Ridley Scott is at the helm of a nearly 40-year franchise of films about killer aliens who are smarter and deadlier than us. It’s not a coincidence, since Scott thinks that could happen in real life.
In an interview with Sky News, Scott mentioned that he believes in aliens, or what he called “superior beings.” This isn’t exactly surprising. Not only has Scott spent a large portion of his career creating movies about aliens (the latest being Alien: Covenant, which comes out May 10), but a majority of people agree with him. A YouGov poll from 2015 showed that over half of Americans, Britons, and Germans believe in extraterrestrials, and another poll showed four out of five Canadians do too.
“An expert I was talking to at NASA said to me, ‘Have you ever looked in the sky at night? You mean to tell me we are it?’ That’s ridiculous,” Scott said, adding that he thinks there are at least 100 to 200 similar species out there right now.
However, Scott doesn’t think they’d be waving the white flag of peace right away. While many of us would like to believe there are Vulcans circling the galaxy waiting for Zephran Cochrane to invent warp drive, Scott thinks any aliens we encounter would probably try to blow our brains out — at least if we provoked them. So, it’d definitely be more of an Independence Day-type situation. Let’s hope Will Smith’s character can come back from the dead.
“When you see a big thing in the sky, run for it. Because they are a lot smarter than we are, and if you are stupid enough to challenge them you will be taken out in three seconds,” Scott said.
I’d be curious to see whether Scott believed in aliens first, leading to him making the first Alien film, or whether his work on the series led to his faith in extraterrestrial life. It’s really a chicken or the egg scenario — or, if you want to get technical, face-hugger or the egg.
[Sky News]