I recently went on a commentary binge and listened to the commentaries for Alien and Blade Runner for the first time. The way Ridley Scott talks, just the fact that he's full of himself and uses these bizarre sentence structures (like ending sentences with, "yeah?")... I swear to God he's the real-life David Brent.

Thanks for posting this, was very interesting to read through.

I dunno though, it might be more of just a personality thing on his part. I get the feeling he's always just kind of been that way, hence all the on-set conflicts on things like Blade Runner back in the day.
I don't sense a not giving-a-fuck vibe from him on this movie, maybe not giving-a-fuck on the story level, but his taste and sensibilities are all over the production design choices on this movie. And from interviews it sounded like he genuinely had a great time making it.

It's definitely not a case of someone just coasting for the paycheck, like McTiernan on Rollerball or John Woo on Paycheck.

Well ain't that the truth.

It won't be a bad on blockbusters, or even a ban on shitty movies, it will simply be a ban on the reflex reaction of studios that says 'wow - that made a lot of money, let's make that again, only worse this time!'.
It's not that studios will be prohibited from producing pandering, brain dead drivel, but that they won't be able to do it automatically.
Think of it like the assault weapons ban. You can still buy huge guns that wreak terrible havoc, you just can't make them work by simply holding your finger on the button.