“A teenage girl, a genius middle-aged man (who was kicked out of Tomorrowland) and a pre-pubescent girl robot attempt to get to and unravel what happened to Tomorrowland, which exists in an alternative dimension, in order to save Earth.”

The “Tomorrowland” that they keep referring to in this break-down appears to be a place where science has blown past the world we live in, and when Frank Walker was a young man, he first encountered the promise of Tomorrowland at the 1964 World’s Fair.  David Nix was there, showing off his own work, and he told Walker to come back when he was older and his inventions actually worked.  A girl named Athena saw great promise in 11-year-old Frank, though, and she snuck him into Tomorrowland.  Eventually, Frank was discovered by Nix and thrown out, but not before learning that the girl he loved, Athena, was actually a robot.

By the time we meet Frank in the film, he’s much older, and George Clooney is set to play the part.  Nix is the role that Hugh Laurie is signed for, and by the point the main story of the film kicks in, Nix has been the mayor of Tomorrowland for many years, and he’s become rotten, corrupt.  Athena, unchanged since Frank was a young man, plays a key role in the film, and the hero is a girl named Casey who has a quick scientific mind that becomes important as the story unfolds.  Nix is a guy who values technical accomplishment over creative thinking, and when he throws Frank out of Tomorrowland, he’s not alone.  Every creative thinker is banished, allowing Nix to focus purely on aesthetics and technical advancement for its own sake.

There’s interdimensional travel, human-looking robots, and a quest for revenge on the part of Frank.  He is a bitter adult, and the film is not just about Casey’s adventure, but also about Frank rediscovering the kid he used to be.  It sounds like young Frank actually plays a decent-sized role in the film, so we may see both timelines play out to some extent.

So Damon Lindelof was hired to adapt the prequel screenplay into the new movie Prometheus. Lindelof and Prometheus star Charlize Theron came to Comic-Con to tease a little about their new movie. I got some alone time with Lindelof to dig for remaining Alien references in Prometheus, and confirm that the explanations I thought the final season of Lost revealed really were the answers.

Q: It’s exciting that the Alien prequel turned into an original story. Will there still be some nice details for the Alien fans to get out of Prometheus?

DL: When I was younger and I first saw Alien and Blade Runner, I had it in my head that one of them was a sequel to the other. I didn’t know exactly which came first but clearly Ash is a robot so I just always figured Earth is having this issue with these blade runners and these replicants, but meanwhile the Nostromo was off having this adventure on LV-426 so I just grouped them together. I didn’t realize until about three or four years later, those movies aren’t related to each other in any way. They were just both directed by the same guy. So that’s the way that I really think of Prometheus. This movie is going to be in the same lexicon of the Ridley Scott science fiction ouvre. You could hold it up next to Blade Runner or Alien. It’s almost a mash-up in terms of the fundamental ideas presented in both but for fans of either of those movies, there are going to be all sorts of Easter eggs, for lack of a better word, that synchronize it in that world of the Ridley Scott science fiction ouvre.

Q: Maybe a mention of Weyland-Yutani?

DL: I don’t want to comment directly on that. I’m going to be overly protective of that kind of stuff.

Q: Is it still a good old-fashioned spaceship movie?

6 photosCharlize Theron

Q: Actually I was thinking Alien where people live on a spaceship for two hours.

DL: I do think that this movie will evoke the movie that you’re describing, although it doesn’t spend as much time on the ship as Alien does.

Q: What fun can a guy like you have in that canvas?

DL: An incredible amount of fun. What actually happened is this guy named John Spates actually wrote a really good Alien prequel script and when it was presented to me, it was presented with the caveat of is there a way to make this have nothing to do with Alien? Can it be its own original movie? For me it was really just a matter of taking the stuff that was the subtext of that draft and making it the text of a new, original movie and moving the stuff that were the tropes of the Alien movies – awesome tropes by the way, face huggers, chest busters, xenomorphs – and moving that kind of stuff way down below. If you were going to it and wanting a taste of that it would be there but that’s not what it’s about because the audience has already experienced all those things. Not just in the original Alien or Aliens but Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection and Alien Vs. Predator so it’s gotten to the point now where something bursting out of somebody’s chest or sticking to their face isn’t new and exciting anymore. That idea is 30 years old. So how could we infuse this movie with new ideas that made it feel original and at the same time pay homage to the fact that we’re building it on the foundation of that earlier movie.

Q: Does it rule out doing an actual Alien prequel?

DL: No, I don’t think it does. I think that there might actually be people out there who watch Prometheus and say, “This is an Alien prequel” but it’s a prequel in sort of a different sense than I’m used to. Isn’t it more interesting to think of a movie that takes place in the Alien universe, there are some familiar things that you will see along the way but if there were a sequel to Prometheus, it would not be Alien. That to me had to be the goal. God willing, if Prometheus is successful, and there is a sequel, it won’t be Alien because the end of this movie, if this movie is A to Z, Z is not there’s a bunch of eggs laying on the floor of LV-426. Z in this movie is entirely different although people will watch this movie and say, “I feel like I have a different contextual framework now for the original Alien, I’m going to watch it again. I feel like I know a little bit more than I knew before.”

Q: Was one of the frustrations of dealing with the end of loss that you would say, “Okay, the island is the source of all life” and people would still say, “No really, what is the island?”

DL: Yeah, you sort of get into this dance with the audience where ultimately I think we realized that people had theories that were better than what the show gave them in their heads, and in some cases might have been better than what the show gave them. They didn’t want to be told that their theories were wrong. Once we started moving out of question mode and into answer mode, people would get more and more angry at the show because the show moved into a modality where it was essentially saying, “You know all the countless hours that you’ve spent thinking about the show and coming up with ingenious and brilliant theories for what the answers to some of these mysteries might be? Well, now we’re going to tell you that you’re wrong for the next three years.” I completely and totally get that frustration because as a fanboy, I experience it myself.

Q: But you’re missing the fun if you don’t go with that.

DL: Totally and I’ll take that. There was a point in my life where it was upsetting and frustrating but I’ve now reached a point where I’m enormously grateful for it because people engaged with the show on that intense of a level. It’s like if you’re going to be really angry, I’ll take that over couldn’t care less.

Q: I see them bringing in the next reporter but as they give me the wrap up, are you putting pen to paper for Star Trek 2 yet?

DL: Fingers to keyboard.

Q: But are actual script pages getting written?

DL: It is definitely starting, continuing.

Lindelof has now shared his side of the events and whether or not Prometheus has ties to the Alien films.

It started as an Alien prequel. That is what everybody wanted it to be. Obviously, Ridley Scott has not made a science fiction movie in 25 years, since Blade Runner, so the idea that he’s returning to this genre is huge. But there is a real issue which is — what is the state of the Alien franchise at this point in our lives? There has been Alien vs. Predator and all these things, and its been completely and totally diluted. I’ve always felt that really good prequels should be original movies. And the sequels to those prequels should not be the movie which already exists because, with all due respect to anyone who makes a prequel, but why would you ruin the greatest twist in the history of cinema, “Luke, I am your father”, by showing me three movies which basically spoil that surprise. You can do movies which take place before Star Wars, but I don’t need to see the story of the Skywalker clan. Show me something else which I can’t guess the possible outcome of. There is no suspense in inevitability. So a true prequel should essentially proceed the events of the original film, but be about something entirely different, feature different characters , have an entirely different theme, although it takes place in that same world. That was my fundamental feeling about what this movie wanted to be.”

We shouldn’t expect Predator to show up (until the second sequel at least). Lindelof also talks about how his contributions impacted the material.

“And truth be told, it wasn’t script doctoring in the strictest sense because the draft that existed before I came on was written by this guy named Jon Spaihts and it was very good. And there were a lot of things in the movie, Prometheus, which were Jon Spaihts and I feel like somewhere in the media reconstruction of this story, the tale is that I come in, I pitch an entirely new story, and its so original that everything else gets thrown out and that’s what we’re doing. In my brain, that’s not exactly what happened. But I also do feel that this movie is the movie I would want to see as a fanboy, take place in that Alien universe, which precedes the events of the original Alien, but is not necessarily burdened by all the tropes of that franchise with Facehuggers and Chestbursters, and all that stuff that I love…but its sorta like, we’ve seen it before, can we do something different this time? And thats the movie that Ridley wanted to make. And when you’re working with an auteur, you basically just shut your mouth and listen and try to transcribe and channel the vision of that person, and get out of the way.”

So it was Ridley Scott who pushed the story into more original territory. That’s cool. I just still hope that something eats people in it. (via Collider)

Seriously. That’s all we got. Well, according to Deadline, the working title is 1952. I don’t have any idea what that means either, but knowing Lindelof, we’ll find out in the last thirty seconds of the film, so sleep easy. It’s an extraordinary sum of money for a script, so expect something on a grand scale that might not just appeal to the die-hards. It’s also being suggested that the concept won’t just be a film, but will encompass several media platforms, so don’t be surprised to find some clues in your kid’s Happy Meal or something.

Lindelof has been killing it as a screenwriter since “Lost,” having gotten his fingerprints on Cowboys and Aliens, Prometheus, and the upcoming Star Trek sequel. No Katherine Hegil romantic romps, though. What a shame…

The studio had a plan to reboot Tom Clancy hero Jack Ryan in an origin story film helmed by Jack Bender (“Lost”), with Pine as the lead, a part that’s been portrayed by Harrison Ford and Alec Baldwin – good company. Rather than adapt one of Clancy’s many novels, the studio wants someone to rewrite a spec screenplay that had nothing to do with Jack Ryan. The new plot involves young Jack Ryan escaping a deadly helicopter crash. Sounds helicopter-y, and by working the name “Jack Ryan” in there, serious cashola can be acquired by audiences who hate new things.

Many writers are being interviewed, and many more have already banged the script and were kicked out of script’s bed the next morning. Steve Zaillian (Clear and Present Danger) made a deal to do the job last month, but he backed out. Unfortunately for lovers of helicopter destruction cinema, without a solid script, production won’t move forward.

So even though Paramount was trying hard to get this project off the ground before Pine starred as Captain Kirk in the next Star Trek, it looks like the Enterprise is traveling a whole lo faster than the Red October, even though J.J. Abrams hasn’t officially signed on to direct the sequel yet. Paramount hopes that little detail won’t stop them from shooting this Fall and hitting their June 29, 2012 release date.

Damon Lindelof, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are are working on the Star Trek 2 script. (Deadline)

According to ComingSoon.net, Scott’s vision was originally written by Jon Spaihts, but apparently has been honed by Scott himself and no less than Damon Lindelof, one of the driving forces behind “Lost.” No plot specifics have been given, but one casting note is available. Noomi Rapace will be playing the role of scientist Elizabeth Shaw. She was hand-picked by Scott after her portrayal of Lisbeth Salander, the titular lead in all three original movies in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. The release date is scheduled for March 9, 2012, which really isn’t that far off, so expect things to get clearer soon.

Those are the details. What does it mean for the much-discussed and anticipated Alien prequel? It’s unsure, but it would appear that this will supersede that project. Whether or not it will replace the prequel entirely has not been made clear by anyone in the know yet. Though no timelines has been given for Prometheus, it’s expected that roles in the film will be cast soon. This news may beg more questions than it answers, but the combination of Cuse, Scott, and the Alien universe will probably ease the mourning of those anticipating the prequel.

Damon Lindelof has handed in his new draft of the screenplay for Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel and the execs at 20th Century Fox have responded: "A+++ will do business with again." It’s said that the script is successful on both a creative and budgetary level, and we don’t know much more beyond that.

What we do know is that the action takes place 35 years before Ridley Scott’s original and follows a female Space Marine General. The studio and director have named Natalie Portman as their top-pick for the role, with Noomi Rapace selected as an alternate. Other names that have been mentioned are Gemma Arterton and Carey Mulligan (who just screams Marine general). And beyond that, nobody knows nothing. People run around and get eaten, I guess. (Vulture)

Now that the Losties have shuffled off to be BFFs in Cheesy Plot Twist Heaven, we finally figure what the hell was happening on that island thanks to this short epilogue. Ben Linus takes a trip to Guam to lay-off Sammy Haggar and Bill Nye the Science Guy and agrees to answer one question from each. And then gather around the television to watch a six-minute DVD. He’s a busy man. A busy man dressed like Mr. Furley.

Here’s a quick rundown of what precious answers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse decide to share with us (bear in mind that I’m paraphrasing): dumb, dumb, stupid. dumb, WWAAALLLLTTTTT!!!!!!, dumb. The End. Thanks for watching!

Check out the video and frustration after the jump…

"Lost co-creator and series finale ruiner (flame war!) has closed a deal to rewrite the Alien Prequel, which will hopefully be directed by Ridley Scott. As you may or may not know, Ridley kinda did the first Alien movie. Hit me with the facts, Deadline:

In a development as vexing as a Lost plotline, studio insiders said that while Lindelof indeed met with Scott and the studio for that rewrite job, the exchange of ideas between them sparked a take that could well turn out to be a free-standing science fiction film. The studio will decide when Lindelof turns it in. Scott Free is producing and Lindelof’s CAA reps closed his deal last night.

So basically Lindelof wins either way. He rewrites what’s sure to be a blockbuster prequel to a film that was a seminal influence on him, or he gets paid to write an original sci-fi project. It’s almost as big of a conundrum as deciding which Pop Tart I’ll allow myself today. S’mores toasts better, but strawberry I can eat right out of the silver packaging…

Sarah Silverman, host of the fake entertainment television program "Sizzle," sits down with "LOST" executive producers Carlton Cuse & Damon Lindelof to discuss the mysteries of the show’s finale in only the way she can. So yes, there are farts. 

These links are a metaphor for purgatory.

_{Happy 30th Birthday, ‘Empire Strikes Back! (Moviefone)}

_{This Gun Shoots Beer (Asylum)}

_{Lindsay Lohan Lost Her Passport (PopEater)}

_{25 Porn Parodies (HolyTaco)}

_{Creating the ‘Star Wars’ Text Crawl Effect (FilmDrunk)}

_{Gallery of 15 Mutant Cars (Unreality)}

_{10 Reasons You Wouldn’t Want to Date Megan Fox (BroBible)}

_{Most Bad Ass Way to Get Dressed (TotalProSports)}

_{Your Grandparent’s Twitter Page (Maxim)}

_{MMA’s 13 Most Shameful Moments of All Time (CagePotato)}

_{Pete Wentz’s Son Involved in Suspected DUI (CelebJihad)}

_{30 Awesome Paintings of Monkeys (Smosh)}

_{Five Actors Who Should Quit Their Own TV Shows (Pajiba)}

_{The Last 10 Seconds of ‘LOST’ (Atom)}

_{Most Frrequent Bar Faux Pas (MadeMan)}

Jon Favreau tweeted this little morsel from the set of Cowboys & Aliens to get your appetite so whet your superiors are wondering why the mop handle in your grip is covered in drool. Though can we really be sure this is official just because the director of the movie released it?

My overbearing paronia insists that the pic could be a clever marketing campaign by Disney for Toy Story 3. If Woody was flesh and blood THIS is how he would look, always hauling a backlight around with him so we could never be certain of his identity. Oh no, you’re not pulling the wool over my eyes, Lasseter. First the subliminal Nazi propaganda shorts before the main attraction and now this? If you weren’t so damn awesome at what you do I’d have a good mind to shake an angry fist at your visage. That and my angry fist in buried deep in a tub of animal crackers at the moment. I know there’s an elephant in here somewhere…  

We all assumed that the Lost series finale would be big but according to Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse it’s going to be gimungo. Okay, they didn’t use that exact term. Here’s what they had to say:

"Season 6 will consist of a two-hour season premiere, 13 episodes and a three-hour series finale that will air over two weeks."

Is it really a finale if it splits over two weeks? It’s more or less the same thing they’ve been doing every season. Man, season six hasn’t even begun yet and they’re already jerking us around. I’m so frustrated and feel like I learned to read hieroglyphics for nothing! (via Chicago Tribune)

By 9am, the line outside Hall H for the LOST: THE FINAL SEASON panel with co-creators Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse was already 1000+ fans deep, and the presentation wasn’t until 11am.  But the 6000+ fans that eventually made it inside were in for a real treat.  Cuse and Lindelof came armed with tons of clips and almost equal amounts of special guests, and didn’t disappoint even the hardcores that had been camping outside the San Diego Convention Center’s Hall H since the night before. 

After a montage of some of the creators’ favorite LOST-related fan films, Cuse and Lindelof showed the audience a very well done promo for a fake throwback show that supposedly aired in the 80s, and which covered the mysterious Dharma Initiative that is such a huge part of the LOST mythology:

Afterward, the duo had fun at the fans’ expense, waving the last two script pages of the LOST finale in front of their faces, only to then place them in a box featuring the same twin-key locking system used for nuclear launches.  It’s safe to say that ABC has probably gone to nuclear-powered levels of security to prevent spoilers from getting into the wrong hands. Check out this clip.  I think you can hear cartoon sounds of fanboy erections becoming flaccid in the background:

With the script pages secure, Lindelof and Cuse almost immediately opened it up to Q&A, the line for which, of course, ran to the back of Hall H.  And within a couple questions, one could tell this panel was going to be special.  Case in point: comedian Paul Scheer (HUMAN GIANT) showed up with a terribly tasteless gift to present to the co-creators.  Here’s a glimpse:

The next fan in line for the Q&A turned out to be none other than Jorge Garcia, who plays Hurley, one of the shows’ fanboy faves.  I lost track of how many "husky" gentlemen I saw dressed as Hurley and lumbering through the halls of the San Diego Convention Center this weekend.  In Hall H, the real Hurley confronted Lindelof and Cuse with a brain-wracking question…

Well.  They dodged that one with aplomb.  (Actually, most of the really juicy questions Cuse and Lindelof deflected pretty ineptly, but they were at least unabashed to admit it).  Garcia broke the rule and asked more than one question in the name of stymieing them, and he was eventually cut off by another special guest, actor Michael Emerson, who plays Ben Linus on the show.

This led into a fake video of Emerson auditioning for the Hurley role.  We abided by the rules of turning off our cameras during the clips, but they didn’t say anything about not linking to the illegally recorded versions.

After more Q&A, an appearance by actor Nestor Carbonell, who plays Richard Alpert on the show, and a video making fun of his seemingly copious amounts of eyeliner, LOST’s Sawyer (Josh Holloway) showed up and gave the fans exactly what they wanted: a HUGE SPOILER-filled reveal of the final pages of the LOST finale’s script.  Check out the illegal lengths Holloway went to secure the prize.  If it weren’t for Lindelof’s horrid acting and a delayed taser sound effect, this clip might have worked.  No one seemed to care.  Holloway was too charming.  It was obvious why Cool Water by Davidoff has him in all their print ads.  Kudos, Mr. Davidoff.

At the end of the panel, the Lindelof and Cuse presented a spoof the montage the Oscars do every year to honor deceased heroes, only this was for characters on the show.  Given how many of LOST’s cast was killed off in the past five seasons, the montage lasted all the way through Boyz II Men’s "It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday." The montage ended with Charlie Pace’s (Dominic Monaghan) death, and when the lights came up, Monaghan was on stage to greet 5999 screaming fans.  I was still typing, and I can’t multitask.

The bottom line was that, if you’re a LOST fan, you’re probably going to watch The Final Season anyway, but it does sound like Cuse and Lindelof have a sh*t ton of cool up their sleeves.  I have a LOST: THE FINAL SEASON Comic-Con giveaway poster up my sleeve right now, which is making it extremely hard to type.  First person to email me pschumacker_at_break_dot_com can have it.  (NOTE: It’s design is maybe the only disappointing thing about the panel, but hey, it’s free.)