Aliens In A Puzzle Box Pyramid

a scene from Cube

a. Magazines published statements that Vincenzo Natali was being offered Alien 5. However Vincenzo Natali was famous for directing a movie called Cube which is about a group of people who are trapped inside a giant deadly puzzle box with chambers that move around almost like a Rubik's cube. If we go along with the idea that the director brings something from their own creative past into the movie story to leave their mark, the thing that I would jokingly think would be that the characters of the film visiting the alien derelict, become trapped inside and then it's interior turns into a puzzle box and here they encounter the aliens and must escape from them. It sounds like a ridiculous idea but soon Aliens Vs Predator was soon made by Paul WS Anderson and it showed that someone else out there was having such an idea.

1. Vincenzo Natali is now rumoured to have been offered / asked about taking the directors chair for Alien 5, according to the Spanish press. He directed the acclaimed 'Cube' and also 'Elevated.' (http://www.planetavp.com/amr/html/films/alien5.html, November 12, 1998, (original source still to be found))

Vincenzo Natali

In the background, a block that makes up the pyramid interior begins to move

Charles Weyland 

becomes trapped

by doors within 

doors shifting and 

locking together to 

shut him in

b. The story involved the characters visiting a giant pyramid that had shape shifting puzzle box interior that served as a place for the young Predators to battle with the alien creatures. One can not really grumble about this borrowing, it was something that was going to get into the Alien mythos one way or another by not by Vincenzo's own direction but by Paul WS Anderson who acknowledged that he was friends with Vincenzo so maybe this act of borrowing is almost excusable. Although visually Natali's film's puzzle cube structure and the pyramid with the shape shifting interior were visually different, the source of the source of the concept was never discussed in interviews. During this time, Natali was to direct a film "Necropolis" with the script by Anderson although it didn't finally happen.

b1.  "Vincenzo Natali will direct NECROPOLIS, written by Paul W.S. Anderson (RESIDENT EVIL), for Dimension Films and Impact Pictures." ( Elston Gunn's WEEKLY RECAP, TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, http://www.aintitcool.com/node/16047,  Sep 10, 2003 2:07:40 PM CDT )

c. However when interviewed and while doing the commentary for AVP, the actor Lance Henriksen who played Charles Bishop Weyland, compared the pyramid to a rubik's cube when it changed shape inside. 

1. Lance Henriksen: "Now this is like being in a rubik's cube, now it really was the way you set this up, it is really like er... there is no escaping." (Alien Vs Predator commentary, 45mins in) 
2. L'Ecran Fantastique: "Dans le film, Bishop et les autres personnages sont emprisonnés dans une pyramide sou l'Antarctique..."

Lance Henriksen: "L'ambiance dans ce film est en partie agencee pour qu'il soit assez angoissant. Cela est notamment dû à la claustraphobie engendrée par cette pyramide qui change de forme, tel un Rubik's cube"   (L'Ecran Fantastique Hors -Serie No 7 Automne 2004, p40) 
Google Translation: 

L'Ecran Fantastique: "In the film, Bishop and the other characters are often trapped in a pyramid in Antarctica ..." 
Lance Henriksen:"The atmosphere in this film is arranged so that part is pretty scary. This is partly due to the claustraphobie generated by this pyramid which is changing shape, like a Rubik's cube" 

 

a Rubik's cube

d. The pyramid idea was inspired by the pyramid encountered on the alien planetoid in the original Alien script by Dan O'Bannon which housed the alien spores, and Paul Anderson talked openly about this.

1. See also: 6. The Pyramid from Borrowed from the Alien saga for further information about what Paul Anderson said 

The Underground Pyramid in AvP