Let's Talk Story

How about modifying the thread title to something a little less vague?

See I always imagined that Alien 5 would be the Alien Invasion of Earth. Too bad AvP had to go and fuck w/ the mythology by changing it around so that Aliens are nothing but game that have already been on Earth for thousands of years bred by Predators. Andershit really really raped this series' ass!

It seems however that by the time of Alien Ressurection that the Earth is relatively xenomorph free. So I would still maybe try to develop a story that involves the Aliens wreaking havoc on Earth. Perhaps w/ a cliffhanger ending that can be continued/concluded in part 6. Bring back Weaver, Henriksen (maybe as another android) and get James cameron to helm it and you could redeem this series.

Ripley is dead. Let her stay that way. There are billions of other people that the story could focus on, maybe they should try a few of them. As long as the series continues to demand the presence of Ripley, I'll remain uninterested.

The onyl semi-interesting way: The unpredictable number 8 against a Ripley clone from another lab that has completely embraced her alien side and has turned into a mutant ueber-alien queen bitch.

And it's still crap...

Whedon fucked up the character by driving her into a creative cul-de-sac. There's simply no way to develop super-Ripley. She's just a bad TV character.

And I always thought that going to the alien home planet or trying to explain their evolution or the origin of those freaky techno-elephants from Scott's movie would be the final nail in the franchise's coffin.

Alien was about fear of the unknown and the incomprehensible. Even Cameron in his most gung-ho realised that. Hudson said when the lights went out that "They're animals! How could they cut the power"? Jimbo was smart enough not to go there and try to explain if there's a real intellect behind those eyeless faces.

So, the only way to make an interesting sequel is by going back to the original's Lovecraftian origins. No mass invasion, no fighter planes nuking colonies of aliens, just a penis with teeth hiding in the dark, stalking a near-naked lady.

With the new technology, having mass alien attack is a feasible thing. it plays to where the franchise has ended up - monster fetishism.
Haven't we already had the 'going to the mosters home world' story? It's called Starship Troopers.
The other direction: of returning to the 'fear of the unknown' storyline in an enclosed space: has problems in that, well it's already been done (i do agree that it is this story that gave the monster it's power in the first place). the creature has been revealed. if you re-make the first Alien shot-for shot, you will not have a film as good as Alien.
If you want to make it scary again, you have to change. either that or accept that further sequels are just excuses for cool kill sequences.

Good thread though: Hey fanboys! put your whiny-ass money where your whiny-ass mouths are and tell us how to do it better.

How about a story where the army has succeeded in turning the aliens into a form of biological weapon. hmmm. do we take the story from the army's POV or the poor suckers the army decides to attack?
hmmm. not all that good, really. try again.

You can't do it better. The series is dead.

Let the films go...we still have four (five if you count AVP) movies to watch if you ever feel like watching the Aliens kick some ass.

Use the lazy but necessary idea of hypersleep dreams to take care of 3/4, and adapt Dark Horse's comics, which tackled this:

as well as other stuff incredibly well.

The Corporation will finally be able to gain control of the Oil in the middle east, after they sick their new Alien biological weapon on them!

Hell yes, this could work.

Grrr, keep 3. Ripley dead. that particualr infestation of alien over. then you have 200 odd years to play around in. Grrr.
Maybe have a spaceship of independant shippers, or smugglers, or whatever. people with no back-up, fighting against the man on the colds of space. then you've still got the corporation being assholes, but you've also go the 'truckers in space', messy, dirty thing. truckers make more interesting characters than soldiers. maybe i just like big dirty men.

I happen to think that you can go for the ever increasing surface-gimmickery of 'resurrection' or AvP, where you have new creatures, or bigger creatures, or twists on creatures - which is to make it more kiddie friendly. children understand 'bigger' and 'faster'. they don't understand 'subtler exploration of the nature of fear'.
that's the other option. make an adult film, with adult characters in, like the first one. not superheroes and not comedy relief. then what happens to them, even if it just one monster in the dark, becomes scary again.
to make the film different, you make the characters different.
the second one is what i want. this is why i would get rid of ripley.
hell, give the kids another AvP, but i bleive the Alien franchise could be, ahem, resurrected.
that's my opinion at the moment.

[QUOTE=mastronikolas]Whedon fucked up the character by driving her into a creative cul-de-sac.[QUOTE]


To be fair, Whedon's screenplay was almost stripped by the studio, and heavily re-written.

Anyways, aside from the continuity from the previous flicks, Alien 4 was supposed to be an entity onto itself, and shouldn't have been required to pave the way for further pictures.

theJOKER wrote:
This is true-- set the movie perhaps immediately after the events of Alien 3 and fill in the gaps untill Alien Ressurrection. Start to craft a tale of xenomorph infestation throughout the world. Aliens wreaking havoc in major urban areas. Bring the Predators into the mix even. Possibily allied w/ the main protagonists.

Defintely utulize a Bishop-series android again in this one if Ripley is no longer a factor. Some character framiliarity would be good. Why did you kill everyone else cool in this series David Fincher? It would be cool to see Michael Biehn's character again! Damn you Fincher!

Oh well, Alien 3 wasn't the total trainwreck that AvP was! I was kind of fond of it even during its initial release. I need to watch the director's cut to see the changes that everyone is so apeshit about.

I read, on Joss's website I think, that there were some sequences he put in against his own will. Like the Captain's death - the director wanted a scene where someone walked down a corridor and got attacked. So Joss wrote it even though he thought it didn't fit in.

But we know what's its life cycle is - Pod, Face Hugger, Alien, Queen, Pod, etc... What more it there to tell?

I really think the franchise derailed with the 3rd movie. After Aliens, there were only 2 worthwhile stories to tell...

(1) Aliens on Earth - I can still recall a very very early Trailer for Alien 3 which hinted at this approach. "On Earth Everyone Can Hear You Scream!"

(2) The Alien Homeworld

Personally, I'd find the 2nd more compelling, especially if we learn the Alien is nothing more than an Ant like creature in a incredibly hostile environment and then we're introduced to that planets version of the Ant-Eater. The problem is how to present a story in a way which isnt' derivative of the 1st 2 films (people stumble upon the creature or people try to hunt down the creatures) and I've yet to hear of a compelling story idea for that.

jackinabox2 wrote:
In Alien 5 bring 'em to Earth and end it on a cliffhanger.Perhaps the Predators will intervene on Man's behalf. In Alien 6 finish off the series by taking it to the source of the xenomorphs-- the Alien homeworld (ala Starship Troopers on a bigger, scarier scale) film them back to back. END THE SERIES IN WORTHY FASHION ONCE AND FOR ALL!!!

You can counter if you want to-- but this is a free floating discussion and not a debate.

My intention is to finish off this series instead of continuing to milk a dead cow.

But I'd sure like to hear your ideas.

Something I heard Ridley Scott was mulling over was a return to LV 426 and analysis of the crashed ship and the 'space jockey' aliens therein. I think the idea was to try and trace the ship back to where it came from. But then I read a snippet from the start of an A5 script that had a 'space jockey' ship suddenly appear in orbit around some deep space outpost, killing two technicians as they were fixing a sattelite. So goodness knows where that was going, maybe the pilots of the first ship engineered the Alien, maybe they were just victims of it.

Personally, I don't want to know where the Aliens come from, it'd take away the mystery.

Alien life-cycle?
In every movie the aliens have been taken out of their natural habitat. Aliens come closest, but all the others have the aliens stuck in an enclosed space with a bunch of humans. It is trying to get out, presumably, like a trapped animal. it's life-cycle, in every film, is in a state of interrupt.
Also, think about what would happen if the aliens won. would a state of balance be created with their environment, or would they destroy everything and then, presumably, die?
What is the aliens purpose?
Sure it might be interesting to have a reveal that they are engineered by some super-alien species as a weapon or some such. It might be more interesting if it was just evolution. Just nature. That the 'Alien' species is the ultimate expression of natural selection. That the universe is 'just like that'.

well those are all questions to ask, but the life-cycle in the first film was just a means of setting up the sexual metaphor, and for getting the beast on the ship. I wouldn't get too bogged down in it.

Prater: 'Starshit Troopers'? Deliberately mis-spelling titles acutally proves something? You have passionate ideas about stuff. You don't need to rely on that 13 year old crap. let that particular strand of Internet 'wit' go.

Some Clarification...

My ex worked in Fox's Legal Dept. at the time so as someone who's read ALL of Whedon's drafts (including the treatment that just featured a clone of Newt fighting the aliens), I can tell you that Whedon's script was "stripped". Anyone who has actually read the drafts posted online or on the Alien Quadrilogy DVD can attest to this (and it sounds like you haven't). For the record, I'm not a big Joss Whedon fan. I don't care for Buffy or Firefly. But the stuff that Fox made him cut would have propelled the film from mediocre to pretty damn good. Stuff like the following:

- Ripley in her cell laughing hysterically as she hears UMS soldiers being torn apart by the aliens in the corridor outside.

- the Betty crew finding their captain's corpse and getting attacked by an alien - only to have Ripley appear to save their skin by having a full knock down dragout fight with it (instead of simply pulling its tongue out).

- An excellent scene where Ripley and crew are fleeing to the Betty and come across three aliens simply waiting at the far end of a corridor. Ripley tries to distract them to get them to move but they don't respond. Then we get the following:

CALL: How come they're not coming towards us?

RIPLEY: Because they can sense we're not afraid. They respond to fear.

DISTEPHENO: Well, how do we the hell do we get them to respond?

RIPLEY: Like this...

At which point she picks up Distepheno and hurls the screaming man down the corridor towards the aliens! The creatures sprint forward to their prey and the others make they're way towards the Betty. As they do this, Ripley kills the aliens (in another cool fight sequence) and then helps the shaken but unharmed DiStepheno (who was none too receptive to her apologies).

- an action scene in a domed football stadium length arboretum where they commandeer a jeep like vehicle with a gun on back (think the Warthog in Halo). As they traverse the area aliens stalk them through the plants, scuttle along the ceiling, etc.) only to be shot at by (I think Christie). One or two actually make it onto the vehicle and they have to kill them while driving. tHis scene was easily on par with any of the action set pieces in ALIENS (which I think is the best of the series).

- a scene where we actually get to see the aliens cocooning thir victims - by spewing resin from the tubes on their backs.

- a different type of Newborn that caused much more havoc.

These are just a few scenes that were in the later drafts. As you can see, Prater, although the basic story remains the same. The character of Ripley 8 was more terrifying and more complex. She was a true hybrid of alien and human. Like I said, the script isn't perfect but these moments would have made a much better film. Whedon DID make the changes but only under protest. Also he was trying to get Buffy off the ground as well, so I suspect he just grinned and bared it.

ALIEN RESSURECTION was a somewhat troubled production for reasons that I won't go into in this post (maybe later).

Prater:

In 1988 Dark Horse comics published three mini series that took place ten years after ALIENS. The first was in B&W and concerned Newt and Hicks going out to destroy the Aliens' Homeworld. They get there and encounter one of the creatures that is the same species that was piloting the derelict ship from ALIEN. Meanwhile back on earth Weyland-Yutani has obtained a specimen and it gets loose. What happens next is horrific as the planet becomes infested and overrun. The gov't uses the excuse that someone could be "infected" with a chestburster to round up people and liquidate them. By the time Newt and Hicks get back to Earth several months later, Weland-Yutani sets off "Orona" bombs to clear the infestation. This changes the climate/conditions on the planet and isn't teribly effective. It's only then that Newt realizes that they were pawns all along for the Ancient Astronaught creature - his species wanted to terraform earth.

There were two more miniseries that followed. The second took place on a Weyland-Yutani space station right where the first one left off and was pretty good. THe next one brought back Ripley and sent her to LV-426 again. In my opinion, this was the weakest of the stories.

The comics were all excellently written by Mark Verheiden (who has a character named after him in the atrocious AvP film). They're hard to find but you can get the novelizations by S.D. Perry at Amazon. Unfortunately after ALIEN 3 Darkhorse changed the characters of Newt, Hicks, and Ripley to other names in order to stay in continuity for the studio.

ALIENS producer Gale Ann Hurd, who is a friend and mentor, read these books and thought they were much better than ALIEN 3. Unfortunately, Fox doesn't adapt comics spun off from its own franchises (see AvP). Now this is just one person's opinion and you're definitely entitled to yours. But before you classify the concept as "LAME, LAME ,LAME" you should at least be aware of the franchise's different iterations.

Kreeper wrote:
Why oh why didn't this get made instead of the of the goofy shit that was Ressurrection and AvP? Is Fox too damn egotistical to accept that comic-book guys can write better than hacks like Whedon and Anderson?

Oh wow, that would have been a brilliant scene. As would the others. Damn shame.

RE: Drafts

Well, then that's something we both have in common!

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this point. I think the psychology of Ripley fighting the monster within and on the outside would have added enourmously to the character. Maybe it would have been silly if Juenet had shot it but if Cronenberg and Danny Boyle (who were both approached to direct) did it, this sequence and the script itself would have gone to another level.

Agreed.

This is where I have to disagree. What was so brilliant about ALIENS (which I based on your other thread, I don't think you like), was that it took everything great about the first one and transscended it. Now looking back at it now, it's easy to say "It was just a war movie, not scary at all." I 'm old enough to have seen the original ALIEN in the theater so my perspective is a lot different. Cameron wisely realized that he had to do more than just scare the audience (and DID scare them a few times). The main problem with ALIEN 3 was that it wasn't scary in the least. It was a weak retread of the first one and brought nothing new to the franchise. Even David Giler states this on the ALIEN 3 DVD extras. I've owned a copy of Fincher's Director's cut for almost ten years and while I acknowledge its superiority to the theatrical release, the film is still a disapointment. Dark and depressing doesn't mean good if you're audience has seen it done better -- especially in the same franchise.

While I did have problems with Whedon's story, at least tried to combine the best elements from the first two.

Hate to be a stickler, but Whedon finished his first draft in early 1996. Lost World came out May 1997 -- five months before ALIEN RESURRECTION. As written, I think the Arboretum scene is much more exciting then Lost World because the crew of the Betty actually put up a great fight and aren't mere nameless targets like in the Spiellberg film.

But even given that, are you aware that ALIEN is basically a remake of a 1954 film IT: TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE? In it, a ship lands on a planet to investigate something. A creature gets on board, starts killing the crew and hides in the vents/air ducts of the ship. It's finally vanquished by the lead luring it into the airlock and blowing it into space. Fox was sued (rightfully) and settled out of court. You can get the film on DVD.


I agree. Which is why you should try and read the novelizations of the comics. Most of the "epic" action took place off screen. Going to the Homeworld was creepy as was the encounter with the live species of the Pilot from ALIEN. It was not a gun fest like Starship Troopers. Unfortunately my short synopsis doesn't do Mr. Verheiden's story justice.

Good post, though, J.M.

Though a somewhat flawed comic, I loved this story line. Killing off Hicks and Newt was the worst thing that happened to the Alien franchise. They would of been great characters to continue the story with and let poor Ripley have some peace.

Ripley 8 is dead the DNA was so mutated they imploded and thats the end of Ripley. Before Call is destroied she sends copys of what Weyland has done and ther shut down and people start to loot the company

A couple of pirates steal a ship and go to the dead planet LV 426 Not knowing what is in the ship they find out that for 2000 years Weyland has heard of this Xenomprph After doging the Aliens for most of the movies at the end we see A Predtor War the last thing on screan is a bizz disk cutting off the alien toung/head

There no need to explain away 3 and 4, just completely ignore them. Get James Cameron or Ridley Scott to direct it. Pick up years later with Ripley and Hicks married living on Earth with their adopted daughter Newt, who's now of age and hot. For Ripley her alien saga is over, she faced them and prevailed. Besides the last of the xenomorphs were destroyed... or so they thought. Cue alien invasion or rather infestation due to Weyland-Yutani fucking around. Now I know some of you think an alien invasion of Earth would be lame and it would be if that was the main focus, but it doesn't need to be. Focus on Ripley, her family and their struggle to survive. Maybe as a cliffhanger for a sequel, set up a dilemma where Newt gets facehugged and is frozen to prevent the alien from gestating. Ripley and Hicks must go to the alien homeworld and/or the Space Jockey world to find a cure to save her life while battling Weyland-Yutani.

Sigourney says "I always said to Tom Rothman, who runs Fox, that I thought it would be interesting to do a small, spooky movie, more like the first one; a psychological thriller that could take Ripley to whatever the next stage may be. Which side would win out, the Jekyll or the Hyde?".


That's from Dark Horizons (yay! Dark Horizons!), who got it from Ananova.
It seems Sigourney agrees with most of us. small and dark and character driven like the first one. maybe she reads CHUD?
i should add, she agrees with us excpet for the bit about having Ripley in it at all.
Ripley's dead!

Hey, Sigourney, loved you in 'The Village', take a percentage as a producer, but stay off screen for the next Alien, unless you want to be the next Alien of course, that would be cool. ta.

The Alien series is over as far as I'm concerned. We've seen movies with one alien. We've seen movies with lots of Aliens. We've seen a person initially terrified and vulnerable but ultimately surviving, overcoming her demons and fears, and finally succumbing. Someone could make a movie that's bigger than Aliens, but it's not going to be really different. And you really can't make a movie that's more intimate than the original.

I suppose you could ignore 3 and Resurrection and go the Verheiden route. That would be a little different and that worked from changing the story from Ripley to Hicks and Newt. Even that was a bit of a rehash of Aliens, albeit mostly well done with some good twists.

Part of the problem is with the xenomorphs themselves. They exist to breed and kill, period. They simply can't support a series because they're basically one dimensional. They have a great design and having their origin shrouded in mystery works, but the more you find out, the less interesting they become. You can't make a movie about them, only about their intended victims.

That's a really good point. Their mystery limits how much you can actually do with them.

How about a small film where the new Ripley goes off with a small group of scientists and military personnel to try and trace the derelict ship, but during the journey Ripley slowly 'changes' and starts killing off the crew? It could be a counter point to the first one.

yep, good point. what do you do when the monster comes out of the shadows? put him back in?

Here's an angle from the first film that really hasn't been explored: the sex angle.
the first film was all about the sexual violence, and we've had the 'perfect killing machine' angle explored plenty in the sequels. what about the alien as 'giant space penis'?

Hell, Sigourney might even be up for the whole dark side of sex angle, but just try getting it made in today's hollywood.
Tragically, the only thing in the favour of a small, scary character driven piece is that it would be cheap.
I can't help but feel that the opposite - the alien home world (whatever the fuck that is) and thousand sof aliens - is the way the suits would feel most comfortable with.

Sigh. if only we could charge admission to the cinemas in our heads.

"Ripley is the alien" was at least somewhat attempted in Resurrection, albeit erratically. Alien3 and Resurrection at least had some good base ideas, Ripley ultimately pulled down, Ripley becoming part Alien, even if the results left something to be desired. It's hard to see where it can go from there, although obviously Alien3 and Resurrection could be improved upon.

The main stumbling block with a "Ripley is the alien" and the sex angle is that you're treading very close to Species territory. Granted, the storytelling could rescue it, Alien and Aliens aren't the most original movies, but I think the series is played out for genuine horror. I suppose you could the series could become something like the later Bond movies, entertaining if derivative, but I can't see them approaching greatness again.

Now that I think about it some more, I do have one idea for a sequel that I think has some potential. Ripley regaining her humanity fully. Obviously it would call for some gene manipulation B.S., and I'd suggest that the alien half take steps to ensure its survival, so we have a movie. Maybe involve seduction with a scientist while the human half of Ripley is sleeping. Have the finale with a newly human and weakened Ripley fighting her shadow self and I'd suggest a reversal of the ending of Alien 3 with Ripley rising out of a fire consumed pit and you might have a movie that wouldn't completely suck and would leave the fan base mostly happy.

Now see I don't agree with that. I think the viceral reaction you got from the original Alien can never be duplicated, but I still feel with the right story and director, you could still have people jumping out of their seats.

Think about WHY the first alien was scary.

Scott set the tone by having the creepy music, realistic "truckers in space" motif and the geniune desire to explore what was buried in the crashed alien craft. At that point you're with the story because these guys just wanna get home and get paid, but they gotta check this craft out first... but they find some weird shit that attached itself to this guy's face. The thing bursts out of his chest after he wakes up and they think everything is okay, then the thing sets out to kill each crew member one by one as it grows to the size of Manute Boll. There is a sole survivor and she's female and we like her, and she has to get off the ship she just put into self destrcut mode but there this gigantic monster somewhere on the ship with dark corridors and flashing strobe lights that wants to skull fuck her to death. None of it is rushed, or exploited. It's played completely real. And that's what makes Alien scary.

Granted, no one had ever seen anything like that back in '75, but I still get scared watching Alien alone in the dark with the sound turned up, and I've seen the alien from concept to construction in full daylight... but it still scares me.

That's why I think you can still make a frightening Alien flick, if you treat more realistic than the last two entries. It's all about psychology. You can't do a Paul Anderson Alien and make it scary, aint gonna work because it's a comic book. The last two movies have been comic books. Alien 3 was like a graphic novel, but still comic book like. Alien 4 was just a cartoon. And don't get me started on AVP.

Give it back to Ridley, he can make it scary because he understands the concept of Alien, not just the Geiger creation but the word ALIEN itself. That means something and it's why people were so scared when the first one came out.

Shoot it like a documentary. Get away from the flashy style of the last two movies and go back to cinema verite. Make it low budget, like 20 - 40 million, no stars (unless you want to create a red-herring situation - might work), minimal CGI... try and keep the "guy in suit" act, but have the guy like super cat like and elegant (scour freak shows and circus acts to find him/her), get a creepy composer (Can't get Goldsmith sadly, but Howard Shore could work) and let Night Shyamalan write the script because he's a huge alien fan and is one of the only writers right now that understands how to structure a suspenseful yarn... although his scripts are getting increasingly less reliable, he still has it in him. Hell, a Ridley Scott film from a script by M. Night Shyamalan, composed by Howard Shore. You've got a winner baby.

Very nice idea, Colt.

See, what needs to happen is all the internet geeks need to rally behind an idea like that and get guys like Harry, Drew, Carl, etc to write an online letter to Night and Scott... hell, the idea might turn them on. I mean they HAD to have seen the abomination that is AVP and been pissed, and with the franchises not dead yet, they might be at least curious as to what they could do with it. They could pitch to Fox who would jump at the chance to make a movie with those two juggernauts. After the shaky The Village, Night needs to seriously re evalute his creative options and Alien 5 script duties would give him something diffferent. Scott has been flirting with doing Alien and with someone like Night involved in the script, it might get him to take a bite. The only problem I forsee is Night's massive ego getting in the way and him wanting to write AND direct, though that might be interesting because he's become a better director than writer lately.

You know, if it were a relatively small budget, I'd be really interested to see what M. Knight could do with that. The man definitely has good visual stylings and I'd love to see how he'd creatively handle budget limitations on a film such as this.

Ya, I think the key really is a small budget. Take it back to its roots... hell, I'd even be interested in seeing what an indie filmmaker would do with it.

I don't see this ever happening. From the July/August issue of PREMIRE magazine:

PREMIERE: How do you usually go about choosing which project you'll commit to?

M. KNIGHT: People will ask, "Hey, do you want to do Superman or Spiderman?" or whatever. The problem with people giving me movies is that one of the most important criteria is that it be original. But with originality comes risk.

He then goes on to basically bitch about how Unbreakable, although a personal and risky film, "wasn't mainstream enough" for most audiences, so he needs to learn how to reconnect with them to "regain" their trust . After that he talks about the five movies that scared him the most and why: The Excorcist, The Omen, Repulsion, The Blair Witch Project, and Audrey Rose. Notice which film is missing.

As for a letter writing campaign, there were two major ones right after Alien 3 came out; one requesting Cameron and one requesting Scott to return to the franchise. They fell upon deaf ears. As much as I'd like to see it happen, I think that Cameron was just waxing poetic. With the exception of Spielberg and Lucas, Cameron's the most powerful director in the biz. If really he wanted it to happen it probably would have.

But there is one other director who I think would make a great Alien film. In fact I dare say that he could outdo Cameron or Scott because his films contain many of the themes that made the first Alien so creepy:

http://chud.com/forums/showthread.ph...ighlight=Alien

Scroll down to post #19

Well yeah, there's a very basic formula to make people scared. It's very simple. You present us with a character, make them likeable and put the character in danger. That's all you have to do. But the danger can't be superficial, like some AVP bullshit. It's gotta be like Ripley at the end of Alien, sweating, shaking as she moves down those dark corridors with the alarms going off and steam everywhere and strobes... we've seen what the alien can do but we've barely gotten a full look at it, but what we've seen has been scary enough to allow our minds to make it 100 times scarier than it really is. You set up the situation and let the tension naturally play out, don't FORCE it. That's what so many bad filmmakers try and do is force tension with jump scares, etc. No, no, no, no.

I think the idea of a scare is lost on most people. I want a full scale war. Humans learing the truth and going there to wipe out the greatest threat to humans

Well when was the interview taken? Filmmakers don't exist in a vaccum, they're tastes and desires change all the time. I'm not saying Night will do it, we're mostly dreaming here, I'm just saying never take words from a filmmaker's mouth as canon because they're usually just jerking off in order to sound intelligent. Notice how Spielberg always said he'd never do an evil alien film? Even in the late 90s he was saying this... and now we get WOTW from him.

I like Cronenberg, but I feel he'd be too intense for this franchise. He'd turn it into some kind of bizarro, fetish piece, using gore and mutation and shit for scares. It would be like the 9 Ripleys in Resurrection turned into an entire film. I'm not saying he wouldn't be good, I just see him going TOO far. There is a such thing.