While Alien: Romulus proves in the cinema that the sci-fi horror franchise is more alive and scary than ever, the creative minds behind previous films are remembering the creation of the Alien series. Ridley Scott revealed that Alien would not have existed without Star Wars. And Aliens director James Cameron has now revealed that part 2 would have looked very different if Steven Spielberg had wanted it to. Fortunately, that did not happen.
Steven Spielberg suggested a surprising twist to James Cameron for Alien 2
Today, James Cameron is one of the most famous filmmakers in the world after films such as Titanic and Avatar. In the mid-1980s, he had only made Piranha II, although he was already on the verge of fame with Terminator. But director Steven Spielberg recognized his talent and tried to help the career of Cameron, who was seven years younger than him, get off to a good start – which is what made the Alien franchise almost completely changed would have.
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Aliens – The Return
Slashfilm recalls a meeting between the two directing legends after Spielberg offered his colleague an episode of his sci-fi series Amazing Stories (which never came to fruition). They also talked about the planned Alien sequel Aliens, as James Cameron tells us:
We met and I was about to shoot Aliens. Or I was writing Aliens. […] And you [Spielberg] said: ‘Oh, I know what you should do! In the first Alien movie the alien was evil, so it should be misunderstood in part 2. The people try to kill it and it runs through the spaceship.’
“Fortunately you didn’t do that”Spielberg also admitted to the shared memory. Had Cameron Idea of a “good” alien If the series had been taken up in the same way, it would certainly look different today… or it would no longer exist. The franchise is based on the menace of the Xenomorphs. Spielberg’s suggestion to create empathy for the space monsters in the audience would have given the killers a personality. They would not have been brought back as ruthless killing machines.
Ironically, James Cameron later took Steven Spielberg’s alien advice (subconsciously?) to heart when he had Arnold Schwarzenegger’s robot switch sides in the sci-fi sequel Terminator 2. It will be interesting to see what approach the Alien: Earth series takes next year.
Podcast on the latest series trend: Alien, Dexter, Dune and more in the prequel craze
Whether it’s Dexter, The Boys and NCIS or films like Dune, It and even the Alien series: series fans will soon be inundated with prequels. A welcome or worrying trend?
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Over a dozen prequel series await us in the next two years. Should series fans be happy that there are more of their favorite series to watch? Or are we in for one of the worst TV trends ever? We answer these questions in the podcast.