When Ridley Scott announced that the title of PROMETHEUS 2 was actually going to be ALIEN: PARADISE LOST, some of us thought that spelled doom for the already-lofty notion of Neil Blomkamp bringing Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley back into the fold of this franchise.
Thankfully, the erudite and loquacious Scott has put our concerns at ease:
”I’m producing [the sequel]. The design is for it to go out next, after this. This will go out first. It’s more associated with Ripley, it’s a completely different angle, it’s more of a sequel. I’m coming in from the back end.”
That presumably puts Blomkamp's sequel in between PARADISE LOST and whatever the second PROMETHEUS follow-up is called. Scott's last statement is intriguing, as is this:
“I’ve even got connections with Ripley [in the PROMETHEUS sequels], but I’m not telling you what.”
So when Scott says he’s eventually tying things back into the original ALIEN, he’s not just talking about xenomorphs, chestbursters, and Space Jockeys: he’s talking about Ellen Ripley.
PROMETHEUS took place in 2089, about 40 years or so before the events of the first ALIEN, so it’s no unthinkable that the Nostromo and Alien could appear in the follow-ups, but remember that our heroes were headed for the Engineers’ home planet last time around. How would Ellen Ripley, at any age, get all the way up there? How will Scott do this without elevating Ripley to a Messianic level, with her fate seemingly intertwined with these E.T.s from the start?
Who gives a shit. Scott had me on the hook when he was teasing answers in the first PROMETHEUS, he had me with the promise of seeing where the Engineers came from, and he has me with the promise of a tie to Ripley. Even if he doesn’t actually follow through on these hints, he has our attention, no?
And that Blomkamp fifthquel is slowly but surely cooking on the back-burner…
