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The Alien Movies

Ridley Scott's involved in another sequel to the prequel
Alien: Covenant Sequel Reportedly Being Written, Ridley Scott to Direct



A sequel to Alien: Covenant is reportedly being written, with Ridley Scott attached to direct. Scott's 1979 Alien film is a sci-fi horror classic that made an icon out of Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley and introduced the world to the terrifying Xenomorph creature. In the forty years since then, the franchise has seen multiple films released to varying degrees of success or failure, including three sequels and a pair of Alien vs. Predator spinoffs. More recently, Scott returned to the property with two prequels (Prometheus and Alien: Covenant) that explored the story behind humanity's origins and the evolution of the face-hugger.

https://screenrant.com/alien-covenant-sequel-writer-director-ridley-scott/
 
Keep going, Ridley, you'll get that sequel right eventually!
 
A gnostic interpretation of Prometheus which adds a few more layers to the tapestry of reasons why it's in my best 10 films of our times.
https://runesoup.com/2016/05/solving-prometheus-the-most-astrognostic-film-ever/

I'd add to Gordo's astute observation of the headless rites and the Weyland IS Prometheus take, that Weyland might also represent a form of Orion - note the dog and the questing hunting motif which gives us some of the film's internal structure.
 
Dark Horse to Publish 'Alien: The Original Screenplay' Comic
The five-part mini will adapt Dan O'Bannon's first take on the space horror classic (...) follows O'Bannon's original version of events, heavily rewritten by Walter Hill and David Giler before production, and is described simply by the publisher as "an alternate line of events." Among the differences? In the very first version of the story, the spaceship isn't the Nostromo but the Snark…
altos_i1_pg_14-embed_2020.jpg


https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/h...original-screenplay-comic-book-series-1270420
 
I haven't seen Alien in twenty-ish years and not seen Aliens in a while, is it clear whether humans have encountered an alien life before within the World of the films? From memory it's never stated one way or another.
 
I haven't seen Alien in twenty-ish years and not seen Aliens in a while, is it clear whether humans have encountered an alien life before within the World of the films? From memory it's never stated one way or another.

In later films it's made clear that alien life has been encountered before, at best it's ambiguous in Alien. Saw it again in the cinema last year. It was great on the big screen, especially the scene where the cat watches Harry Dean Stanton being devoured by the Alien.
 
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Just watched Covenant again. God its lazily written not just the whole biosecurity issue, but they could have got mother to scan you know who near the end.
 
Alien (director's cut) was on TV last night and I couldn't resist watching it for the umpteenth time.
Still the ultimate gothic horror in space, but dare I say it's starting to show its age a bit?

The miniature model for the exterior shots of the Nostromo isn't very convincing and the animation scenes in space look a bit shaky.
The room-sized blinking lights and green-screen retro monitors for a supposedly futuristic computer are implausible.
Ash's "reanimated" head stuck through the floor now looks ridiculously fake and the cut between trying to keep the obviously rubber head upright and Ian Holm's real head is very jarring.
Why would a high-tech spacecraft, presumably capable of FTL travel, have hanging chains and dripping plumbing everywhere?
Such gross overuse of strobe lighting has been out of fashion for many years now and the least said about the crew lighting up a cigarette every few minutes, the better!
One thing I really noticed last night, which was perhaps a little ahead of its time, was that every character is pretty well asexual. They're only ever referred to by surnames and there is no use of the personal pronouns he or she.

Still a magnificent movie and the standard by which all subsequent sci-fi should be judged, but perhaps just getting a wee bit long in the tooth now?
 
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Alien (director's cut) was on TV last night and I couldn't resist watching it for the umpteenth time.
Still the ultimate gothic horror in space, but dare I say it's starting to show its age a bit?

The miniature model for the exterior shots of the Nostromo isn't very convincing and the animation scenes in space look a bit shaky.
The room-sized blinking lights and green-screen retro monitors for a supposedly futuristic computer are implausible.
Ash's "reanimated" head stuck through the floor now looks ridiculously fake and the cut between trying to keep the obviously rubber head upright and Ian Holm's real head is very jarring.
Why would a high-tech spacecraft, presumably capable of FTL travel, have hanging chains and dripping plumbing everywhere?
Such gross overuse of strobe lighting has been out of fashion for many years now and the least said about the crew lighting up a cigarette every few minutes, the better!
One thing I really noticed last night, which was perhaps a little ahead of its time, was that every character is pretty well asexual. They're only ever referred to by surnames and there is no use of the personal pronouns he or she.

Still a magnificent movie and the standard by which all subsequent sci-fi should be judged, but perhaps just getting a wee bit long in the tooth now?
You have to watch Alien, STOS, and Star Wars (the original - please no CGI) with your head in that period. just as you watch Night at the Opera, which is howlingly funny but from another era.. All of them were ahead of their time (yes even the chenille table cloth), all were works of genius. By the way I think that the cargo hold of the Nostromo was designed deliberately to provide a contrast with the leadership/crew area. This is what all cargo holds will look like forever. They transport ore - dirty and of odd sizes and hard to shift. It's where the laborers work. There was an implied sexual relationship between the captain and Ripley which was lost late in the process, but you can see it in some of the line readings. As it was finally edited, it's just a tantalizing mystery..
 
Why would a high-tech spacecraft, presumably capable of FTL travel, have hanging chains and dripping plumbing everywhere?
I thought this too when I first saw the film.
After thinking about it, maybe it's something to do with the ship's water recycling system/air con/cold storage etc.
 
There's another Alien movie in the pipeline

New ‘Alien’ Movie in the Works With ‘Don’t Breathe’ Filmmaker Fede Alvarez (Exclusive)​

Ridley Scott, who directed the very first 'Alien' movie in 1979, will produce.

BY BORYS KIT
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Your screams in space will be heard if Fede Álvarez has anything to say about it.
The filmmaker behind Don’t Breathe and 2013’s remake of Evil Dead has been tapped to write and direct an original stand-alone Alien feature for 20th Century Studios.

Ridley Scott, who directed the original sci-fi horror movie released in 1979 and returned for two 21st century installments, will produce via his Scott Free banner. The project is intended to be made for Hulu as part of 20th Century’s ambitions to make more than 10 movies a year for the Disney-operated streaming service.


Alien and its many sequels and prequels focus on the horror of a ferocious race of alien beings called Xenomorphs, who implant eggs inside living bodies via “facehuggers” that violently burst out of chests when they reach a certain stage of maturity.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/m...fede-alvarez-20th-century-studios-1235037155/
 
I thought this too when I first saw the film.
After thinking about it, maybe it's something to do with the ship's water recycling system/air con/cold storage etc.
I think one of Scott's points is that this is not NASA - it's a crummy ore-dragger staffed by the merchant marine, run by a penny-pinching unethical corporation, accepting of cutting corners on procedure, staffed by people who have a personal life that permits them to be gone for very long periods of time and who didn't get into starfleet academy. They whine, they smoke, and most of them don't make decisions very well.
 
The thing about rain and dripping water is it‘s a great device for hiding the wirework used on set.
Thinking abot the T’Alien in that scene but also Blade Runner Spinner.
 
In space they can hear you scream.

The classic film "Alien" was once promoted with the tagline "In space, no one can hear you scream." Physicists Zhuoran Geng and Ilari Maasilta from the Nanoscience Center at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, have demonstrated that, on the contrary, in certain situations, sound can be transmitted strongly across a vacuum region.

In a recent article published in Communications Physics they show that in some cases, a sound wave can jump or "tunnel" fully across a vacuum gap between two solids if the materials in question are piezoelectric. In such materials, vibrations (sound waves) produce an electrical response as well, and since an electric field can exist in vacuum, it can transmit the sound waves.

The requirement is that the size of the gap is smaller than the wavelength of the sound wave. This effect works not only in audio range of frequencies (Hz–kHz), but also in ultrasound (MHz) and hypersound (GHz) frequencies, as long as the vacuum gap is made smaller as the frequencies increase.

https://phys.org/news/2023-08-physicists-transmitted-vacuum.html
 
I haven't seen Alien in twenty-ish years and not seen Aliens in a while, is it clear whether humans have encountered an alien life before within the World of the films? From memory it's never stated one way or another.
Vasquez in Aliens does ask "Is this a standup mission or another bug hunt?”.
Her rather blasé tone infers that the marines have had numerous previous encounters with alien life - albeit unbeknown to them, nothing on the scale of the Xenomorph.
 
.Why would a high-tech spacecraft, presumably capable of FTL travel, have hanging chains and dripping plumbing everywhere?

I don't get the impression that FTL travel is possible in the Alien universe, hence the suspended animation chambers and Ripley sleeping for 50-odd years up to the start of Aliens. Not that you'd get very far in 50 years at sub-light speeds, unless you were only just below c...

Of course, whichever side of the fence you sit on this subject, the times and distances at the start of Prometheus make no sense at all. Even so, I still found much to enjoy in it...
 
Of course, whichever side of the fence you sit on this subject, the times and distances at the start of Prometheus make no sense at all. Even so, I still found much to enjoy in it...
Except the future scientist approach to risk assessment - is this atmosphere a biohazard? Soon find out, let's take our helmets off...
 
Hm.

…..

Think I’ll wait for a proper trailer before starting to speculate. That was nothing really.
Fede Alvarez is known for his visual flair. He made a short War of the Worlds type video called 'Panic Attack' on a shoestring budget that Sam Raimi watched which was why he was hired to direct the 'Evil Dead' remake.
 
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