A C LOS E R ENCOUNTER第X類接觸

Ridley Scott returns to the film franchise that reinvented sci-fi horror. By KEVIN MA Ridley Scott再次執導由自己一開手 創的電影，系列為觀眾帶來耳目一新的科幻恐怖片。撰文：馬樂民

After the success of Star Wars in 1977, 20th Century Fox wanted to quickly make another sci-fi film to cash in on the genre’s newfound popularity. They found a script by Dan O’Bannon, Ron Shusett, David Giler and Walter Hill – originally pitched as ‘ Jaws in space’ – about a spaceship crew that encounters a terrifying creature on an alien planet. Little did the studio know that it had another game-changer on its hands.

Directed by Ridley Scott, Alien was a horror masterpiece with unforgettable visuals – partly thanks to the designs of Swiss painter HR Giger – and incredible tension created out of silence and the unseen. The chestburster scene towards the beginning of the film remains one of the best monster entrances in cinema.

Not only did Alien launch a longrunning, genre-crossing franchise ranging from the kick-ass action of Aliens to the campiness of Alien vs Predator, it also spawned generations of imitators. While not many people remember Galaxy of Terror, Creature or Leprechaun 4: In Space, there were a few successes, including Pitch Black and Event Horizon.

In 2012, Scott returned to the franchise with Prometheus. Set about 30 years before the events of Alien, the story developed by Scott and Damon Lindelof ( Lost) expands the franchise’s mythology, touching on creationism, the origin of humankind and the root of the Weyland Corporation’s obsession with the aliens (the organisation is also called WeylandYutani or just ‘the company’ in the other films). It wasn’t the Alien prequel that fans were expecting, but Scott’s ambitious storytelling proved that the franchise still had plenty of gas in the tank.

With Alien: Covenant, Scott answers some of the lingering questions from Prometheus.

Set 15 years after Prometheus, Covenant

follows another unlucky spaceship crew that lands on a remote planet and encounters a few unwelcoming hosts.

Covenant is a gleeful return to the franchise’s roots, bringing back Giger’s monsters. Scott and his writers continue to explore the creationism theme set up in Prometheus, but Covenant is at its core a creature feature that goes back to using shadows and silence to prey on our deepest fears. Adapting a technique he used in the battle scenes of Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven, Scott films the alien attacks at a lower frame rate to make their movements look faster. The action is shown with much greater intensity than the earlier Alien films and the monsters are – improbably – even scarier.