So that’s pretty much that. Ridley Scott announced today that his planned Alien prequel is dead, but he’s making a new film with ideas from the abandoned project. The new film, titled Prometheus, is being penned by Scott and Damon Lindelof, and Scott extolls its “unique, large and provocative” ideas. According to Scott, the film has “Alien DNA,” though he means in terms of concept and scope, not that actual xenomorph DNA will figure into the plot somehow. Fox, to their credit, has backed Scott’s plan and given the film a March 9th, 2012 release date.

Word was that Ridley Scott’s long-planned prequel to the sci-fi classic Alien had been pushed back to 2013 or 2014 at best, or shelved at worst. But it looks like it’s finally happening, with production slated to begin in March and a promise of old-school claustrophobia and horror. There’s even casting going on, with some notable hopefuls, including Michelle Yeoh. Sounds good so far! The only weird thing is the actual title, which is “Paradise,” though we’re not sure if it’s just Paradise or whether it’ll be called Alien: Paradise or something along those lines. Kind of an odd name for an Alien movie, but maybe it’s supposed to be ironic.

Michael Sacco is a freelance editor and writer, currently working as senior editor at WoW Insider.

What makes this Alien themed USB device so cool is that when you plug it in it sticks out its inner mouth you and lights up in red at random:

The old school Alien Facehugger was a nasty creature: A nasty parasitoid that makes contact with the hosts mouth and wraps its tail around the victims throat. However this cuter version of the Alien Facehugger is made out of plush and just wants to be your friend (and to amuse your friends at parties):

Found via nerdapproved.com and random-good-stuff.com.

I won’t give away my age but at the time I couldn’t see Alien because i was an R rated movie and i was too young — so what funny about this commercial was that they had a toy for the film which was clearly aimed a kids. It should be noted that a bit after the film came out that it was very popular in the early days of cable television, along with other R rated science fiction films I discovered from that era like Mad Max and the Warriors.