Retrospective: The Films Of Ridley Scott

So not only has Ridley Scott apparently delivered his best—or certainly most enjoyable— film in years according to reviews (ours included) of this past Friday's "The Martian," he's also apparently way ahead of the news cycle. The director says he knew about water on Mars well in advance of NASA's recent announcement. That Earth shaking reveal yesterday may simply be a coincidence, or it may be a canny mutually-bolstering ploy that gives his film a boost, which in turn will expose more people to its pro-NASA message. Or there's a third possibility: Ridley Scott may actually be the Godlike being his fans have long suspected.  

If there's a case to be made for Scott's cinematic deification, "Alien" and "Blade Runner" and quite a few others would probably figure largely as such. However, there's plenty of evidence that he has feet of clay —his run over the last few years alone has ranged from the forgettable to the unforgivably dull to the...