While speaking with Empire Magazine (via The Playlist) Neill Blomkamp revealed Ridley Scott asked to him to change one thing about Alien 5 that would overlap what he was doing with Prometheus 2.
“I changed the one thing [Ridley Scott] felt was bumping [the] ‘Prometheus‘ [sequel] a little bit,” Blomkamp said. And oh yeah, there is an official title it would seem, but you’re not going to hear it for a while because “…it’s kinda quite bold, but it gives away too much if I say the title.”
This makes sense since Prometheus 2‘s script is locked-in and ready to shoot in the fall, so Ridley would need to keep whatever is locked intact. Blomkamp has a bit more freedom to create the script and his vision.
What kind of tweaking did Neill Blomkamp do for Alien 5 not to overlap with Prometheus 2?
I actually have heard a possible plot rumor pertaining to Prometheus 2 that could explain the reasoning behind the tweaking, but it’s a mixture of rumor and my speculation. Nothing confirmed in any sort of way, besides a couple of trusted sources and previous reported hints to the plot lining-up. I haven’t had an update on what Green has contributed, but with this talk of tweaking from Blomkamp could be explained by this plot-point and will likely be used in the final draft.
We already know that Shaw and David are on their way to discover the Engineers’ planet to find-out why they didn’t go through with the destruction of Earth. Perhaps, exploring a religious/civil war within the factions of the engineers or learning they’re dead across the galaxy.
Following Shaw on her new mission is going to main plot of the film from what I understand but there might be a secondary story happening at the same time.
I’ve been hearing bits and pieces concerning the plot for Prometheus 2, some details like multiple Davids has already been reported by The Wrap and I think that’s on point to what people have been telling me. As a major detail of the sequel might have altered Alien 5 ‘s connection to Weyland Industries.
[RUMOR]
I’ve heard rumblings from people with access to some drafts that Shaw’s warning to stay away from LV223 is dismissed by the greedy and untrusting Weyland executives or someone else at the company. They want to know if the Prometheus crew made contact with alien life-forms or technology, since it would be extremely profitable for the company if they did even if it killed the previous group.
Instead of sending unreliable humans with expensive contracts/supplies, they send a large group of robots this time, some military hardware and a small handful of loyal Weyland employees, because the robots might need a handler or two to keep them inline and on task.
This would explain the multiple Davids that are said to be in the film and could be the secondary plot of the film. I’m just curious if we’ll be seeing a military model of the Weyland synthetics.
The information came from when screenwriter Jack Paglen had been just replaced by Michael Green. At the time I had zero understanding what the rewrites were going to be from Green, making this information a bit pointless back then. Keeping it in the back of my mind when hearing anything new about the sequel.
The tweaks could be Weyland experimenting on a engineer ship, using the engineer technology as seen in the concept art with Ripley or both.
[RUMOR]
[SPECULATION]
It could mean that they want to have the company doing experiments on LV223 instead in this film, allowing another path for Blomkamp’s film to be slightly less predictable.
Since, the only plot we could de-code from Blomkamp’s artwork is that is that Weyland found another engineer ship, which could only mean it was on LV223 since LV426 was nuked. This would also be hundreds of years after Aliens, as there is talk that Blomkamp isn’t entirely removing Alien 3 and Resurrection from canon as we previously thought.
We know Ridley Scott has talked about a “new alien” becoming a threat it’s possible that the creature we saw at the end of Prometheus might result in something completely different than a xenomorph if it does in fact lay eggs or has a completely different life-cycle. As it’s not a xenomorph but a possible version of it via the black goo cycle.
Having Weyland conducting experiments with animals Earthbound or alien could result in some dangerous organisms being created via the black goo or that little xeno-like creature at the end of the film.
Alien 5 could in-fact take cues from the pitch Ridley Scott and James Cameron had been making years ago having Ripley going to a xenomorph planet. Allowing Neill to give fans a stronger origin for the xenomorphs and Ridley breathing-room to make Prometheus something else that isn’t reliant on the xenos.
There have been hints in the expanded universe that the xenomorphs share a hive mind, since Ripley is now apart of the xeno family she could have all sorts of access to that shared information, including a location or beacon to where it is.
Neill could have his action epic without feeling too similar to something like Alien Resurrection or his previous films and Ridley get’s to make the sequel with little ties to the main Alien saga.
[SPECULATION]
Again, a combination of rumor and my own speculation but having a big robotic presence in the film might be why both Jack Paglen (Battlestar Galactica, Transcendence) and Blade Runner 2‘s Michael Green were brought-on as screenwriters, having written robot heavy scripts. It’s sort of teased in Alien that Weyland and Ash might have some sort of knowledge the organism before the Nostromo even discovered it, nobody has ruled-out LV426 being apart of Prometheus 2.
It’s also the only way I see Prometheus 2 having such an impact on the plot of Alien 5, forcing Blomkamp to make those changes.