theaters.

And now, we come back to the formal prequel project, sans Ripley (but with Ridley). It's a bad creative call because -- much like the AVP films -- I suspect the focus will be put on the people-eating bugs. Audiences aren't interested in empathising with people-eating bugs. They want exceptionally-crafted characters.

And do we really want to know the backstory of the people-eating bugs? Do we really need to know what happened to the chest-bursted Space Jockey alien seen in the first movie, and how his ship crashed? Are audiences best-served by addressing a hundred other ultra-geek questions such as "How does an alien queen get pregnant?" or "When there are no people to eat, how do aliens survive?" or ... or ... or ...

Not really. That mystery is an integral part of the series' story, as is Ripley's presence. To explain where the boogeyman comes from makes him less scary, not more -- which was evidenced in the AVP films. And Ripley herself anchors the series, adds a very human through-line of pain, misery and victory to the narrative. Sigourney Weaver a fine actress, worthy of more screen-time in this world. (Fox certainly painted itself into a corner with the whole "Ripley clone" plot of Resurrection -- but they can hire me to fix that. I've got a plan!)

To remove Ripley from the series robs it of its soul.

Which is why I'm fussy with Ridley Scott. Again, I understand why he's involved in the Alien prequel -- and, as one of my favourite directors, I hope he proves me wrong and knocks it out of the park.

But his involvement lends credibility to a Ripley-less Alien universe -- and that's one I'm very reluctant to live in.

About J.C. Hutchins

J.C. Hutchins has written for The Palm Beach Post, the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Lexington Herald-Leader (Ky.), and Wizard: The Comics Magazine. Hutchins won more than 20 awards during his journalism career.

Specialising in features and entertainment reporting, Hutchins interviewed comic book industry icons such as Alan Moore, Will Eisner, Warren Ellis, Kevin Smith, Mark Waid and Neil Gaiman. During a 2001 controversy sparked by B.C., a popular newspaper comic strip, one critic considered Hutchins' feature on the topic "the single best piece of journalism generated by the controversy."

J.C. Hutchins left the journalism business in 2002 to write his 7th Son technothriller trilogy. Originally released in 2006 and 2007 in podcast form, and with nearly 5 million episodic downloads, 7th Son is the most popular podcast novel series in history.

"For nearly four years, I have used social media to build an audience for my technothriller novel trilogy, 7th Son. Originally released as free weekly audio podcasts (which still receive approximately 100,000 episodic downloads each month), the story is a thrill-ride featuring human cloning, the recording of human memories, and a conspiracy sparked by the assassination of the U.S. president."

7th Son: Descent is now available in print from St Martin's Press.

Praise for Hutchin's novel, as well as his innovative methods for disseminating his work and gaining a loyal readership, is wildly enthusiastic:

"Hutchins' high-tech nightmares leap off the page and lodge in your brain like a literary headshot. Raw, brilliant and detailed."
Scott Sigler, New York Times bestselling author of Infected and Contagious

"J.C. Hutchins takes the science thriller and pumps it full of rocket fuel in 7th Son: Descent. It has weird science, convoluted conspiracies, plenty of action, and a very creepy premise that will leave you paranoid and shaken."
Jonathan Maberry, multiple Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Patient Zero

SFFMedia's review of 7th Son: Descent will be available soon, along with a Q&A Session with the author. If you would like to ask Hutchins a question, send it through to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Photo of J.C. Hutchins by J.R. Blackwell