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Fox opens Comic-Con with the "Prometheus" Panel -

http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/motion-c...tury-fox-panel

Excerpts -

The clip began with images from most of Ridley Scott's earlier films, all cut together and jumbled up, a persuasive reminder of just how many things Scott has tried over the course of his career. Finally, it moved into new footage, and the first thing that struck me was just how familiar it felt. Not in a bad way, but in the sense that it absolutely feels like the world of 'Alien' brought back to life. One of the complaints I have about the "Star Wars" prequels on a design level is that it's hard to imagine that the shining, perfect worlds of the prequel films precede the beat-up dingy worlds of the original trilogy. Here, though, I can see exactly how the world of "Prometheus" might synch up to the world of "Alien" at some later point.

Using both behind-the-scenes footage and actual images from the film, the preview reel suggested that this is a film about both the origin of mankind on earth as well as our first encounter with an alien intelligence significantly different than our own. It looks scary, thrilling, and bizarre, and I can't think of anything I'd want from a new Ridley Scott science-fiction film more than that. The H.R. Giger influence is clearly felt in the sets we saw, including one that features what looked like egg tubes embedded in the floor around a statue of a giant face. We caught quick glimpses of Charlize Theron doing naked push-ups, Noomi Rapace lighting someone on fire with a flamethrower, a blonde, short-haired Michael Fassbender weeping a single milky android tear, and much more. We were shown the sets they built at Pinewood Studios, including the ones that took over the entire 007 stage, and it looks to be a massive physical build.

I didn't realize Ridley was shooting digital 3D for the film, although I double-checked and it's been announced. I guess I'm so used to thinking about him as an old school film lover that it didn't seem like something he'd be interested in. I was surprised, though, when he and Damon talked about the process and about building almost everything practically in this age of digital wonders.

"3D has been a wonderful exercise. I started as a cameraman, so I quickly realized that it's really about lensing and picking the right lenses to make the 3D work. I've had help from Darius (Khondji) and his crew. Now that I've done it, I'll never work without 3D again, even for small dialogue scenes. It opens up the whole universe. Doug Trumball once said to me, 'if you can do it live, do it live.' That was 28 years ago, and even though we've got marvelous digital capabilities, I'd still say do it live."