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The Alien Movies

Where were the homosexuals?

Just reading between the lines of barely repressed manlove. We'd all have been delighted to see Vin and Paul kiss, now we have to hope Vin and Jason lock lips.
 
Are there any other popular film franchises that you've thought about in this way?

Just curious (as they say).
 
My issue is that the people for these expensive, highly specialized missions have less survival sense than a group of space truckers. They're less competent.
Scanning or sending down probes doesn't take much time from an episode of Star Trek, you can do the same in the movie, and have a justification for the needed landing space.
You can get to the same points with a decent explanation instead of the writer railroading everyone.
Which is why I love Alien and Aliens so much. Even the dumb decisions done were understandable. But there were plenty that weren't dumb, just were due to lack of genre savvyness.
These new films just don't have that.
 
Perhaps all those colonists in hibernation were Earth’s phone sanitisers, hairdressers, account execs etc. You know.... the B Ark. This would explain the incompetent crew chosen to steer them into oblivion.
Not enough politicians and lawyers.
 
Saw Alien tonight on the big screen, 40th anniversary re-release. Great fun, that cat, Jones, was the real star.
 
i took fortean fourteen year old the other night, despite it being rated 15 ... she loved it, said the acting was nonpareil

dont think ive seen it on big screen before ... looked ace
 
i took fortean fourteen year old the other night, despite it being rated 15 ... she loved it, said the acting was nonpareil

dont think ive seen it on big screen before ... looked ace

Jones was purrfect.
 
teen sidekick thought HDS stole the show ... i really liked veronica cartwright, hadnt ever really paid much attention to lambert before
 
I was trying to track down a source for a Dan O'Bannon quote and stumbled across this. Basically all you need to know about the history of the Alien script. (Very long read)

https://alienseries.wordpress.com/tag/dan-obannon/

As mentioned on another thread, the 1957 sci-fi horror short The Girl Had Guts by Theodore Sturgeon, deserves far more credit for the whole Alien ethos.
A space team investigating a distress signal, leathery eggs, face-huggers, acid for blood and organisms incubating inside humans before bursting out, all featured in Sturgeon's novella.
 
I love Alien but haven't seen it many years, Aliens is one of those "go to" films when your having a beer with mates type films, in fact it's joint top of the list with Predator. I loved Alien 3 the one time I saw it as a teen. Have seen Resurrection twice, enjoyed it at the cinema on release, rewatched it several years ago and thought it was OK, it's not great but I don't get the hatred.

AVP is a piece of shit that is vaguely entertaining in a laughing at it kind of way, not seen the second. Prometheus looked lovely and I was looking forward to seeing a different take on the world and wanted it to have as little to do with the original films as possible, it was mostly very bad, poorly conceived, messy, full of plot holes and contradictions and ultimately unsatisfying, pointless and actually detracts from the originals. I've not seen Covenant and may never do so.

The Geiger-esque spaceship they find the eggs in and the huge dead "Space Jockey" are genuinely haunting and Lovecraftian, all the more so for appearing briefly and being unexplained. Further exploring it ultimately undermines that, especially with the shitty Von Daniken storyline Scott attempted to force in. There may have been a way to do that well but he certainly didn't find it. I'm now convinced that like Lucas, Scott doesn;t understand his own creation.

I'd prefer no more Alien films (DO SOMETHING NEW!) but would even take Blomkamp's Alien 2: Part 2 over any more from Scott.
 
1. I love Alien but haven't seen it many years, Aliens is one of those "go to" films when your having a beer with mates type films, in fact it's joint top of the list with Predator.

2. Prometheus...was mostly very bad, poorly conceived, messy, full of plot holes and contradictions and ultimately unsatisfying, pointless and actually detracts from the originals.

1. Agreed.

2. Thank goodness it wasn’t just me. lt was one of those flicks like the wretched Russell Crowe Noah where, after l’d turned off the telly, l said to my wife, “WTF was all that about, and whom do l sue to get those two hours back?

The teams responsible for the dire CGI in Prometheus and I am Legend should be compelled to fight each other to the death with abrasive flap wheels.

maximus otter
 
1. Agreed.

2. Thank goodness it wasn’t just me. lt was one of those flicks like the wretched Russell Crowe Noah where, after l’d turned off the telly, l said to my wife, “WTF was all that about, and whom do l sue to get those two hours back?

The teams responsible for the dire CGI in Prometheus and I am Legend should be compelled to fight each other to the death with abrasive flap wheels.

maximus otter

Have to admit I liked both films but I accept that they are flawed.
 
1. Agreed.

2. Thank goodness it wasn’t just me. lt was one of those flicks like the wretched Russell Crowe Noah where, after l’d turned off the telly, l said to my wife, “WTF was all that about, and whom do l sue to get those two hours back?

The teams responsible for the dire CGI in Prometheus and I am Legend should be compelled to fight each other to the death with abrasive flap wheels.

maximus otter

Our response to Prometheus was more or less universal among my friends, with varying degrees of vehemence. It looked nice, Fassbender was compelling and the sequence with the squid thing in the medical pod was tense and effective in and of itself. Those are the only nice things I can say about it, none of which come close to redeeming it. Most people I know haven't seen Covenant either, Prometheus was a final straw.

The trailers for that Noah film were hilarious, they reminded me of sketches from The Simpsons, where Homer is watching something powerfully inane. I've never seen it but may tune in for a bit if I notice it on telly at some point.
 
Our response to Prometheus was more or less universal among my friends, with varying degrees of vehemence. It looked nice, Fassbender was compelling and the sequence with the squid thing in the medical pod was tense and effective in and of itself. Those are the only nice things I can say about it, none of which come close to redeeming it. Most people I know haven't seen Covenant either, Prometheus was a final straw.

The trailers for that Noah film were hilarious, they reminded me of sketches from The Simpsons, where Homer is watching something powerfully inane. I've never seen it but may tune in for a bit if I notice it on telly at some point.

I guess I was slightly better disposed to Prometheus because I've been something of a Noomi Rapace fanboi ever since she starred in the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo movies.
Thought she was going to become the new Ripley. Killing her off between movies was unforgivable!
 
I guess I was slightly better disposed to Prometheus because I've been something of a Noomi Rapace fanboi ever since she starred in the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo movies.
Thought she was going to become the new Ripley. Killing her off between movies was unforgivable!

Prometheus just seemed like an enormous waste of time to me, it's nowhere near as bad as the Star Wars prequels but is the same sort of failure for me.
 
This might help if you're one of the majority who completely missed the point of the two most recent films in favour of a crass and shallow criticism of the technical elements of the plot and the production. Like Stories of Old is always on point. Check out his insight into Arrival as well. This explanation he gives acknowledges that the films are flawed, but their overarching premise is so thought-provoking that it is probably the most catalystic discussion of film I've heard this year. It's simply excellent.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I am. Watching numerous times doesn't diminish the impact of the first encounter with the deep interpretation. It's the ultimate philosophical, religious and scientific inquest - where does life come from? To quote Alexander Leek (The Mothman Prophecies), "We're not allowed to know." So the ultimate question for me has moved from "why?" to "why not?". That's a brainbuster.

 
This might help if you're one of the majority who completely missed the point of the two most recent films in favour of a crass and shallow criticism of the technical elements of the plot and the production.

That's as persuasive an opening salvo as I can imagine. Well done.
 
This might help if you're one of the majority who completely missed the point of the two most recent films in favour of a crass and shallow criticism of the technical elements of the plot and the production.

Unlike you, obvs: The lone, hyper-intelligent master of penetrating insight who perceived what we mere plebs missed.

Here’s my crass and shallow criticism: Prometheus and Covenant were boring, pretentious, wordy pish that vanished up their own lower GI tracts. (See also the recent telly series Westworld).

Alien and Aliens succeeded because they were tightly-plotted, well-scripted engines dedicated to getting our pulses racing, by involving us with believable characters, then dropping them into a pit full of vipers.

If l want to spend fifteen or twenty quid boring myself incontinent, l’ll wander into a section of Waterstones whose label includes the suffix “-studies” and buy a book at random.

maximus otter
 
Take a chill pill maximus. It's just a film. sheesh

If you enjoyed the two most recent Alien films, then good for you. Many, perhaps the majority didn't. but there are others in your camp. If people didn't like them, that does not necessarily mean that they didn't "get" them: "majority who completely missed the point". I'm pretty certain that I got the "point" of Prometheus and I disliked both it and the ethos behind it enough to not bother with Covenant, having familiarised myself with reviews of and spoken to friends who've seen it, I've decided that I made the correct decision.

You're tone was abrasive and dismissive, so was likely to rub people up the wrong way.
 
^lol Righto you blokes. Rubbing you in any way is just ... - no thanks. I concede my post could be taken as a dismissive. You're right. I'm a dick. Let's move on.

Here. You'd probably get something out of this - or maybe not. Two men who were also very disappointed, as I was, with the second film.
Enjoy.
 
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