Friends and filmmakers JM Prater & Eric David Wallace. October 2019.
"It’s no secret the Alien films have been struggling to find an audience and a profit since 1992”
That’s one of JM Prater’s opening statements from an interview taken for this article, discussing what he describes as ongoing PTSD the Alien fan community experiences year after year, release after release.
“The proof is in the box office results’ he says.
“As much as I love and adore Alien 3, it was the first film of six films released over the course of 25 years that would see the quality degrade after each film released. Hardcore fandom is firmly entrenched in the films that bring them joy. For most it’s Aliens, the one film everyone pivots around.”
Prater does not mince words. Tracking the box office numbers for the series, (including the off- shoot films, Alien versus Predator (2012) and it’s sequel, Aliens versus Predators: Requiem (2012), the storied franchise has been on a death spiral.
In 2015, all of that changed for Prater.
“In February 2015 I started my podcast, Perfect Organism: The Alien Saga Podcast.” Prater declares.
“It was really a response to all of the excitement happening in the franchise,” he says.
That same month, a few weeks earlier, Neil Blomkamp, fresh off his film Chappie, staring Sigourney Weaver began releasing concept images for an untitled Alien film via his instagram account. Prater becomes visibly excited when talking about this time.
“It had been so long since I had felt a passionate connection to my favorite science fiction series. The idea that Blomkamp would revive the series, possibly bringing back Ripley was something I jumped at.”
While excitement and fervor was building for Blomkamp’s film concept, it would never leave that stage. The film later fell out of development as Ridley Scott’s Prometheus sequel, Alien: Covenant took center stage eventually leading Blomkamp to abandon his Alien 5 project completely.
“That was really a tough time for all of fandom. It was a revelation that took a couple of years to sink in. I had never experienced Alien fandom so excited about an idea and then become so catastrophically devastatd. On retrospect, it’s probably for the best as Blomkamp’s idea would have retconned David Fincher’s Alien 3, bringing back Ripley, Hicks and Newt from James Cameron’s Aliens, released in 1982.”
-Prater on the dissolution of the Neil Blomkamp Alien film
In 2017, Ridley Scott released Alien: Covenant. The film would go on to underperform at the box office and with audiences, falling prey to negative word of mouth coming largely from the hardcore community of fans.
“Fans were already nervous about another Alien film based off what we saw from Prometheus. Prometheus was Ridley Scott’s return to science fiction after thirty years. I can’t explain to you in words how excited everyone was about the film initially. From the promotional images to the trailers, Prometheus was sure to be the film all of us had been waiting for. Sadly, it wasn’t” Prater laments.
Prometheus had a lot going for it, a lauded director responsible for the first film, a return to a genre he helped define, and a fanbase desperate to rekindle their love for a series that had lost its way so many years before.
“I want to state for the record that there are many people who enjoy and love Prometheus (and Alien Covenant). It was a film full of ideas and aesthetics that are unrivaled. It’s one of Ridley Scott’s best looking films. Where everyone agrees that these films fall a part is in the writing and story department. Both films fail to make narrative sense, but the nail in the coffin, the element the film lacked the most…believable characters and convincing dialogue.” Prater goes on to say.
Alien Covenant would try again, and fail to capture the heart of fans.
Prater wants to make it clear that he’s not a gatekeeper of the series nor is he the final say or expert.
“I’m a fan like anyone else” he states.
“I’ve been committed to this series since I was a teenager, watching ALIENS every day after school. I had an email fan zine called ‘At Play in the Viper Pit’ that I would send off via my hotmail account back in the late nineties. I know what I’m talking about, but I’m joined by many others in their love for the series, including my co-host ad co-owner of Perfect Organism, Patrick Greene.
I want to be crystal clear that I certainly don’t and won’t speak for everyone. Fandom is filled with men and women of all kinds, from all different walks of life who experience these films in many ways on a varying degree of levels. What I do think we all agree on, no matter if we love the recent films or not, the disconnect and distrust of the studio system that’s been delivering these films.”
It’s that distrust of the studio system that’s brought Prater and his writing partner Eric Wallace together.
“We’ve had a studio attempting to make films that only good storytellers and auteurs can. The reason why the first two Alien films are so successful is in part due to the writers behind the stories. Whether it was Dan O’Bannon, couch surfing, and broke, trying to get his story sold, or James Cameron, a then up-and-coming writer-director that had a story he adapted to what would later become Aliens, these people had vision and drive. They weren’t cobbling together ideas hoping that something would work, they knew what a good story was and they knew that it was the human journey that would allow those ideas to flourish.”
-JM Prater
A New Story
“I’ve been writing Alien scripts since I was 21” Prater states very matter-of-factly. “My first feature-length script was an 140-page sequel to Alien Resurrection called ‘Alien: Genesis. It had some great ideas but it was the musings of my twenty-one-year-old self and really felt like an extension of Alien: Resurrection more than a film that could be taken as a legitimate entry into the series. I abandoned that script and set right to writing a more faithful sequel, showcasing the Ripley clone from Resurrection living in a snowy mining village in the arctic, out of the sights of her creators. It was a fun script that I wrote 56 pages of, and never returned to.”
Prater would write other scripts, including a prequel slash parallel film to Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, aptly title Judy, a film he shot and then walked away from after he privately realized he miscast the lead.
“That was tough. Vertigo is one of my all time favorite films and I believed in my heart that I wrote a story that not only told the origin story of Judy Barton, the fated character from Vertigo, but answered questions about how she could have involved herself in a murder scheme.”
Included in Prater’s repertoire is a 45 minute in-universe, fully immersive audio drama called Proximity: Last Stand At Hadley’s Hope. The drama, set a few weeks before the events in Cameron’s Aliens has been wildly popular in the Alien fan community. More recently Prater and his partners on his podcast, Shoulder of Orion: The Blade Runner Podcast released an audio drama, 2020: Gethsemane, set within the world of the Blade Runner films.
Rounding out his portfolio, a novella, ‘Notes From A Bionic Womb’ a science fiction short story self-published digitally and available through all major online literary outlets. One notable entry, Prater’s most controversial project, ‘No Place To Call Home’ a feature-length documentary that released in 2014 chronicling his discovery of a multitude of child sexual abuse cases in the hippie commune that raised him. Prater makes it clear that he doesn’t want to discuss the project, except for this comment. “I have had to face the darkest parts of humanity in this world via that documentary. That’s in part what Alien is about, facing our fears, speaking the truth.”
No Place To Call Home is available for free on YouTube.
“I’ve been writing stories all of my life.” Prater says, changing topics. What I love about storytelling is the human journey. Without the human element, or the element that allows the audience to genuinely connect, there is no story, you have no audience.”
Prater has been developing a new story with his writing partner Eric David Wallace, resetting the Alien series, firmly planted in the visual aesthetic introduced by Ridley Scott’s Alien.
“Myself and my writing parter Eric met 18 years ago when he was in his late teens and I was in my early twenties. We both loved movies and would watch them together, but never did we think we’d be where we are now, developing an all new Alien story.
When they began developing the story, they didn’t think they would agree enough on its direction, much less write it together. Eric, an award-winning independent film director on his own, was not a huge fan of the Alien series, coming at the story from a very different perspective. In a strange turn of events they found themselves agreeing where they thought they’d disagree.
Love Dream. Written & Directed by Eric David Wallace. 2019.
“Our pivot was to tell a very human story” Eric says. “The human story is what made Alien. Alien isn’t a film about ideas, it’s a film about people. To write a good story you must begin there.”
Wallace is no stranger to a good story. As a director, two of his films, Love Dream, a feature-length film and Rosemary became the official selections of the Independent Filmmakers Showcase and The Motorcycle Film Festival in 2014 and 2018 respectively. Love Dream is available via Amazon as of 2019. Rosemary is viewable on YouTube.
Ellen Ripley. Aliens. 1986.
Character. Character. Character.
“I end up going back to the character of Ripley quite a bit as a source and a resource, not because I think she needs to be brought back, but because she represented the very human heart the series had, and has now lost. Right now, the Alien films are rife with ideas, and scant on humanity. Without the humanity, well, we see the results from a box office perspective and a fan perspective.
-JM Prater on the importance of character in the Alien films.
Prater and Wallace had a monumental task in front of them. They could develop and write a story, who would read it?
“We don’t have agents. We are not formally represented by anyone. Despite knowing some high level players in the industry, we’re on our own with this. We don’t have work that’s been developed by a studio or streaming service. The task to have the right people read our script is daunting. The business isn’t what it used to be. The story of Dan O’Bannon and his Alien script won’t happen again.”
-JM Prater
“I began developing relationships with certain players at Twentieth Century Fox a few years ago.” Prater informs me. “It’s been a slow build. Much of who Perfect Organism Podcast is today is in large part due to the connections and friendships my partner Patrick and I have made and forged with Fox, and community leaders like Aaron Percival of Alien versus Predator Galaxy among a host of others.
I’d visited Steve Tzirlin, Associate Vice President in charge of franchises at the Fox building in early 2019. It was completely surreal. I had never been inside a major film studio building before. It was like a space ship, with Xenomorphs on people’s desks and so much more. It was an experience I won’t ever forget and the last look at Twentieth Century Fox before Disney merged it. A few months after that initial meeting, we (the Podcast) were approached by Tzirlin about an official interview with him for our show. Tzirlin and I spoke about when this meeting would be, finally agreeing that the end of July 2019 might work.
During the build up to that interview, my gears started turning. ‘What if I pitched him an Alien film?’ That idea plagued me. I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate. The film industry is fickle. I spoke to some of my friends who work in the industry and all of them suggested that I go for it and that ‘fortune favors the bold.’ I had to. At the same time, if you don’t have representation that door won’t even be opened. I knew I had to take that risk.”
Prater went on to meet with Eric to hash out the story of what would be called ALIEN: Survival.
“Jaime found that title by opening my mother’s bible” exclaims Eric.
Prater and Wallace would meet and talk through story and character beats for a few days before everything came grinding to a screeching halt.
“Essentially, the formal interview with Steve Tzirlin at Fox did not happen,” Prater explains. “With Fox being bought and absorbed by Disney, I speculate that a lot of changes happened and our meeting became lost in the shuffle.”
“It really took the winds out of his sails,” Eric laughs.
Survival is based loosely on elements from an existing story Wallace developed without Prater as well as original elements they both dreamed up during the story sessions at Eric’s mother’s home in the high desert. It was Prater that wrote the script based on those ideas.
“We knew going in that the most important element of the story is the human experience,” Prater says. “There are a lot of discussions in fan groups about whether or not Ripley should be brought back. We decided that what Alien needs isn’t another Ripley clone, or her daughter, or another character that’s based off Ripley; it needed a completely fresh direction. We chose to center our story around a family longing for a better life away from the conglomerate controlled and governed sectors of Earth.”
The only piece of the story that Wallace and Prater would giveaway is where the story begins..
“It starts off on earth.” Wallace blurts out.
“We worked hard to come up with a story that felt completely fresh in as many ways as possible. There have been five films out seven that feature people setting down on a planet and exploring a derelict space craft, and/or aliens loose on a ship while characters run from point A to point B. The format is old and tired.”
“Before we began writing and coming up with the story, characters and plot, we asked ourselves a series of questions about the original films.” Wallace says.
“Who is Weyland Yutani? What haven’t we seen yet? What made the first three Alien films so unique?” Eric continues.
“Mystery.” Prater replies.
“They all had mystery. It was the mystery and the foreboding quiet of Alien that drew us in initially and it was the characters that kept us glued to the screen, moment by moment. It was the propulsion of Ripley’s story that kept us on the edge of our seat in Aliens until finally, we sighed with dismay and relief that Ripley’s journey ended in Alien 3. All of those films knew that if we didn’t have someone believable and smart, there was no story.”
Prater is no stranger to mystery. As an exercise in character building (he tells me) he wrote and directed a ten part mini web series called Alien: Outland.
“I wanted to see if I could write an Alien story solely around a character or two, without showing the Alien one time.” Outland, which can be found on YouTube
“That’s the thing…” Prater exclaims.
“...audiences have felt like the films have lost that sense of realism set up by Dan O’Bannon’s script in the original film, catapulted forward by James Cameron’s entry. That’s what the films must go back to. Full stop. Big ideas are fine when they’re carried by characters who can bear that weight.
“I want to go back to character for a moment if I can?” Prater asks.
“There’s a reason why the Marvel films are doing so well. Yes, there are discussions to be had on whether those films are cinema [or not], or simply well made commerce. I don’t want to get in to that. I’m not here to judge or be the judge. What I do want to mention is the undeniable, irrefutable fact that those films are about characters dealing with extraordinary circumstances. All of their powers and prowess are secondary to the very human journey they’re on. That’s what people are connecting to in spades. You build the story around the characters, not vice-verse.
I think about Steve Rodgers as a character all the time. He’s embedded in my psyche. That’s a testament to good storytelling. At the end of the day, that’s what everyone wants, a good story.”
All Is Not Lost
JM Prater & Eric David Wallace. The Mojave Desert. 2019.
With the formal interview with the Fox executive vaporized, Prater and Wallace backed away from their script, which made it to 56 pages until...
“Until Eric called me and told me that Ron Shusett’s office inquired about our script and that I needed to finish it”Prater replies. Ron Shusett shares story credit on Alien with Dan O’Bannon. His production office requesting to read Survival is a big deal.
“He didn’t believe me at first” Wallace laughs.
“I didn’t. Like I said, the wind was out of my sails. I was done. He had to forward me the email so I would agree to finishing the script.”
Wallace laughs hysterically.
“But you finished?” I ask.
“Yes, after a string of setbacks caused largely by apple updating their operating system for their iPads, which is where I use Final Draft. It hasn’t opened since the update, no matter what I do.”
“So you lost the script?”
“No no. Well, sorta.” Prater laughs.
“He had sent me twenty-six pages of the script to read and give feedback on, so we had to start there” Eric remembers.
“All in all, I wrote over 70 pages in three days. It was the fastest I’ve ever written anything in my life. I was nervous. I’m a good writer, but I’m also a methodical writer. It was good practice.”
“The important thing to remember is that we finished on time” Wallace adds.
“The Sunday before we sent the script to Ron Shusett’s office, I drove back up to the high desert and wrote the last of the screenplay with Eric. It was a wonderful way to finish a first draft. Hopefully this is only the beginning.” Prater finishes.
Much like Alien’s progenitor, Dan O’Bannon, Wallace and Prater find themselves in a similar place in all regards. Money struggles, housing issues and a story set within the world of Alien that they are pining to explore.
“It’s the right story at the right time. Alien needs a fresh start. The franchise needs to be freed from the baggage of the past, while honoring what’s gone before.” Prater concludes.
Only time will tell.
You can see and hear JM Prater and Eric Wallace discuss their journey together at length in their new show ‘The Art of Cinema’ a show that celebrates film and filmmaking. Their pilot episode celebrates Alien in its 40th anniversary year.
The Art of Cinema - YouTube Channel
Eric David Wallace
Love Dream trailer
Rosemary link
IG: @EricdWallace
JM Prater
https://darkcrystalpodcast.com/
www.designundertheskin.tumblr.com
IG: @jaime_M_Prater
//iTunes: bit.ly/perfectorganismitunes
// Google Play: bit.ly/perfectorganismgoogleplay
No Place To Call Home https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V4G0...