Nragemachine said:

All you kids that want these silly crossover movies, trust me when I say it would probably more enjoyable if you bought the action figures and smash them into each other making sound effects with your mouth than to watch a film cheapen two franchises even worse than they've already done.

From what i know brandywine own the rights to the alien characters and have to be on board for any movies involving the characters from the alien series including the xenomorph to be greenlit. Gordon caroll, walter hill and david giler were producers on alien vs predator without them the film wouldn't have gotten made and it was a brandywine co-production with fox. Now prometheus is a co-production between brandywine and scott free, ridley had to go through brandywine in the first place to use the character of the space jockey, but with the character being explored and unveiled in its current form in prometheus and with ridley being a producer on the film and with scott free being a co-producer i think you would have to obtain permission from both brandywine and scott free if you wanted to make any movies now with these newly named "engineers".

James cameron had the same problem with the terminator, he didn't own the rights to the story because he sold the screenplay to orion or some company, that is why it took him so long to get the sequel made. It's also the reason why they could make terminator 3 without his permission as well as terminator salvation. But he actually owns the rights to avatar and the characters he created in that movie. I think both james cameron and ridley scott have learned lessons from the past and can exercise more control now, it's also the reason why george lucas is such a smart guy he was doing this stuff from the get go.

ummester said:

So if Scott Free own the engineer TM and Brandywine owns the Space Jockey - we could see alternate versions of the SJ if Brandywine agrees but Scott doesn't?

Yeah that is a possibility, i mean you could have the chair and the space jockey suit, basically anything that was shown in alien one can be effectively remade by brandywine, so the juggernaut would belong to them and the chair etc. But the big albino engineers and the idea of the space jockey shell being a suit would be a brandywine co-owned idea with scott free.

So brandywine could effectively remake or re-do an alien prequel, as long as nothing in it looks like anything from prometheus except the chair the suit and the juggernaut. But ridley i think still has to have brandywine on board for prometheus 2, unless he just starts afresh and does not include anything that was originally seen in alien.

Personally i think this is the route he will go, on the commentary he said he used a saucer at the beginning of the movie because it was about 3 million years ago. Then he used the juggernaut to show the evolution in there technology and that was around 2000 years ago, so i'm assuming the engineers tech has evolved since then aswell. All in all though anything presented in ridleys movies would be more or less under his control as his company are a co-producer. He only really needed brandywine on board to use the character of the space jockey in the first place, although shaw is travelling on the juggernaut, but the sequel maybe the last time we see it.

But it is a fairly bare bones idea in it's appearance in alien, nobody knew who he was or what he was doing, the story of the engineers seeding life and creating the xenomorph would belong to ridley and brandywine and they cannot make anything that resembles his story without his permission. It was ridley who dreamed up this idea of who they were and the whole suit thing and now he's patented it if you like, in fact i was surprised there was this big mystery behind the space jockey, i just thought it was a creature that was in alien for all of 3 minutes, i never thought they could make a movie out of that character, but i guess when you have an imagination like ridley scott you can do these things and thats why he's making movies and i'm not..

Another interesting point is that ridley had all of this more or less planned after he made alien. Much of the story of alien vs predator is ripped off of original production art that was created but not used for alien, like the idea of a pyramid and all of the lovecraftian stuff. Giger is really into lovecraft hence why his artbook is called necronimcon and prometheus shows more of a lovecraftian world, it's a bit like at the mountains of madness. I think ridley has had these ideas or an idea of what he wanted to do with another alien movie for years, but then cameron showed up and changed the playing field, but make no mistake ridley is doing a lucas here, i think he is trying to get his company off the ground and there is money to be made in merchandising and owning the rights to things, in fact from what i know i think he owns sherpperton studios and most of the film was made there, he is quite a clever buisness man.

I agree it was a bit ropey, to me it was like lost in space the 50's tv show or one of those old sci-fi films like the time machine or even doctor who and the daleks with peter cushing. There was something kind of campy about it but i think i got that from the ruins and the space suits and the engineer head scene. All in all i think it was a bit of a sci-fi romp and i think ridley was just tipping his hat to every sci-fi film or story ever written.

I thought prometheus was fun in parts but it has stayed with me because it is so unique. By unique i don't neccesarily mean the story which i felt was rather eccentric but by how the movie was presented. There were certain scenes that were pure cinematic gold like david and the star map the head sculpture room, the storm. The enviroment was also incredible but the film was so disjointed. I still cannot get on board with the whole charlie being set on fire bit or shaw cutting the octopus out of herself, it all feels really dream like and surreal. All in all i don't really know what to think about it. I like it but i know it is far from perfect.

 It has ideas in there that i don't think hollywood would normally touch and there are set pieces that are astonishing along with some bad acting and some really bizzare moments. I think mark kermode the film reviewer summed it up best when he said it was like buzz lightyear it doesn't exactly fly but it falls with style. All in all i don't think i have ever seen anything like it before and i don't know if it's because of the lunacy of certain scene's or it's themes.

All in all though it has made people talk whether or not that was it's intended effect. I haven't watched the film in a while and i have only watched it 4 or 5 times in total although i've skipped through it a couple of times just to watch certain scene's. But i think the best thing to come out of it for me is talking to you guys on the forum. I wish that these trolls would understand that no matter how well a film does or how good it is just the fact that it exists means it gives certain people who would never normally speak to each other something in common and a reason to start talking and in my opinion that can only be a good thing.

There are things in the movie that are left vague or unanswered and that has had a backlash and has turned certain people off of the movie but for me the fun is in trying to fill in those blanks yourself using your imagination and with everybody bringing there ideas to the table it makes the film that much cooller. The only thing i can really say about jaws or raiders is that they are good movies and fans do come together and show there apreciation but prometheus for me is a bit like a puzzle game, on this forum alone there are some amazing theories and interesting stories so maybe this is a new kind of franchise that is chaging the playing field. All in all though i think it is an interesting film and talking to lots of different people about there opinions on it and what does it mean has been cool. So i thank ridley scott for that, he could have made a braindead load of fluff but instead he has kind of created a moment in pop culture, a moment when everybody was anticipating it and then the after effects of the film, it's just a shame it wasn't the masterpiece everybody expected.

So it may not be perfect franchise wise but i am more invested in this possible film franchise then i have been any other and i think that is all down to it being different and asking or presenting mysteries and strange questions be it in a slightly crap or mishandled way, ironically i don't think guy ritchies sherlock holmes movies have a forum dicussing the mysteries of those movies but i could be wrong and from what i know there will be a third one of those.