Joe Abercrombie's THE DEVILS optioned by James Cameron

James Cameron has optioned the screen rights to Joe Abercrombie's latest novel, The Devils. Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment plans to produce a movie adaptation with Cameron and Abercrombie co-writing the scrip. Cameron has not committed to direct, as he is busy with a tiny little project called Avatar for the foreseeable.

The Devils, published just last month to become his first #1 Sunday Times Bestseller (as well as hitting #5 on the New York Times Bestseller List), is the first in a new trilogy from Abercrombie, set in an alternate medieval history version of our world where the Child Pope conspires to put the long-lost Princess of Troy back on her throne with the help of a squad of malcontents, including a vampire, a necromancer, a werewolf, an elf, a cursed undead warrior and an expert thief. Obviously, complications ensue.

Joe has had his work optioned for film before, with Deadpool director Tim Miller and Dune / Silo star Rebecca Ferguson attached to an adaptation of his novel Best Served Cold two years ago. So far, that project has not moved forwards.

Cameron is hard at work on his Avatar sequence of films, with the third movie, Avatar: Fire and Ash, due for release on 19 December this year. Avatar 4 and 5 are in development, with around a third of Avatar 4 already in the can for a provisional 2029 release.

Avatar: The Way of Water

2170. Sixteen years have passed since Jake Sully aided the Na'vi in repelling the human incursion on Pandora, forcing most of them to return home to Earth. With the resource situation on Earth deteriorating, humankind returns to Pandora with a vengeance, establishing a major presence and using specially-grown Na'vi clones inhabited by personality downloads of Colonel Quaritch and his men to hunt down and kill Sully. Sully and his family relocate to the coastal Metikayina clan to seek refuge, but it's not long before the war comes to this new tribe.

Avatar was the most financially successful movie of 2009 and, indeed, all time (despite briefly losing the title to Avengers: Endgame, before a canny re-release saw it reclaim the crown). Remarkably, despite having voluminous notes for a sequel, director-writer James Cameron chose not to proceed immediately with more films. Instead, he spent a lot of time in pre-production, developing scripts and ideas. He eventually came up with plans for four sequels, beginning shooting in 2017 and filming all of the second and third films back-to-back, along with some material from the fourth film.

In the meantime, Avatar's legacy seemed to almost immediately dim. With no sequels, prequels or ill-advised spin-offs featuring minor side-characters, the movie fell out of the popular consciousness and the Marvel Cinematic Universe became the biggest thing at the box office. For many years Avatar has existed as a meme, its very name being mentioned inevitably resulting in immediate chortling references to Dances with Wolves and Ferngully, and how the sequels would inevitably crash and burn.

The Way of Water, the first up of this sequel series, perhaps inevitably crushed such predictions with ease, becoming the third highest-grossing movie of all time (and three of the top four are all James Cameron joints). "Never bet against James Cameron," became its own, rebutting meme instead.

Enough of the context, what of the film? Avatar: The Way of Water is very much "moar Avatar." If you hated the first film, there will be little here to change your mind. If you loved it, you'll probably love this one even more. For those who were middling on it, The Way of Water improves a lot of things about the first film to make it a somewhat stronger prospect. The visuals of the first film were incredible but advances in CG technology have just about managed to start taking the shine off some of them (even if 99% of movies still look worse, thanks to rushed production schedules). The Way of Water is effortlessly superior, the CG is photo-realistic in almost every shot, the visual design is sumptuous and Cameron uses excellent direction to make sure we read and comprehend what's going on in every frame. Cameron is also still the master of action, bringing his Aliens and Terminator 2-honed skills to bear in epic battle sequences which outshine anything in the first film and where everything from the geography of an undersea chase sequences to the choreography of a single combat scene are well-handled.

When it comes to story and character - things the first film was only adequate at - the movie is a bit more of a mixed bag. For the most part, it's fine. There's a lot of new characters to meet here, with Sully and Neytiri producing three children and adopting two more, and that's before we even meet the massive new water tribe. Cameron establishes character and emotion with brisk efficiency, although a few characters do get more development, particularly rebellious son Lo'ak and walking mystery box Kiri. The characters are solid enough to get the job done, and the performances are all pretty good. Neytiri is the one character sold a little short, with relatively little to do other than cry, hiss and occasionally do that jumping through the air firing her bow in slow motion thing. Even Stephen Lang's splendid scenery-chewing villain spiel is let down a little by his performance almost entirely being restrained to CG.

As a piece of storytelling art, The Way of Water will not be winning any major awards, but as a sheer visual spectacle and feast, it's highly compelling. The worldbuilding of Pandora takes a big step up here with the introduction of a second sentient species, and the underwater scenery whets the appetite for someone to make a movie version of subsurface video game masterpiece Subnautica.

Where the film enters shaky ground is its pacing. For most of its first two-thirds, this is pretty good, with the film rotating between action setpieces, character-building moments and worldbuilding vignettes in a fairly compelling manner (and better than the first movie, which had to slow down for its long-winded romance plot). What lets it down is longest, most drawn-out grand finale since Peter Jackson turned the concluding two-page battle from The Hobbit into an entire two-and-a-half hour movie by itself. This finale is divided into two parts, a massive battle sequence which segues into a tense disaster movie sequence. Both of these are brilliantly-directed and either would have made a great finale, but by putting them both sequentially into the film, Cameron over-eggs the pudding. Over a third of the movie's already-stupendous length is dedicated to this finale, which is definitely too much.

There is still a lot to enjoy here. James Cameron has built a career on building incredible worlds, delivering mind-blowing visuals, and orchestrating action setpieces you will remember for decades, and he delivers on all of that here. The story could be a little stronger and a little more original, and the ending could have been truncated by a good twenty minutes without losing much, and as Cameron sequels go, the placings of Aliens and T2 in the pantheon are not exactly being troubled by this movie, but it's still an enjoyable slice of epic cinema of the kind we don't see enough of these days.

Avatar: The Way of Water (****) is available to watch worldwide on physical media and streaming services. A third film is already in the can and will be released in December 2024.

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First teaser trailer for AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER released

Disney have released the first teaser trailer for Avatar: The Way of Water, the long-gestating sequel to James Cameron's 2009 movie.

The sequel sees the return of Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), who have relocated to a coastal area of Pandora and are raising a new family in peace. The film will focus extensively on underwater photography and filming.

The original Avatar was a massive smash hit on its original release, earning $2.8 billion and becoming the highest-grossing movie of all time, displacing Cameron's own Titanic (1997). Its crown was temporarily lifted by Avengers: Endgame in 2019, which outgrossed it by just $8 million, but Avatar reclaimed it in March 2021 thanks to a Chinese re-release of the original movie.

Avatar: The Way of Water will be released on 16 December this year, following a release of the "remastered" version of Avatar on 23 September. Three more Avatar movies are expected to follow in December 2024, 2026 and 2028 respectively.

AVATAR 2 gets new title and drops first footage behind closed doors

The long, long-gestating Avatar sequel has dropped its first footage (not for public consumption yet, though). Under conditions of high secrecy, attendees at CinemaCon in Las Vegas got to see several minutes of material. It is believed some of this material will be publicly released as the film's first trailer in a couple of weeks.

The sequel - the first of four films to follow on from the 2009 original - is now entitled Avatar: The Way of Water. The film returns to the moon of Pandora and the Na'vi, but will focus on a new coastal region where original film protagonists Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) have relocated and spent years living in peace, raising a new family. The film will feature extensive underwater photography and filming.

Director James Cameron has spent most of the last decade working on the sequel project, with early development starting after Avatar's hugely successful release in 2009, when it became the highest-grossing movie of all time (displacing the previous record-holder, Cameron's 1997 film Titanic). Avatar temporarily lost the crown to Avengers: Endgame in 2019 but regained it in 2021 thanks to a limited re-release.

Press and public opinion over the sequels has become divided, with Avatar routinely derided for its lack of a long-term impact on popular culture and a storyline that felt over-familiar, and many predicting the sequels would struggle to make any impact at the box office. However, others have advised betting against James Cameron, who has arguably never made a wrong move in his career and frequently achieved massive, smash-hit successes despite difficult shoots and technological limitations. The last two sequels Cameron made were Aliens (1986) and Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991), which are formidable precedents.

Avatar: The Way of Water has a reported budget of $250 million, meaning it will likely have to do $750 million to break even (assuming a large marketing and merchandising campaign, which seems probable). Cinemas may have to upgrade their 3D equipment to show the film in its best light, which is an unwelcome expense following on from difficult times during the pandemic. Theatre chains are wary after the 3D boom following the release of Avatar a decade ago, which was a mixed success for them, and the likely fact that the only films that will push 3D in the same way are The Way of Water's three sequels. Still, the argument has also been made that offering a genuinely new, fresh experience that pushes things forward like Avatar did in 2009 could help cinemas rebound amidst increased competition from streaming.

Avatar itself has been "remastered" and will hit cinemas on 23 September this year, with Avatar: The Way of Water to follow on 16 December. Avatar 3, 4 and 5 are scheuled to follow on 20 December 2024, 18 December 2026 and 22 December 2028.

AVATAR reclaims box-office crown from AVENGERS: ENDGAME

After twenty months on top, Avengers: Endgame has lost the crown of the highest-grossing movie of all time (unadjusted) back to James Cameron's Avatar, which has reclaimed the prize it held for a decade from 2009-19.

The move comes courtesy of a reissue of the film in China, which has added $9 million to the 2009 3D movie's total. Although not much in the large scale of things, the gap between the two movies was only $7.8 million. With the reissue expected to remain in cinemas for several more weeks, Avatar may be able to pull out a stronger lead as well, with its total re-release haul anticipated to be around $50 million. Both films have grossed just under $2.8 billion worldwide.

James Cameron will be pleased to retake the crown he'd held of being the world's highest-grossing director for two films back to back. Avatar displaced Cameron's own Titanic, originally released in 1997.

These figures are unadjusted for inflation; so adjusted, the highest-grossing movie of all time would still be Gone with the Wind (1939), although Avatar would still be an impressive second place, ahead of Titanic, Star Wars (1977) and Endgame.

The news will be encouraging to Cameron, who recently wrapped back-to-back shooting on Avatar 2 and Avatar 3, which are scheduled for release on 16 December 2022 and 20 December 2024 respectively. Avatar 4 and 5, which have had some material shot for them during production of the preceding two movies, are also greenlit with anticipated release dates in December 2026 and 2028.

Disney, which now owns both the Avatar and Marvel franchises, is of course very happy with the situation.

Wertzone Classics: Aliens

Gateway Station, 2179. Rescued after spending fifty-seven years frozen in deep sleep, Ellen Ripley, last survivor of the Nostromo, is horrified when her reports of the lethal xenomorph that wiped out her crew are dismissed as mental delusions. She is even more horrified to learn that the planet where they found the alien is now home to a bustling colony. When all contact with the colony is lost, the Colonial Marines are called in to investigate with a huge amount of state-of-the-art firepower and Ripley is offered the chance to put the horror to rest...or unleash a new one.

Even in 1986, Alien was an acknowledged masterpiece of science fiction and horror cinema. The idea of creating a sequel to it felt like a risk, especially when the job fell to a relatively young Canadian film-maker with only a single proper movie to his name. Fortunately, the film-maker was James Cameron and the previous film on his CV was The Terminator, marking him as a promising director to watch.

Aliens more than fulfilled that promise. Arguably the strongest film in the franchise and much less-arguably one of the greatest action SF movies ever made, Aliens is that rare film which is near-flawlessly executed. The cast is fantastic, the writing is tight and the effects are impressive whilst informing and reinforcing the story and its themes of PTSD, cultural alienation, motherhood and family.

It's this attention to the film's psychological angle as well as the more superficial elements of action and explosions which makes it tick, and is something that Cameron exploits well in most of his films. Ripley was just one crewmember on the Nostromo, her late emergence as the main protagonist meaning we didn't get to know her very well. The sequel rectifies that in spades, revealing that she had a daughter (now deceased) and a home life which the xenomorph took away from her forever, as well as preventing her from ever getting a good's night's sleep again. Cameron also layers the film with a surprisingly robust layer of realism: Ripley for very obvious reasons doesn't want to go anywhere near the alien ever again, but just knowing that the ship and its thousands of eggs are still on LV-426 is enough to cause her to experience terror, justifying her decision to go back.

There is a robust intelligence to Aliens which is, quite simply, largely missing from most modern films and TV shows. The marines react fairly realistically to the situations they find themselves in, the characters react with logic to the tactical disadvantage they are in and the aliens' reluctance to attack the facility en masse is explained by their own limited numbers (there are only about a hundred aliens, as there were only a hundred colonists on the planet to be impregnated) and the steps taken to keep them in check, such as the sentry guns and the humans' weapons which can kill them with relative ease. Aliens delivers both a cathartic power fantasy - Ripley and her comrades blow away dozens of xenomorphs when just one wiped out her entire crew in the first film - but also a fragile one, as when the marines are picked off (mostly through logic than them acting like idiots) and the main characters suffer serious reversals. There is an integrity to Aliens' script and its respect for the intelligence of the audience that should be included in every basic scriptwriting class in Hollywood.

Which isn't to say that Aliens is all logic and themes. It brings a huge amount of action carnage to the table, with jaw-dropping set pieces following in at times dizzying succession. The marines trade quips and insults with lived-in believability. The cast, from Sigourney Weaver's multi-faceted Ripley to Bill Paxton's blustering Hudson to Michael Biehn's stoic Hicks and Lance Henriksen's earnest Bishop - is uniformly brilliant, from the bit-part marines who might as well be wearing red shirts up to the main stars. The production design, mixing Alien's industrial aesthetic with a sleeker, slightly more futuristic office chic, is impressive. James Horner's soundtrack starts off minimalist and restrained but later goes into speaker-straining bombast, but always in a way that reinforces the action. Even the film's sound effects are iconic, from the dread-inducing beeping of the motion trackers to the distinctive fire of the pulse rifles to the organic terror of an egg opening.

Trying to identify a weak point in Aliens (*****) is difficult. Arguably the Director's Cut addition of scenes set in the pre-carnage colony undercuts the later tension by showing the colonists finding the crashed ship, but seeing the fully-lit and inhabited colony in "normal" mode and Newt before she becomes a catatonic mess does add more pathos to events later on. Perhaps the idea that no human crewmembers would remain on the Sulaco when the operation starts is a little too convenient. These are really minor issues, though, and should not detract from the film's place in the canon of SF classics. Aliens is a masterpiece of both horror and SF action.

A note on edition: there are numerous editions of the Aliens movies available. Probably the best is the Alien Anthology Blu-Ray box set, which features both the original cinematic editions and extended versions of all four main-series Aliens movies, complete with tons of special features. This is available now in the UK and USA.

AVENGERS: ENDGAME becomes the highest-grossing film of all time

Avengers: Endgame has surpassed Avatar's box office to become the highest-grossing movie of all time (unadjusted for inflation). Marvel Studios supremo Kevin Feige announced the feat at the San Diego Comic-Con.

Not only has Endgame achieved the feat, it has done so about half the time that Avatar managed. The film remains in cinemas and may get an additional boost from re-releases further down the line (something Avatar also made use of to achieve its haul).

For the first time since the release of Titanic in 1997, James Cameron is no longer the highest-grossing director of all time, having passed that baton on to Endgame directors Anthony Russo and Joe Russo. However, Cameron will come out swinging as Avatar 2 is scheduled for release on 17 December 2021, and he'll be wanting his crown back.

Disney, which owns both Marvel and, after the acquisition of 20th Century Fox earlier this year, the Avatar franchise, is of course laughing all the way to the bank.

RIP Bill Paxton

Bill Paxton, a Hollywood actor known for his role in numerous SFF movies and frequent collaborations with director James Cameron, has died at the age of 61 from complications following heart surgery.

Paxton started acting in the 1970s in bit parts and supporting roles in TV and film. In 1984 he was cast in James Cameron's The Terminator as one of the punks the Terminator meets at the start of the film. Cameron was impressed by Paxton's personality and gave him a larger role in Aliens (1984) as Private Hudson. Hudson was given a slightly deranged personality and a series of lines which have become endlessly quoted by SF fans (including "Game over man!" and "Express elevator to hell, going down!"). Other roles at this time included Weird Science, Commando and Near Dark. He regrouped with James Cameron on both True Lies (1994) and Titanic (1997), playing the explorer searching the wreck of the vessel in the sequences set in the modern day. He later accompanied Cameron on several explorations of the real wreck and in 2003 narrated his documentary film on the subject, Ghosts of the Abyss.

Cameron has said the following on Paxton's passing:

I've been reeling from this for the past half hour, trying to wrap my mind and heart around it. Bill leaves such a void. He and I were close friends for 36 years, since we met on the set of a Roger Corman ultra-low budget movie. He came in to work on set, and I slapped a paint brush in his hand and pointed to a wall, saying "Paint that!" We quickly recognized the creative spark in each other and became fast friends. What followed was 36 years of making films together, helping develop each others projects, going on scuba diving trips together, watching each others kids growing up, even diving the Titanic wreck together in Russian subs. It was a friendship of laughter, adventure, love of cinema, and mutual respect. Bill wrote beautiful heartfelt and thoughtful letters, an anachronism in this age of digital shorthand. He took good care of his relationships with people, always caring and present for others. He was a good man, a great actor, and a creative dynamo. I hope that amid the gaudy din of Oscar night, people will take a moment to remember this wonderful man, not just for all the hours of joy he brought to us with his vivid screen presence, but for the great human that he was.
The world is a lesser place for his passing, and I will profoundly miss him.

Paxton's other film credits include Twister, Apollo 13, Mighty Joe Young, Spy Kids 2 and 3, Thunderbirds (as Jeff Tracy) and Edge of Tomorrow, as well as two critically-acclaimed collaborations with Billy Bob Thornton, in One False Move and A Simple Plan. Famously, his role and demise in Predator 2 makes him the only actor to have been killed by an Alien, a Predator and a Terminator (Lance Henriksen is sometimes cited, but Bishop survived the attack by the Alien Queen in Aliens, albeit in an extremely damaged state).

Like many 1980s film actors, Paxton found a new lease of life in his career by switching to television in the 2000s. From 2006 to 2011 he starred in the lead role on HBO's Big Love, followed by a lead role on the History Channel mini-series Hatfields and McCoys, opposite Kevin Costner. For this role Paxton won an Emmy. In 2014 he starred as the recurring villain John Garrett on Agents of SHIELD. Paxton was cast last year in the TV series Training Day in the lead role: the show only began airing a few weeks ago, and its future is now in doubt.

Bill Paxton was a talented performer, offering excellent (and often scene-stealing) support in films like Aliens whilst also making a very solid lead in films such as One False Move. He will be missed.

Y THE LAST MAN and BATTLE ANGEL ALITA move into development

Two new screen adaptations of science fiction franchises have been announced in the last couple of days.

First up is an old project. James Cameron optioned the Battle Angel Alita manga a long, long time ago. At one stage he was torn between making a Battle Angle Alita movie or Avatar, eventually plumping for the latter. With Avatar II, III and IV likely to keep him busy for the next decade or so, he's clearly decided not to sit on the other property and has decided to produce it for another director. Robert Rodriguez will instead helm the movie for 20th Century Fox. No release date has been set, but I'd be surprised if we saw this any sooner than 3-4 years from now.

Much more imminent is an FX TV series based on Y: The Last Man. This graphic novel series about the last two surviving male mammals on the planet was a huge hit during its 60-issue run for Vertigo from 2002 to 2008. It launched the career of Brian Vaughn, who has gone on to work in television on Lost and Under the Dome before recently returning to comics with the massively successful Saga. Vaughn himself will produce and write the Y: The Last Man TV show, which he has suggested will both adapt and expand on the comics.

RIP James Horner

One of the greats of the film composing world, James Horner, passed away on Monday. He started composing for film in 1978 with The Lady in Red and was still active at the time of his death. He is best-known for composing the soundtracks for the two highest-grossing movies of all time, Avatar and Titanic.

Horner was an concert hall composer before moving into films. His first soundtrack of genre interest was Battle Beyond the Stars in 1981, but he hit the big time when he was picked to score Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan the following year. His score was highly praised for the way it backed both the action and character moments perfectly. He also scored Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.

This moved Horner into the big leagues and he scored many of the most well-known movies of the 1980s and 1990s, including 48 Hours, Krull, Cocoon (and its sequel), Commando, An American Tail, *batteries not included, Willow, Red Heat, The Land Before Time, Field of Dreams, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Glory, The Rocketeer, Patriot Games, The Pelican Brief, Clear and Present Danger, Legends of the Fall, Braveheart, Apollo 13, Jumanji, Deep Impact, The Mask of Zorro and The Bicentennial Man.

In 1986 Horner began a highly fruitful collaboration with the director James Cameron. He produced the acclaimed soundtrack to Aliens before working with the director on Titanic. Horner won his only two Academy Awards for the film, both for the score and for the song "My Heart Will Go On" (sung by Celine Dion). In 2009 they reunited so Horner could produce the score for Avatar. Both Cameron and Horner had indicated that Horner would return to score the Avatar sequel trilogy, but it's unknown if Horner had already begun working on that project at the time of his passing.

James Horner was acclaimed as one of the "Three Js" of film scoring in the latter part of the 20th Century, alongside the late Jerry Goldsmith and the still-going-strong John Williams. He soundtracked many of favourite movies of all time and he will be missed.

James Cameron confirms three AVATAR sequels to be released in 2016-18

James Cameron has confirmed that there will now be three sequels to his 2009 movie Avatar, to form a four-film storyline. These films will be shot back-to-back and released in December 2016, 2017 and 2018 respectively. Cameron has hired new writers to help him get the three scripts ready in time.

Previously, Cameron had suggested there would be two sequels and locations visited would include Pandora's oceans and other moons in the same system. However, his ambitions for the sequels have grown larger, requiring three full movies to explore.

Avatar was released in December 2009 and is the highest-grossing movie of all time, making just under $2.8 billion worldwide. A limited run for the extended edition of the film plus DVD and Blu-Ray sales have extended that to well over $3 billion worldwide.

Filling the blanks: tying PROMETHEUS to ALIEN

Ridley Scott's new movie Prometheus has won a fair amount of critical acclaim (though a more mixed general reception) and an impressive opening week's worth of money, but it's also left a lot of people pondering over the precise relationship between the movie and Alien, to which it acts as a sort-of prequel. Through careful research (i.e. googling interviews) the following clarifications can be made:

NOTE: MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR PROMETHEUS, ALIEN AND ALIENS.

An Engineer ship crash-landing on the surface of LV-223 in 2093.

Time and Date
Prometheus opens in 2089 with the discovery of a cave painting in Scotland which points the way to the Engineer base. The ship arrives at this location in the final week of 2093, with the final moments of the film taking place on New Year's Day, 2094.

No date is given in Alien for the action, save that it happens in the 22nd Century (due to the presence of a crew uniform patch that says, 'Flag of the United Americas 2104 to present'). In Aliens Carter Burke orders the colonists to investigate the crashed Engineer ship on 12 June '79. Assuming Aliens happens in 2179, then Alien takes place 57 years earlier, in 2122 (and this was later confirmed in featurettes in the Alien Legacy boxed set). From a computer display at the start of Alien, the movie starts on 3 June.

Thus, Prometheus concludes 28 years, 5 months and 2 days before the start of Alien.

The planet LV-426 orbits, along with several of its moons, in 2122.

Location
The planetary body that Prometheus flies to is called LV-223. The planetoid that the Nostromo crew land on in Alien (and is later colonised by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation prior to the events of Aliens) is called LV-426, informally known as 'Acheron'. The different designations seemingly confirm that these are different planetoids.

Both planetoids are depicted as moons circling larger gas giants. LV-426 is one of at least four moons orbiting a red-hued gas giant. LV-223 is one of two moons orbiting a blue-coloured gas giant. Given that we physically see four moons in Alien (three moons and the gas giant are seen in LV-426's sky) and a comprehensive 3D starmap in Prometheus only shows two, the conclusion is that these are different gas giants (otherwise the gas giant changes colour and acquires two additional moons in thirty years, which seems implausible).

In Alien, LV-426 is identified as being located in the Zeta II Reticuli star system. Zeta Reticuli is a real star system located 39.16 light-years from Earth in the constellation Reticulum, consisting of two stars in a binary orbit. However, the two stars are extremely far apart (dozens of times the distance between the Sun and Pluto), meaning that each star could hold an extensive solar system of its own without gravitationally interfering with the other.

LV-223, along with its mother planet and another moon, as shown on the Prometheus's scanners in 2093.

In Prometheus, the destination star system is not identified. A distance of 327,000,000,000,000 km is given, which translates as 34.56 light-years. Given that Zeta Reticuli's distance has been estimated with a strong degree of accuracy (the error margin is only 0.1 light-years), this would seem to confirm that LV-422 is not only a different planetoid to the one in Alien and Aliens, but is located in a totally different star system altogether. Some fans have postulated that LV-422 is located at Gliese 86, a star just under 35 light-years away in the constellation of Eridanus. This is especially popular as an extrasolar gas giant was discovered circling Gliese 86 in 2000. Gliese 86 and Zeta Reticuli are located in the same general neighbourhood, only being separated from one another by 10 light-years.

This splendid theorising has been torpedoed by Ridley Scott saying straight-out that Prometheus takes place in the Zeta Reticuli II star system as well, however.

Thus, the two planetoids in Prometheus and Alien - LV-223 and LV-426 - are different planetoids but they are located in the same star system. Based on the evidence above, I'd still suggest they are orbiting different gas giants.

The USS Sulaco approaching LV-426 in 2179.

Engineer bases and ships
According to Prometheus, the Engineers built an extensive military installation on LV-223 more than two thousand years ago. This installation consists of approximately five large domed buildings, each huge in size. At least two of the buildings had large, horseshoe-shaped spacecraft located adjacent to them. The installation appeared to be a base for the creation of a biological weapon of mass destruction, apparently for use against Earth. This facility was overrun and its population almost completely wiped out by unknown forces (but likely a bioweapon they lost control of) approximately 2,000 years before the events of Alien.

In Alien and Aliens, an Engineer starship of similar design to those seen in Prometheus is found on the surface of LV-426. Initial assumptions were that it had crashed, but more recent interviews (at the 18-minute mark) have suggested it landed or was parked deliberately there. According to Ridley Scott, this ship originated at the LV-223 facility and was on its way somewhere else (presumably not Earth) with its cargo of facehuggers when its cargo got out of control. The pilot landed on LV-426 and was killed, within a couple of hundred years of the destruction of the LV-223 facility (so between 1,800 and 2,200 years before the events of Alien). The fact that the facehugger eggs could survive and remain viable for that time period is impressive.

A mural in the Engineer base on LV-223, suggesting that the xenomorphs were extant more than 2,000 years ago.

The bioweapons and the xenomorph
On LV-223 a black liquid stored in vase-like containers serves as a destructive bioweapon. It can animate corpses, turning them into monstrous killers, and transform little worms into large, snake-like monsters. Rather more bizarrely, it can convert human sperm into a parasite-like creature that, when given a female human body to gestate in, transforms into a squid-like creature which can grow to colossal (some might indeed say, totally fricking preposterous) size and then impregnate another type of creature into another host, a creature which more closely resembles the traditional xenomorphs.

On LV-426, the cargo of the crashed Engineer ship consisted of eggs which, when hatched, produced parasitic 'facehuggers'. These creatures would attach themselves to a human or animal host and place an embryo in their chest. After a period of gestation (typically several hours, or several days for a queen creature capable of laying further eggs en masse) this 'chestburster' erupts through the host's ribcage and grows to large size within a matter of hours. This creature is the traditional xenomorph. Unlike the black goo things on LV-223, the xenomorph's life cycle appears fairly stable and predictable.

Note that, based on both the information provided by Scott in interviews and the mural in the LV-223 facility depicting the traditional xenomorph, the traditional xeno appears to have already been in existence for some time when the base on LV-223 was wiped out. This would then seem to contradict the popular (and perhaps obvious) theory that the black goo stuff in Prometheus is some type of prototype that would lead to the familiar xeno in future films (though the appearance of a proto-xeno in the final seconds of Prometheus would seem to suggest that this was the direction things were heading in).

Based on all of this I would argue that the standard xenomorph was already in existence and the Prometheus bioweapon was an attempt to replicate it. Given the inefficency of the Prometheus creatures, with a confusing and bizarre life-cycle, it can be concluded that the Prometheus bioweapon was a miserable failure. Perhaps all of their 'normal' xenomorph eggs had been put on the LV-426 ship and they were forced to develop a secondary weapon when their main one was put beyond their reach (which seems extremely unlikely, but there doesn't seem to be too many other conclusions that can be reached)?


Conclusion (speculation)
The Engineers are an intelligent alien race who may have had a hand in the appearance of life on Earth. If not, they certainly visited our stone age ancestors around 35,000 years ago. 2,000 years ago a group of Engineers, possibly military in origin, established a base on LV-223, a moon in the Zeta II Reticuli system, 39 light-years from Earth. They created a bioweapon, apparently taking inspiration from an already-existing alien lifeform known as the xenomorph. They apparently decided to wipe out life on Earth for reasons unknown (possibly ranging from fear that their creations were getting out of control to one of their emissaries being nailed to a cross - this latter idea is extremely idiotic, so hopefully that's not the direction they are going in).

A ship took of from the LV-223 base carrying a cargo hold full of xenomorph eggs. The pilot ended up getting infected. He made an emergency landing on LV-426, a moon circling a neighbouring gas giant in the same system, but was killed. He activated a warning beacon telling his fellows to stay away. They respected that and did not go after him. Instead, they decided to use their own bioweapon (perhaps thinking they could control it better than the xenos themselves, or perhaps they had put all of their xeno eggs on the ship and lost them in the crash) against Earth, but it got out of control and wiped out most of the facility. The last surviving Engineer managed to seal himself in stasis in a ship away from the threat of the bioweapon but ended up oversleeping by 2,000 years, until he was awoken by the crew of the Prometheus and was then infected by the bioweapon and killed.

There are still plot holes you can drive a power loader through in this scenario, but this does seem to be a fairly likely chain of events given the information we have so far.

Some film and movie news

SyFy are developing an online Battlestar Galactica web series called Blood and Chrome. The new series, which would consist of 10 episodes of about 10 minutes, will be set during the First Cylon War and follow the adventures of the young William Adama stationed aboard Galactica. How they handle the continuity issues - namely that Razor established that Adama didn't perform a Viper combat mission until the very last day of the war - remains to be seen.


Guillermo Del Toro has returned from New Zealand and is now planning his next film: a 3D adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, to be produced by James Cameron. According to Del Toro he thinks that the film will need a budget of around $130 million, which is a fair amount in these increasingly frugal times in Hollywood. Whether he gets it for a relatively obscure (to the mass audience) adaptation remains to be seen.

Damon Lindelof is apparently onboard to rewrite Ridley Scott's planned Alien prequels (or at least the first one). However, during discussions between Lindelof and Scott they apparently generated an idea for a free-standing SF film as well. Whether that gets developed into its own movie or is pulled back into the Alien drafts is unclear at this time. Apparently Fox are seriously wooing Scott to make the first Alien prequel his next project, whilst Scott is also eying up an adaptation of Justin Cronin's The Passage.


Moon director Duncan Jones passed on the chance to direct the new Judge Dredd movie, but now wonders if he's going to regret it. However, he suggests his planned film was too off-the-wall to be commercially viable anyway.

Avatar

In the year 2154, the human race has journeyed to the nearby star system of Alpha Centauri. There, on the jungle moon of Pandora, they have discovered 'unobtanium', a mineral which is of immense (if somewhat vague) value to humanity. The native Na'vi race are somewhat unwilling to let the invading humans to strip-mine their planet, and an escalating conflict is the result. To try to broker the peace, a science team has created a series of genetically-engineered Na'vi bodies called avatars. Driven remotely by humans in VR tanks, the colonists hope to be able to negotiate effectively with the aliens.


Jake Sully arrives on Pandora to work as an avatar-driver, replacing his twin brother who was supposed to ship out but was killed just before departure. Sully is a paraplegic ex-marine who rapidly finds himself enjoying his life as an avatar, since it allows him to walk again. During a mission into the jungle, Sully becomes separated from the rest of his team and meets up with a local native tribe, who (after some initial culture clash misunderstandings) take him under their wing and train him in their ways. Whilst Sully gets to know the Na'vi better he finds himself being pumped for information of possibly military value by the colony's military commander, Colonel Quaritch, whilst Dr. Augustine uses his position to gain fresh scientific knowledge on the Na'vi. Eventually, when the colonists decide that the negotiations are not proceeding to plan and they need to take military action to secure the unobtanium, Sully finds his loyalties being severely tested.

Avatar is director James Cameron's follow-up to Titanic. Fourteen years in the writing and over four years in production, Avatar mixes live-action footage with cutting-edge, state-of-the-art 3D and the very latest developments in CGI. Visually, the film is stunning, with the attention to detail and vibrant colour schemes of the jungle scenes being nothing short of jaw-dropping. The CG characters don't quite blow the viewer away in their level of realism as much as say Gollum in The Lord of the Rings did, but Avatar does represent a significant evolution from even that impressive technical achievement.

The film is a sumptuous visual banquet built around an extremely familiar story. How much you enjoy Avatar will likely depend on your experience of previous traditional archetype action movies. Younger viewers will likely thoroughly enjoy the whole package, whilst older viewers may find themselves overwhelmed by the sheer number of movies, books and video games that Avatar seems to liberally borrow from to construct its story. Star Wars, Dances with Wolves and The Last Samurai are obvious touchstones, as are Cameron's own movies, with elements of Titanic, Aliens and The Abyss all on display. The battle mechs used by the company for security seem to have been airlifted in from The Matrix Revolutions, whilst a stirring pre-battle speech seems to have been cut-and-pasted in from the script for Braveheart. Game players may find the underlying premise highly familiar from several of the Final Fantasy games (VII in particular). Fans of books will also spot strong similarities to the Poul Anderson novella Call Me Joe, whilst the French SF comic AquaBlue shares strong storyline and concept ideas with the movie.

In short, you've probably read, played or seen this story several dozen times before.

However familiar the story, it is quite well-executed in this instance. Some story elements are underdeveloped, and 'unobtanium' sounds like a placeholder in the script that was accidentally left in, but the actors perform their roles more than adequately, with the performance-capture work doing a great job of converting the great jobs by Sigourney Weaver and Zoe Saldana (the movie's stand-out performance by a mile) into their 3D equivalents. Sam Worthington is adequate as the lead, but is not as charismatic or expressive as might be wished. He does convincingly handle the action sequences, however. Michelle Rodriguez is basically playing Vasquez from Aliens but does a great job as well, delivering an enthusiastic performance, whilst Stephen Lang redefines 'badass' as the chief villain, Colonel Quaritch, a character so ludicrously hardcore it goes way beyond parody and almost becomes Art.

Cameron's love of gadgets, vehicles and technology is also on full display here, without quite tipping into the disturbing fetishistic realm of Michael Bay or Jerry Bruckheimer, thankfully. Cameron also delivers some good action sequences, with the climatic massive battle being well-choreographed and easy to follow, unlike some recent CGI extravaganzas which were way too over-the-top and chaotic (such as Revenge of the Sith and Transformers II).

On the downside, the movie's premise - white guy investigates foreign culture and ends up leading them into battle against oppression - is a little bit tedious. It would have been nice to perhaps see an inversion of the cliche (a native Na'vi who meets the humans, bonds with them but discovers they are a threat and has to fight against them?) rather than it being tiresomely trotted out once again. Also, whilst the film has some finality there are perhaps a few too many plot threads left unresolved for the inevitable sequels.

Overall, Avatar (***½) is an entertaining, impressive spectacle which is definitely worth seeing in the cinema. There are some great performances, some central SF ideas nicely explored (the organic USB leads are an intriguing idea and Pandora's ecosystem is vividly depicted) and no-one does big-budget conflict as well as Cameron. After twelve years, he's still got the touch to deliver something rousingly enjoyable. The movie is a little bit too familiar in places and it would have been nice if the script and dialogue had had half as much attention paid on them as the CGI, but the movie still has far more genuine heart than some other recent big blockbusters. It even has a romance more convincing than the one in Titanic.

The movie is on general release worldwide right now, and will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray in 2010. The film is planned as the first in a trilogy, so expect more to follow.