Ridley Scott explains a bit about the plots of his Alien prequels

This weekend at the LA Times’ Hero Complex Festival, Sir Ridley Scott was on hand to talk about a million different topics from BLADE RUNNER to ROBIN HOOD, but the most interesting details come from what he had to say about his hotly anticipated Alien sequels.

From Collider:

– He said he was always amazed that no one explored the backstory of “The Space Jockey” in the sequels because it’s so obvious in the first movie. So now a script has been written and it’s being prepped. The story has no set timeline except that it’s WAY before the first Alien so that they can fit in enough history for two movies. Scott explained that once you learn the history of how the jockey encountered the aliens, you’ll also want to learn about how he got there.

– He’s done a lot of underwater research for the upcoming movies.

– This film will go very deep into the possibilities of terra forming and the realities of what it would actually take for humans to leave earth. He then started talking sort of technically about light speed and stuff.

The “Space Jockey” he’s referring to is the crashed ship with the decayed pilot that was discovered in the first ALIEN film (as seen above), and it will likely be a big part of his two planned sequels. As for how it fits into his other discussions of terraforming and human space travel remains to be seen.

I’m all for Ridley going back to his ALIENS franchise, as I hope the director can pull himself out of the relative slump he’s been in for a few years now. His take seems interesting, and I’m looking forward to seeing his (hopefully) triumphant return to sci-fi.