Addressing a BFI forum as part of Blade Runner Day, Ridley Scott reminisced about how film-making has changed since his earliest works in the 1970s. Before digital cameras and CG effects, it was a lot more down and dirty. Especially when he was filming the iconic monster moments of 1979's Alien:

Ridley said: "From all those years of commercials, I knew I was going to use blood, KY Jelly and back light and all the segments were going to work out.

"I kept the monster away from all the actors. There was so much blood on the set that you had to do a take, wrap and come back in a week when it had all been cleaned up with alcohol.

"Roger [Christian - production designer] came in with the little demon in a shopping bag. We had an artificial chest screwed to the table. John [Hurt] was underneath, so it was an illusion that his neck was attached to that body.

"I had to cut through the chest with a razor blade as it wouldn't burst. And when it happened there was total silence. I think Yaphet [Kotto, who played Parker] started to shriek with laughter. We never went back. It was one take.

"People were saying the footage was gross and I didn't know whether that was a compliment or not. One of the studio guys had his daughter in watching the rushes and she was nine. He said it was over the top, and I said, 'You pay me for this. We're doing a film that's completely over the top'."

Scott's still getting his hands dirty, mucking around in the desert making his epic Robin Hood. But it sounds like he's going ultra-high-tech for Forever War, and he's largely influenced by James Cameron's motion-capture extravaganza Avatar, even though we still haven't seen any of it:

He said: "I'm filming a book by Joe Haldeman called Forever War. I've got a good writer doing it. I've seen some of James Cameron's work, and I've got to go 3D. It's going to be phenomenal."

Scott is one of the few classic directors who's still blowing me away - American Gangster, though flawed, was still one of the most memorable films I saw in 2007. So let's hope his desire to imitate Cameron doesn't get in the way of his drive to get down and dirty. [Wharf via Slashfilm]

The man isn't just stepping back into the scifi genre he's jumping in head first, and we applaud him for it.

Scott told Variety:

"It’s a science-fiction epic, a bit of The Odyssey by way of Blade Runner, built upon a brilliant, disorienting premise."

This is an exciting project, and it might actually be easier to bring to the big screen then Brave New World. According to the trade, Scott has yet to hire a writer to adapt the novel and still has many other movies on the front burner.

The book follows the story of a war between humans and the Tauran species. The main character, Private William Mandella, works out his duty to the government in space, fighting the good fight, only to return to his home world which has moved ahead centuries past him. Due to the effects of faster-than-light travel, Mandella is centuries younger than the world he left. Forever War also deals with wartime inhumanity and injustice.

[Variety]

Hyperion:
Space-war novelist Dan Simmons has been hoping for a Hyperion movie for ages. Speculation has run rampant on the internet with both Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio supposedly attached to the project. Simmons himself has said that, "yes there is a Hyperion movie in the works. It has been optioned by a top-notch studio, is slated to be directed by a top-name director, and already has the involvement of a top-flight movie star. Screenwriters have been attached to the project and a first draft screenplay is expected soon." The top notch production company was announced to be Warner Brothers with Graham King producing and the release date is set for 2010. Hopefully this will be the last we see of Hyperion on Development Purgatory, and we'll be watching tree-impaling Shrike in no time.

Count Zero, or Zen Differential:
The sequel to William Gibson's Neuromancer, Count Zero was optioned during the height of the Matrix craze. The movie Zen Differential was supposed to be based on CZ and made by Michael Mann. Alas this movie's script never even got a draft.

Logan's Run:
This movie's never ending saga has truly earned its place in purgatory. There was talk of remaking it (supposedly closer to the book) as early as 1994. That faded in and out of possibility until 2004, when Bryan Singer was brought on, and everything seemed good to go. Some pre-production work was done and a draft was written, but then Singer decided to "take a vacation" from film making after Superman Returns, and dropped the project cold. Joel Silver and WB stayed hopeful, and a low-budget proposal by rookie director Joseph Korinski caught their eye. Some are hopeful we'll see Logan's Run as early as 2010, written by Children of Men scriptwriter Tim Sexton with Korinski directing, supposedly under the watchful eye of David Fincher. All I can say is: we'll see.

The Forever War
Alas the Chicago public TV miniseries adaptation adaptation of Joe Haldeman's The Forever War never saw the light of day, neither did the Sci-Fi channel movie (truth be told, I'd rather see the PBS version). Get crackin' people — we want to see the epic battle of humanity versus Tauran aliens. So does Haldeman, apparently, Sci Fi bought the rights to his novel and then never called him back.

King Of Elves:
This movie has been promised to the scifi masses for ages. Disney vows to have this Phillip K. Dick adaptation out in 2012 as their 50th computer animated feature. It's at the end of a very long Disney to-do list, so there's no telling how many times the green-leafy elves will be pushed to the back burner. That being said we are hopefully optimistic about this feature — it seems to be moving forward, but very, very slowly. Also apparently Disney decided to move the elves' location from Colorado to the Mississippi Delta.

Vurt:
Author Jeff Noon wrote a draft of a screenplay for his novel around 2002. It got optioned by Pathe films, with K-Pax director Iain Softley attached. Noon wrote a second draft of the screenplay, but by the time he finished in 2004, the option ran out and got dropped by Pathe, though Softley promised to look for a new producer. The last that was heard about the movie was in 2005 when Noon told readers of his website "don't hold your breath." No! We need our hallucinogenic feathers and our alternate reality ASAP!

With additional writing and reporting by Andrew Hudson.