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Nevermind.
Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 07:39 on Oct 7, 2015 |
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Oct 7, 2015 07:33
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Immortan posted:I wasn't aware that Alien 3's visual effects were nominated for an Academy Award until today. I don't know, I mean I saw Alien 3 in theaters and generally thought it looked amazing, with just some infamous shots of the puppet standing out. 1992 was the year that off the top of my head stuff like Freejack, Bad Channels, Split Second, Seed People and Wicked City came out. Several great looking movies came out as well but I figure if I was seeing posters, ads, commercials, etc. for those other movies rather than them being released into immediate obscurity then it's not like Alien 3's looks were below the expected standard. Terminator 2 was in 1991 but it's seriously difficult to describe the scope of how mindblowing that movie's effects are. I think it definitely deserved the nomination. Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 07:47 on Oct 7, 2015 |
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Oct 7, 2015 07:45
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Don't get me wrong; for I think it's great that it received the nomination. I just figured that the infamous shots of the sock puppet looked unanimously bad even for audiences in 92'; and that the only reason they made it into the theatrical cut was due to its notoriously hosed production. Despite this, I do appreciate how the Alien's head in this one returned to the smooth, translucent dome of the original instead of that ghastly ridged mess that was so ubiquitous in Aliens.
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Oct 7, 2015 08:41
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Immortan posted:I wasn't aware that Alien 3's visual effects were nominated for an Academy Award until today. Ebert also praised them in his review, I think. Or maybe I'm thinking of his Phantom Menace review.
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Oct 7, 2015 12:47
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Immortan posted:Don't get me wrong; for I think it's great that it received the nomination. I just figured that the infamous shots of the sock puppet looked unanimously bad even for audiences in 92'; and that the only reason they made it into the theatrical cut was due to its notoriously hosed production. Despite this, I do appreciate how the Alien's head in this one returned to the smooth, translucent dome of the original instead of that ghastly ridged mess that was so ubiquitous in Aliens.
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Oct 7, 2015 18:56
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Xenomrph posted:I really like the Aliens design a lot. I won't say it's better than Alien, or that I even have a favorite. They're just different, and good in their own ways. I liked it, too. I wouldn't want the dome-less Alien design to become the definitive take, but it gave the aliens a warrior-like character that worked for that movie.
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Oct 7, 2015 22:41
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That and it helped them blend into the hive walls really, really well. When Dietrich gets grabbed it's a pretty big HOLY gently caress moment.
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Oct 7, 2015 22:50
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It's pretty goofy but I like all the silly Alien variants they made for the Alien vs Predator comics, toys and video games. In that universe's context it was neat to have them subdivide into various castes with fighting gimmicks. I don't think it'd work well in a movie.
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Oct 7, 2015 23:57
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Aside from the mini-comics that came with the toys, the actual licensed comics showed a ton of restraint with regard to wacky Alien hybrids. It took them years to even capitalize on the obvious PredAlien concept (and when they did, it was great and still arguably one of the better PredAlien designs to date), and that has been the only PredAlien in the comics so far. You'd kind of expect the AvP concept to run that poo poo into the ground, but.... nope. Beyond that there was one Alien borne from some sort of aquatic creature that shows up for one page and is never seen again, and one borne from a Space Jockey (and it looks cool), and a Queen born from a spacefaring humanoid in one comic, and that's really the entirety of wacky Alien hybrids in the comics, surprisingly. The rest are pretty much all based on the designs seen in Alien, Aliens, Resurrection, or AvP (and the AvP design is identical to the Resurrection design, without the satyr-legs). I can post up a cool set of comparison pics someone on an AvP forum put together a few years back that goes into the evolution of the movie designs, it's pretty cool and I know I've posted it in prior Alien/Prometheus/AvP threads.
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Oct 8, 2015 02:25
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Xenomrph posted:Aside from the mini-comics that came with the toys, the actual licensed comics showed a ton of restraint with regard to wacky Alien hybrids. It took them years to even capitalize on the obvious PredAlien concept (and when they did, it was great and still arguably one of the better PredAlien designs to date), and that has been the only PredAlien in the comics so far. You'd kind of expect the AvP concept to run that poo poo into the ground, but.... nope. We did get the xenoborg. A xenomorph that has laser guns for arms.
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Oct 8, 2015 02:36
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Whats this thing trying to eat batman?
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Oct 8, 2015 08:31
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Oh that's an Alien born from an alligator and I didn't count it in my "wacky hybrids" count because it's from an inter-company crossover. 
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Oct 8, 2015 11:06
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Why am I not reading about and viewing pictures of various types of aliens right now???
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Oct 8, 2015 11:25
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Baronjutter posted:Why am I not reading about and viewing pictures of various types of aliens right now???       And just for chuckles: 
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Oct 8, 2015 11:35
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Are any of the alien comics or books any good? I remember reading a couple avp comics years ago that were extremely hit and miss.
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Oct 8, 2015 11:47
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Baronjutter posted:Are any of the alien comics or books any good? I remember reading a couple avp comics years ago that were extremely hit and miss. Almost all of the Aliens/Predator/AvP comics have been collected in discounted "omnibus" collections, which is pretty cool. I'll copy-paste a breakdown of what's in them and what's worthwhile, in my opinion: quote:Here's a list of all the Aliens, Predator, and AvP omnibuses (omnibi?) and what's contained in them. I've put a * next to each thing in each omnibus that's worth reading, with more * meaning it's one of my favorites. Basically *** = really great, very worth reading; either has great art, great and memorable characters, does really interesting things with the themes and ideas of the movies, or likely a combination of all three ** = very above average * = worth a read, and you'll probably get more enjoyment out of it if you're a "fan" of the series. 0 stars = skip it If I had to pick one Aliens comic that's absolutely worth reading, it's Aliens: Labyrinth. It takes the "mad scientist captures Aliens, poo poo goes wrong" formula and turns it on its head in interesting ways, and it's a really great pairing of the crazy body-horror and alien other-ness of 'Alien' with a moderate dose of the action of 'Aliens'. And I won't spoil it, but some of the poo poo that goes down in the third act is hosed up. It also has really, really great artwork and it's arguably my favorite depiction of the Aliens in comics to date. They're unnaturally tall and skinny, skinnier than even a human in a suit could be, but still inhumanly strong. So when you see one literally pull a man's head off one-handed, it has that much more visual impact. A close second is Aliens: Apocalypse, and it's basically a proto-Prometheus but with heavier focus on the Aliens, although the Space Jockeys get a lot of (indirect) attention, too. The art is great, and it covers a lot of similar "meeting our makers", "hubris of man", "the folly of scientific discovery" themes that Prometheus does, but from a somewhat different angle. There's a new series that wrapped up last year called "Fire and Stone" that as well received, but I haven't read it yet because I've been waiting on a collected edition (due out later this month, if my Amazon pre-order is accurate). It was interesting because they did it as 4 semi-interconnected story arcs, one for Aliens, Predator, AvP, and Prometheus. The Prometheus one had a rescue crew landing on the planet from the movie and coming across the aftermath of the Prometheus expedition. The Aliens one was actually a side story set during the fall of the Hadley's Hope colony in 'Aliens'. I'm not sure how the 4 stories were really connected, but I know at some point in the AvP arc, a Predator gets exposed to the "black goo" and poo poo gets crazy. Speaking of Black Goo, the Fire and Stone series comes up with a clever "official" name for the stuff: "accelerant". And no, apparently the comics don't "explain" the black goo or try to codify its effects or whatever, like a lot of spin-off materials like to do. As for the books, the bulk of the older 90s books were straight up novelizations of the comics. For the most part they're improvements on the comics because they don't have page limit restrictions and are published with the benefit of hindsight, so the author can do things like develop characters, restructure plots, resolve plot holes, etc. That said they're still novelizations of movie tie-in comic books from the 90s, so it's not like they're fine literature. In the mid-2000s and continuing into the present they started doing standalone Aliens and Predator novels, of varying quality. There's a trilogy of books that came out last year that I haven't gotten around to reading all of yet, one is a Ripley story set between 'Alien' and 'Aliens' where she gets woken up mid-hypersleep, has an adventure, and gets put back into hypersleep and her memory gets erased. No, seriously. It actually works better than it sounds, and the author does a good job of salvaging what's otherwise a bad fanfiction premise. I haven't read the second and third books yet, but the second one is set post-Alien Resurrection (but doesn't feature any movie characters), and the third one tells the story of how Hadley's Hope fell (and references some things from the Fire and Stone comic mentioned above).
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Oct 8, 2015 12:28
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Time for some even less canonical wacky poo poo. Alien vs Predator (Arcade)  Alien (aka Alien drone)  Alien Defender  Alien Smasher  Alien Stalker  Alien Warrior (looks to be inspired by the Aliens look)  Chrysalis (???)  Royal Guard Alien vs Predator (SNES)  Bat Alien  Dolphin Alien  Gorilla Alien  Snake Alien  Queen Alien
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Oct 8, 2015 14:17
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Now dig up the ones from the Aliens arcade game, those designs are loving nuts
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Oct 8, 2015 14:48
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Xenoborg Alien:
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Oct 8, 2015 16:33
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blackguy32 posted:Xenoborg Alien: As a Marine, they can one shot you and take insane punishment, unless you sprint up on it and shoot its blinking head sensor at point blank while its "idle" (and hope it doesn't spool up and murder you before you kill it). As a Predator, you can one-shot it at range with the smart disc, or you can gently caress with it with the spear gun because you can snipe off components. Pick off its guns and it just stares at you all angry, pick off its laser sight and it fires blindly in all directions.
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Oct 8, 2015 16:52
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Hakkesshu posted:Now dig up the ones from the Aliens arcade game, those designs are loving nuts That game owns. I don't have sprites of it handy but IIRC the first flying xenomorph of which we'd see many in later media was in Konami's Super Contra a couple of years before a couple pop up in their Aliens arcade game: The first two Contra games always had some Geiger influence in them but in the arcade version of Super Contra they just straight up have aliens running around as regular enemiesin the last levels and I think they even sampled the death sounds for them from Aliens. IIRC one of the same samples pops up in the official Aliens arcade game.  This guy pops up again in Contra III: The Alien Wars as you fight a few of the series previous bosses before the final confrontation, but they made him less bio-mechanical looking and got rid of the extending jaw and sounds:  I need to rip or at least put shots from the Aliens arcade game in this thread some time because I don't see them anywhere and they're rad as hell. Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 17:18 on Oct 8, 2015 |
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Oct 8, 2015 17:03
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You also forgot the AVPR Ridged design which honestly I thought had one ridiculously badass long and spearheaded tail but suffers from making the overall design look goofy as gently caress. Honestly looks like, When Eldery Xenomorphs Attack!.
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Oct 9, 2015 05:37
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SirDrone posted:You also forgot the AVPR Ridged design which honestly I thought had one ridiculously badass long and spearheaded tail but suffers from making the overall design look goofy as gently caress. The way it's shot and lit in the movie itself makes it look goofier than it actually is, which is kind of unfortunate because it's a pretty neat design and it was a cool change to see them bring the ridged head design back out of retirement.
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Oct 9, 2015 06:49
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The neck ruins the whole thing. It really looks like a Halloween costume.
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Oct 9, 2015 06:51
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Xenomrph posted:The AvPR design is the same as the AvP design (which is the same as the Resurrection design), just with a new head. Speaking of how Aliens are shot in AvPR, someone posted a comparison showing that on the home releases of the movie the lighting is totally different? Was that real? Any pics?
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Oct 9, 2015 07:08
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Neo Rasa posted:Speaking of how Aliens are shot in AvPR, someone posted a comparison showing that on the home releases of the movie the lighting is totally different? Was that real? Any pics?
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Oct 9, 2015 07:48
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I remember renting it on DVD and it being so goddamned dark I couldn't make out anything that was going on with 90% of the shots with low lighting (which was most of the action with the alien). I'd never encountered that issue with a film before, so I thought it was either a really poor stylistic choice or done intentionally to cover up some shoddy effects work. I saw a TV broadcast later and I could actually see what was happening in those scenes which was nice.
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Oct 9, 2015 18:08
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wuffles posted:I remember renting it on DVD and it being so goddamned dark I couldn't make out anything that was going on with 90% of the shots with low lighting (which was most of the action with the alien). I'd never encountered that issue with a film before, so I thought it was either a really poor stylistic choice or done intentionally to cover up some shoddy effects work. I saw a TV broadcast later and I could actually see what was happening in those scenes which was nice. The 2014 Godzilla had a similar issue with the home release, which sucks because it's awesome.
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Oct 9, 2015 18:10
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I recently rewatched the DVD, and it's just too ridiculously dark. It's uniform through the entire movie, so it's definitively made that way on purpose, probably by someone incompetent.
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Oct 9, 2015 19:04
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Dark = scary. Thanks for the comics list. I've never been a comic reader but I'll give a couple of them a shot
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Oct 9, 2015 19:08
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If you want a good Alien comic, you can't go wrong with Alien: The Illustrated Story. It was released in 1979 as a tie-in with the film and it's fantastic. I got the original art edition as a birthday present a couple of years ago, it's got all the pencil and line work reproduced at original size. Have some lovely camera phone pics:   It's gigantic and loving gorgeous.
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Oct 9, 2015 19:34
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I will say that AVP: Requiem's darkness isn't nearly as bothersome if you watch it in HD.
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Oct 9, 2015 19:40
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Party Boat posted:If you want a good Alien comic, you can't go wrong with Alien: The Illustrated Story. It was released in 1979 as a tie-in with the film and it's fantastic. Whoa, that Walt Simonson art looks loving awesome. I'm going to have to hunt that book down.
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Oct 9, 2015 19:49
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ruddiger posted:Whoa, that Walt Simonson art looks loving awesome. I'm going to have to hunt that book down. Alien: The Illustrated Story is all around great, and it's got a couple early script draft elements that were never filmed and aren't even in the novelization, like "the Box Alien". The other "movie adaptation" comics are skippable, generally due to bad art or being extremely heavily abridged. The Aliens one is noteworthy because it's told from Newt's perspective and only the second half is the events from the movie. The first half is the fall of Hadley's Hope leading up to the movie. Interestingly enough, the recent Hadley's Hope novel that came out last year specifically references details from it, despite it being a fairly obscure comic. The Alien3 adaptation is bad, but the covers were done by Arthur Sudyam if I remember right, so they're pretty great. The Resurrection adaptation is just plain bad.
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Oct 9, 2015 23:14
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As iconic as the chest burster scene from the original is, the special effects are actually kinda bad. Those close-ups of the puppet looking around are very clearly a static prop being slowly spun around by some intern. So it's neat to see it drawn so dynamic.
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Oct 9, 2015 23:17
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Lurdiak posted:As iconic as the chest burster scene from the original is, the special effects are actually kinda bad. Those close-ups of the puppet looking around are very clearly a static prop being slowly spun around by some intern. So it's neat to see it drawn so dynamic. Movie magic! 
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Oct 9, 2015 23:24
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Xenomrph posted:The best part about the chest bursting is the other actors' reactions, because they hadn't been told what was going to happen, how, or when, so all of their reactions are genuine shock and surprise. When Lambert is freaking out and waving her hands around because she's been sprayed in the face with real blood, that's Veronica Cartwright 's real reaction to having no idea that was going to happen to her. Her "Oh Gooooddd" is way to genuine to be acting.
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Oct 9, 2015 23:33
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Ridley Scott is a glorious fucker. The thing that always makes me go "huh" in that two pages is the tiny Nostromo booking it through space in the bottom right. It's such a different way of looking at the ship compared to how it's shown throughout the film. And I think I read that Newt's Story comic many years ago. Did they really cut all non-Newt scenes from it? Like she gets grabbed in the sewer pipe and then the next page is her waking up to see Ripley armed to the teeth blasting through eggs? e: although if the opening is exclusively Hadley's Hope stuff that's kind of cool. I never liked how the Director's Cut stitched those scenes inbetween the existing ones, it killed all the tension - really I don't think there's a way of making them work in the film. Party Boat fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Oct 9, 2015 |
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Oct 9, 2015 23:34
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Xenomrph posted:The best part about the chest bursting is the other actors' reactions, because they hadn't been told what was going to happen, how, or when, so all of their reactions are genuine shock and surprise. When Lambert is freaking out and waving her hands around because she's been sprayed in the face with real blood, that's Veronica Cartwright 's real reaction to having no idea that was going to happen to her. I've read that that's a myth and the real truth is that they were just surprised by the amount of blood and the force of the spray, which was really over the top. They knew something was going to burst out. The burst part still looks great today, it's just those close ups of the little fucker that don't hold up, in my opinion. Having said that, it's still an amazing scene.
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Oct 9, 2015 23:37
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I think the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. They were told something was going to happen, I'm sure they could only assume it would be something bad, but I don't think they were given very many specific details.
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Oct 9, 2015 23:39
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