Name: Neill Blomkamp's Unmade Alien Movie
Uploaded: 2021-08-19T17:31:09.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Neill Blomkamp's Unmade Alien Movie' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-08-19. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Neill Blomkamp's Unmade Alien Movie' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-08-19. Transcript available.

- The Joe Rogan Experience.
- What are other sci-fi favorites of yours?
- Alien.
- Alien, yeah.
- That's why I was really excited
when I heard that you were at least potentially
at one point in time thinking about doing an Alien.
- Yeah, it would've been cool.
- What happened?
- It's just, you know, just studio politics and the,
I do think that the way that Chappie was received
probably played a role in me not working on Alien.
But, you know, it's Ridley's world that he created
and it's like, it should be his to do what he wants with.
So it's all good.
- Yeah, I get that, but still it would've been fun.
- Yeah, it would've been fun for me as well.
I mean, the thing that I would've really enjoyed about it
was Sigourney Weaver was really down for what I'd written.
And she, that, the main thing to me was,
even though I like Alien 3 and I love Fincher as a director,
I just wanted a version of the continuation
of what happened after Aliens and for Newt to be alive
and for, you know, for Ripley to continue that story.
And it was sort of based on that idea.
- Is the kid who played Newt, how old is she now?
- I mean, in my story, she was in her kind of mid-twenties.
I mean, in reality, I mean, Aliens just turned 35.
So she must be, you know, like 44 or something.
- Isn't that wild?
- Yeah.
- It's wild when you find out that the movie,
the original was from the '70s.
- '79, yeah.
- Yeah, you're like, what?
- Yeah.
- It seems so much more current than a 1970s movie.
- I mean, that's one of the things that's amazing about it,
is how timeless it is.
- Yeah.
- You know, and also just, I mean, a lot of,
I saw it in a theater a couple of years ago,
and I couldn't believe just the quality of everything.
You know, it's really amazing how well it was filmed.
- I accidentally watched the Blu-ray version of Aliens,
and it's kind of hilarious, because in the Blu-ray version,
things that were not meant to be HD are now HD.
So there's a scene where the spaceships are lined up,
and there's clearly a mural of spaceships in the background.
It looks so fucking fake.
- Oh, you mean a matte painting?
- Yes.
- Is it when they're in the Sulaco,
when they're in the military ship, the big one?
- Yes.
- Right. - I think.
- I think I know what you mean.
- It looks so corny.
I'm like, "No!"
Because there's, you know, there's like this physical ship,
and then behind it is just some bullshit.
It's like, it's so clear that they used, you know,
they expected like focus and, you know,
the kind of graininess of film to mask that.
- Yeah, matte paintings, pre-computer graphics,
were done on panes of glass.
And so, I mean, in a way, Aliens is like,
using the technology that they had at the time,
is actually like totally incredible.
But I know, I do know what you're saying, though.
I mean, for audiences now weaned on the stuff
that we have access to, you know,
these techniques are so dated.
But it would be a large pane of glass,
like a shower piece of glass.
And then they would paint what they want the set to look like.
- Ah.
- And shoot through it with your other real environments as well.
That's why the shots are always locked off, right?
They're always stable because obviously you can't move.
- Right.
- So, yeah.
- Aliens was interesting by itself if Alien didn't exist.
The problem with Aliens is these creatures are so bumbling and easy to kill.
Like, in the first movie, that thing was so clever.
- Pure terror.
- Yeah, pure terror.
So clever and so good at sneaking up on people.
- I mean, I think the thing that Cameron did with the second film was pretty
amazing, though,
in the way that he made it militaristic.
It changed the context.
And so I think because of that, and also there was the kind of Vietnam War,
high technology, low technology, sort of parable at play.
- Yes.
- So it was two forces, you know, in which case it makes the Aliens be more...
There's an abundance of them.
- Right.
- But I almost like both films equally, I think.
Both approaches.
- Watch the entire episode for free only on Spotify.