|
Baronjutter posted:I was watching the movie very intently but I never noticed anything come out of anyone's eyes! I even remembered this exact quote before watching the movie because I hate anything eye related.
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2015 04:12
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 22:17 |
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:
I guess I really need to watch pervert's guide to cinema.
|
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2015 04:14
|
|
|
and drat there is a lot more Prometheus talk (way too positive for my tastes) then alien3 talk in this thread
|
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2015 11:53
|
|
|
I just watched the Alien3 Assembly Cut with commentary and it's pretty interesting and I definitely recommend it. A few of the crew (editors and such) are involved and Paul McGann (Golic) appropriately provide commentary. I really hope that one of these days Fincher comes to terms with it and talks more about it, I know how much he loves doing commentaries for his movies after all. I'd kill for a Fincher solo commentary for Alien 3 but the most recent thing I know where he discusses it is some Bafta event that goes through his whole career and he pretty much Alan Smithee's the thing.
|
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2015 15:40
|
|
|
Oh, gently caress. John Logan is rewriting Paradise Lost. 
|
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2015 22:50
|
|
|
Stare-Out posted:I just watched the Alien3 Assembly Cut with commentary and it's pretty interesting and I definitely recommend it. A few of the crew (editors and such) are involved and Paul McGann (Golic) appropriately provide commentary. I really hope that one of these days Fincher comes to terms with it and talks more about it, I know how much he loves doing commentaries for his movies after all. I'd kill for a Fincher solo commentary for Alien 3 but the most recent thing I know where he discusses it is some Bafta event that goes through his whole career and he pretty much Alan Smithee's the thing. As I recall Fincher has pretty much disowned Alien 3 and has said in interviews that se7en was his first movie and not Alien 3. Xenomrph can probably fill in the rest since I don't have all the details.
|
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2015 01:19
|
|
|
Yeah, Fincher is never going to get over it. Or talk about it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2015 01:23
|
|
|
DeafNote posted:and drat there is a lot more Prometheus talk (way too positive for my tastes) then alien3 talk in this thread This is basically the Alien and also Predator thread now, and has been for awhile. It will continue until Xenomrph discovers that SMG is actually his Tyler Durden-style alternate persona and he has had a Masters in Film Studies for years.
|
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2015 02:02
|
|
|
Timby posted:Oh, gently caress. John Logan is rewriting Paradise Lost. He's been nominated for an Academy Award three times so...
|
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2015 10:06
|
|
|
Immortan posted:He's been nominated for an Academy Award three times so... He was rewritten almost completely by Bill Nicholson on Gladiator, only retaining a credit because some of the dialogue he wrote for Commodus remained; Michael Mann did an uncredited top-to-bottom rewrite of The Aviator; and I have no idea how he got a nomination for Hugo because that movie's strength is in its visuals. The writer of Star Trek: Nemesis is not someone I'm particularly interested in penning the sequel to Prometheus.
|
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2015 21:33
|
|
|
Immortan posted:He's been nominated for an Academy Award three times so... Let me know when he wins one
|
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2015 21:36
|
|
|
The Oscars, the ultimate measure of worth.
Corek fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Nov 12, 2015 |
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2015 21:45
|
|
|
DeafNote posted:and drat there is a lot more Prometheus talk (way too positive for my tastes) then alien3 talk in this thread That's because Alien 3 is not a very good movie. It doesn't interest people. For example, in the entire history of people writing about Alien on the internet, no-one has ever commented on the scene where Clemens dies - the fact that a bottle of drugs morphs into the alien. And of course, those same drugs are administered to Ripley. So the film is fairly explicitly on the side of Dillon, when he calls the literal plot explanation complete bullshit. Ripley was not attacked her cryotube; the 'queen embryo' was injected into her arm. But fans don't care about this. They care about Prometheus.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2015 00:18
|
|
|
Timby posted:He was rewritten almost completely by Bill Nicholson on Gladiator, only retaining a credit because some of the dialogue he wrote for Commodus remained; Michael Mann did an uncredited top-to-bottom rewrite of The Aviator; and I have no idea how he got a nomination for Hugo because that movie's strength is in its visuals. Nothing will please goons.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2015 00:59
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:That's because Alien 3 is not a very good movie. It doesn't interest people. A facehugger actually got her, and this was shown so.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2015 01:00
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:That's because Alien 3 is not a very good movie. It doesn't interest people. ... Because that doesn't happen? At all? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNuzmKc7mq4
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2015 01:05
|
|
|
CelticPredator posted:A facehugger actually got her, and this was shown so.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2015 01:51
|
|
|
I get it now. Ripley was vaccinated with an autistic aliens embryo
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2015 02:00
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:That's because Alien 3 is not a very good movie. It doesn't interest people. You were halfway to somewhere interesting but then you got lost up your own rear end. Give it another go.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2015 02:14
|
|
|
Not only is there an unambiguous hallucination scene in the film, where Ripley has a conversation with a sewage pipe, the dialogue repeatedly emphasizes that "half [her] system's still in cryosleep." Ripley is not fully awake. There's a common misreading of the film, that says everything after the credits is only a dream. This gets things slightly backwards, as the credits sequence is the dream - one that functions as a prophecy, in keeping with the religious themes. The events in the credits montage parallel the events that will occur in the film proper (most notably: the fireball explosion in the middle). Ripley comes to the planet with foreknowledge of what will occur - that the Alien will re-appear and so-on. And, so, she spends the film reliving the events in the dream, though now as an active participant who can 'change the ending' so that the alien doesn't escape. The logic of the film is that the alien is a genuine nightmare creature - but that this nightmare is more real to Ripley than the mundane reality where people simply kill eachother and suffer accidents. She had almost accepted that state of normalcy, until she took the drugs.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2015 02:49
|
|
|
ImpAtom posted:... Because that doesn't happen? At all?
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2015 06:45
|
|
|
Try rewatching that clip. I am referring to how the scene is shot and edited, not to the literal plot content. Here is a shot-by-shot breakdown of the moment Ripley is injected with the drugs. First three shots. The needle enters Ripley's arm. CUT TO: Ripley turning her head away and closing her eyes. CUT TO: Golic the madman. He's staring at something that horrifies him. He writhes and tries desperately to escape. In literal plot terms, Golic is on the other side of the room, behind a plastic curtain. And he's looking at a large bug. However, the scene is edited so that he appears to see something else. It's edited as though Golic is watching the injection.  Next three shots. A dark smear rises inside a container of clear fluid. CUT TO: an extreme close-up on the clear fluid being pumped into Ripley's arm. CUT TO: an extreme close-up on Golic's eyes, wide with terror. He's looking down now, and he's no longer struggling.  Next shot: The dark smear now travels along the floor, from right to left - the same direction as the needle. There are a few shots showing Ripley becoming aware that something's amiss, but I'm skipping ahead for brevity.  Last three shots. Ripley, her eyes open, turns her head back towards the needle. CUT TO: A dark smear rising behind Clemens, visible through the plastic sheet. CUT TO: an extreme close-up of the needle being pulled from Ripley's arm. Obviously, the shot of the dark shape rising behind the curtain, and the dark shape rising inside the container of fluid, are linked. The difference is that Ripley is now seeing what Golic saw: a 'dragon'. Seconds later, the dragon will burst through the curtain and fully enter Ripley's consciousness. This all happens in the span of about twenty seconds. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 09:36 on Nov 13, 2015 |
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2015 08:58
|
|
|
Those screenshots remind me of how good the lighting was in Alien 3.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2015 09:08
|
|
|
Yeah. That's one of the best scenes in the film. I love the way it slowly reveals the Alien.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2015 09:12
|
|
|
CelticPredator posted:Yeah. That's one of the best scenes in the film. I love the way it slowly reveals the Alien. Also shows that the alien was always close to Ripley in the movie because it was protecting her.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2015 10:22
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:In literal plot terms, Golic is on the other side of the room, behind a plastic curtain. And he's looking at a large bug. However, the scene is edited so that he appears to see something else. It's edited as though Golic is watching the injection. Swiss made = Giger 
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2015 10:36
|
|
|
CelticPredator posted:Yeah. That's one of the best scenes in the film. I love the way it slowly reveals the Alien. I really do wish Fincher would get over his hang-ups on the movie. Like yeah i know it was a taxing time for everyone involved, and Fincher got railroaded away from making the exact movie he wanted to make, but the Assembly Cut is chock full of praise-worthy things and I wish he'd recognize that and accept that praise.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2015 17:41
|
|
|
It really is an excellently shot scene and it actually makes good use of what they have. Keeping the alien obscured is a lot more effective than showing it and they way they handle it in that scene does a fantastic job of building the tension and fear. Honestly the last bit of it is kind of glaring even though it is leading up to an iconic shot because it looks so much worse.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2015 17:44
|
|
|
I remember in the behind-the-scenes footage Fincher looked like he was screaming internally waiting for Jordan Cronenweth to finish setting up the lighting for that scene...
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2015 19:31
|
|
|
The shot where the Xeno gets right up in Ripley's face and she turns her head away is like one of the two or three most iconic in the whole series. That's saying something considering how much Alien 3 is usually overshadowed by Alien and Aliens. That scene is definitely up there with the best in any of the Alien films.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2015 19:34
|
|
|
Right, so with that out of the way, we can get back to the point: Alien3 is thematically similar to Total Recall - to the point that the ending scene with "Bishop II" plays out exactly like the scene with Dr. Edgemar from that film. There's a consistent theme of mistaken identity and of intermixing dream with reality. Ripley is told she's hallucinating because she was pulled out of the machine too early, etc. So: CelticPredator posted:A facehugger actually got her, and this was shown so. This is false. The opening montage does not show Ripley getting attacked. It shows only a creature attached to a human skull, and the sequence is obviously edited to make it look like Newt. Now, you can go into the plot-canonical explanation of 'what actually happened', but then you miss the point entirely. The opening scene is exactly what it appears to be: a scene where Newt is attacked. That's what the audience is led to believe, and it's what Ripley believes - which is why she orders the autopsy. The attack on Newt is real to her. The autopsy then reveals that the opening scene is, in fact, "only a dream". Newt looked like she was infected, but she's not. This is where people make a mistake, because they say "if it wasn't newt it must have been Ripley" and remain satisfied that they now know what objectively happened. Catalog it on xenopedia. However, none of this is objective. Basic point: a facehugger can only infect one person. I don't care if they invented some bullshit to explain the dream sequence. We have two different, incompatible versions of events: the facehugger attacked the dog OR the facehugger got Ripley. Everyone knows that the opening scene doesn't make literal sense (e.g. how did the egg get there?) - so whose POV is it? There are no witnesses except the computer, and the computer can only confirm that there was an electrical fire. It's Bishop who adds that an alien came down with them - but he's badly damaged and his response is ambiguous. What does he mean by that? Does he mean the facehugger or the embryo? It matters because, according to the plot, two aliens came down. The obvious conclusion is that the events of the opening credits are ultimately being shown to us from the POV of the malfunctioning Bishop. Not even he fully knows what's going on. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Nov 13, 2015 |
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2015 20:05
|
|
|
Basebf555 posted:The shot where the Xeno gets right up in Ripley's face and she turns her head away is like one of the two or three most iconic in the whole series. That's saying something considering how much Alien 3 is usually overshadowed by Alien and Aliens. That scene is definitely up there with the best in any of the Alien films.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2015 20:28
|
|
|
They still re-recorded the funky hissing dialogue for the Blu-Ray which is way more than I ever expected them to do.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2015 21:35
|
|
|
Stare-Out posted:They still re-recorded the funky hissing dialogue for the Blu-Ray which is way more than I ever expected them to do. They also included the "Wreckage and Rage" documentary/post-mortem, which was originally going to be on the Quadrilogy DVD but Fox axed it because of the bad blood with Fincher over the movie. I was pleasantly surprised when it got restored for the Bluray. The Anthology bluray set really is among my gold standards for "movie series home releases done right", in terms of picture quality and sheer breadth and depth of supplemental materials. It's a little (comparatively) light for the third and fourth movies, but it's still a fantastic set.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2015 21:49
|
|
|
CelticPredator posted:Yeah. That's one of the best scenes in the film. I love the way it slowly reveals the Alien. That SMG post is describing, in detail, why the reveal makes the scene good. In action movies and horror, there's never just 'a cool thing'. Cool things are cool that way because of the associations they're playing into. That's why a lot of action scenes don't really work - they fail to ground a scene in these associations, and just become 'a man in a costume doing some stuff'. Which can be good too, but usually isn't the most effective storytelling mechanic. I'm gonna have to look up that bluray set now. I'm more of a DVD/VHS fan because of the appeal of low-res aesthetic where your mind fills things in, but I'm a sucker for good BTS stuff.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2015 21:50
|
|
|
The Quadrilogy DVD set has a stupid amount of special features, but the blu ray set has all of the DVD content AND MORE, along with the improved versions of Aliens DC and Alien3 Assembly Cut. Like the Bluray has the formerly laserdisc-exclusive bonus features for Aliens. It's loving ridiculous. Edit-- what's extra entertaining is that way back in 2001, IGN had an article series called "Good Edition" where they'd write up fantasy special feature lists for "good edition" releases of movie series. Fast forward to 2004, and it's like 20th Century Fox used IGN's articles as a checklist for creating the Alien Quadrilogy special features. Here's the original articles: Good Edition: Alien Good Edition: Aliens Good Edition: Alien3 Good Edition: Alien Resurrection Good Edition: Alien series Bonus Disc They did similar Good Edition articles for other series such as the Godfather, etc. Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 23:34 on Nov 13, 2015 |
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2015 23:27
|
|
|
Hbomberguy posted:That SMG post is describing, in detail, why the reveal makes the scene good. Sure, but I don't like the idea of removing the plot and story completely for a reading. That will always feel false. I can agree and see that the film is suggesting that Ripley was in a sort of dream like state, and whatever that stuff was woke her up, in a sense and realized or nightmare was real or something like that. Not that the alien was injected into her. That's weird.
|
|
#
?
Nov 14, 2015 01:06
|
|
|
Plot and story are distinct from eachother - and I am focussing exclusively on the story. The plot of Alien 3 is some dull nonsense about putting metal on a bug. The story is a hallucinatory purgatorial myth about a Woman who fell to Earth from the sky, bringing both corruption and a prophecy. Alien 3 is also a science fiction film in the Lovecraft tradition. In the injection scene, the thin plastic sheet represents the fabric of reality itself distorting and then being ripped apart. It's in that sense that the alien is 'created by' the injection. The alien has no substantial existence of its own, but simply appears as a result of this breakdown. Initially a dark blot, it slowly spreads and grows. "Hemorrhaging will show as a dark patch." -Ripley This brings us back to the misidentification theme. Two of the deaths are blamed on Golic, one guy mistakes the alien for his dog, and then his death is attributed to a simple accident. Ripley believes the events in the opening credits were 'just a dream', and so-on. In each of these cases, the rational explanation is quite accurate. It was just a dog, and it was just a dream. There is no alien except in the sense that the alien stands for the meaningless functioning of the universe itself. "It's a metaphor." -Ripley In her altered state of consciousness, Ripley goes on a straight-up vision quest in a metaphorical space called 'the basement'. Plot synopses cannot account for the film's theme, that there is no objective reality but a panoply of conflicting subjective accounts that sometimes overlap. It's crucial to pay attention to who believes what, and when. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 07:43 on Nov 14, 2015 |
|
#
?
Nov 14, 2015 07:32
|
|
|
Hbomberguy posted:I'm gonna have to look up that bluray set now. I'm more of a DVD/VHS fan because of the appeal of low-res aesthetic where your mind fills things in, but I'm a sucker for good BTS stuff. Xenomrph is right, the picture quality on the Alien Anthology BluRay set is something else. It's much better than your standard BluRay. It's quite apparent hat they spent the most time on Alien, Aliens, and Alien 3 Assembly out of the four.
|
|
#
?
Nov 14, 2015 09:03
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 22:17 |
|
|
CelticPredator posted:Sure, but I don't like the idea of removing the plot and story completely for a reading. That will always feel false. I can agree and see that the film is suggesting that Ripley was in a sort of dream like state, and whatever that stuff was woke her up, in a sense and realized or nightmare was real or something like that. "You didn't see it. But your brain did." - Harry S. Plinkett It's like how there are numerous shakespeare adaptations all based on the same script, emphasizing different themes through use of cinematography and editing - Alien Cubed, even as an original material, is inherently an adaptation from the pre-existing script, which itself is an adaptation and reinterpretation of the previous films. Try taking the plot for granted - 'how is the plot told to us?' is the more interesting question. The scenes with the birds in The Birds are scary and compelling because of how their arrival is portrayed as this wrath of repressed incestual feelings. Anything can be made scary if it's approached properly in a story - even a man in a goofy black rubber suit or a silly little puppet poorly-comped into a scene. Alien does this by having the Alien take on and represent the emptiness and incomprehensibility of the Universe. It's totally unsurprising that the scenes you think were well-done are the ones that most effectively utilise imagery and editing to get an idea across.
|
|
#
?
Nov 14, 2015 09:48
|
|