June 12, 2012 | 8:00 a.m.

Ridley Scott on the set of Prometheus. (Kerry Brown / 20th Century Fox)

The topic has been making the rounds in cinaste circles, and on Thursday it reached the cafeteria at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif. Three of the studios directors Oscar winners Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, Wall-E) and Lee Unkrich (Toy Story 3) and Oscar nominee Bob Peterson (Up) sat down for lunch and began chewing on a Hollywood mystery: the Ridley Scott Exception.

We started talking about it because Lee mentioned how he had just shown both Blade Runner and Alien to his teenage daughter and that she loved both of them, Stanton recalled later that day. Certainly story and character must be king for a movie to stand the test of time, but typically every [science fiction] movie, no matter how good it looks, is ultimately betrayed in the end by the limitations of whatever current technology was used.

But Alien and Blade Runner are the exceptions to the rule. On every level of aesthetics, they defy Father Time.

The riddle of Ridley is timely again with the release of Prometheus, Scotts 20th feature film but only his third set in a sci-fi universe. Its a somewhat familiar corner of the galaxy this time too: Prometheus is a quasi-prequel to Alien (1979), and both stories follow a human crew (accompanied by an android with an enigmatic agenda) to a planet that holds dark secrets that are coveted by the rapacious Weyland Corp.

Alien was Scotts international breakthrough and he followed it up with the futuristic film noir Blade Runner, starring Harrison Ford as a retired L.A. cop hunting down a renegade cell of synthetic humans known as replicants. Blade Runner was a dud upon release, but now, as it reaches its 30th anniversary this month, the movie and its influence are more alive in the pop culture conversation than ever.

That influence can be traced through dozens of films, among them Terminator, The Matrix, Brazil and Inception and the upcoming Looper and a new Total Recall are also candidates for the list. Christopher Nolan cites Blade Runner as his favorite film and Duncan Jones (Source Code, Moon) has described his next movie as a valentine to the 1982 Scott film.

Then there are video games, TV shows and music videos, as well as echoes in fashion, advertising, design and architecture. One other place you can find Blade Runner? Its under the artificial skin and philosophical sinew of Prometheus. The new film is a hybrid of Scotts past sci-fi films, and it appears that he just might keep the laboratory open for business this time he says a Blade Runner sequel is moving forward in development and will again search the souls of creators and creations.

God is in the details, Scott said. Who bothered to create people who look like human beings? Why do that? Its really going into that and answering the big, broad strokes of it.

See the article here:
'Prometheus' has 'Alien' biology hard-wired by Blade Runner soul