I'm not sure what Ridley Scott was thinking. Perhaps he wasn't. I think James Cameron fell into the same trap when he made "Avatar."
They are business men just as much or even more so than artistic men and when you look at the box office performance of both films (especially Avatar) you can argue that both of them accomplished their goal.
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
