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CelticPredator posted:Not even totally directed towards you. I'm just bored as gently caress about the standard Alien series opinions. "FIRST TWO GOOD. REST BAD." I GET IT! J What if all of the movies are bad? What if none of Alien is good? *adjusts fedora*
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May 23, 2017 22:04
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superh posted:We share 99% of the same genes with chimps so if another race of humans Engineered us out of their own DNA then yeah we sure would?? We share 50% of our DNA with bananas, so we would expect a humanoid that operates on DNA and carbon to be very similar. I can't remember the exact context of the scene, but if I recall, it's that "they are a 100% match," which would mean that they are not human ancestors, they are in fact humans. Which would not necessarily be impossible given how vague the movies are on what the gently caress is going on. It would not take a huge amount of genetic engineering or atmospheric differences to produce a verifiable human that is also eight feet tall and looks like the androids from I, Robot.
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May 23, 2017 22:08
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dont even fink about it posted:We share 50% of our DNA with bananas, so we would expect a humanoid that operates on DNA and carbon to be very similar. Just regular old "DNA MATCH" not 100%, but I still think your point stands! I think Shaw says "They are us" whether that means literally humans or just the fact we share genetic material. http://imgur.com/WEmPN
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May 23, 2017 22:15
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dont even fink about it posted:I can't remember the exact context of the scene, but if I recall, it's that "they are a 100% match," which would mean that they are not human ancestors, they are in fact humans. Which would not necessarily be impossible given how vague the movies are on what the gently caress is going on. It would not take a huge amount of genetic engineering or atmospheric differences to produce a verifiable human that is also eight feet tall and looks like the androids from I, Robot. Even two humans are not a 100% DNA match. However, I don't think they actually say that in the movie. And if they did then it would obviously be a 100% match of certain genetic common genetic markers that they were looking for. That picture shows one sample is in red, one is in green, and they overlap at some (but not all) points to make a yellowish color.
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May 23, 2017 22:15
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Toady posted:There was always more to the story. Yes. Alien is about a working class crew of regular Joes caught between a rock and a hard place - the terrifying nightmare of the unknown that is represented by the Xenomorph, and the terrifying nightmare of the known that their employer will throw away their lives in order to try and capture (and profit) the xenomorph. By taking a fat poo poo on this entire point of the film and going "Weyland's evil robot son hosed off and became a comic book supervillain who genocided an entire planet and has been spending years working to create the Xenomorph which he's well on the way to doing by the end of the film. David and his army of Xenos are now essentially comic book schlock villains with no protagonist to truly oppose them, and we have no character left with a personal connection to David for a protagonist to rise up against him. As I joked earlier, all you really have left to do with this story is make tie-ins with other characters, say Batman and Superman or whatever. It's been done in the comics plenty before:  Now, the idea of an evil android loving off and stealing the technology of humanity's Engineers to create an army of biomechanical nightmares is a really cool story - but if you're just doing it to explain all the backstory of Alien or some other classic science fiction film, then it loving stinks. It's a creative dead end that fills in imaginary blanks which nobody cared about, and frankly, only weakens the core themes of the original Alien cinematic masterpiece.
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May 23, 2017 22:17
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dont even fink about it posted:We share 50% of our DNA with bananas, so we would expect a humanoid that operates on DNA and carbon to be very similar. Nah. It wouldn't take much genetic engineering to make a large style human. You can achieve the same effect with breeding; just look at horses or chickens. Modern versions are much larger than their ancient counterparts, especially draft horses compared to the original wild pony.
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May 23, 2017 22:20
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Dogs are all the same species.
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May 23, 2017 22:26
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Taintrunner posted:Yes. Alien is about a working class crew of regular Joes caught between a rock and a hard place - the terrifying nightmare of the unknown that is represented by the Xenomorph, and the terrifying nightmare of the known that their employer will throw away their lives in order to try and capture (and profit) the xenomorph. By taking a fat poo poo on this entire point of the film and going "Weyland's evil robot son hosed off and became a comic book supervillain who genocided an entire planet and has been spending years working to create the Xenomorph which he's well on the way to doing by the end of the film. Can you say how, specifically, how the owner of a companies son being villainous takes "a fat poo poo" on a story about "regular Joes caught between a rock and a hard place?" The alien is still just as unknown to the workers, regardless of if some person in connection to the company does or does not have some knowledge of it. Taintrunner posted:Now, the idea of an evil android loving off and stealing the technology of humanity's Engineers to create an army of biomechanical nightmares is a really cool story - but if you're just doing it to explain all the backstory of Alien or some other classic science fiction film, then it loving stinks. In no way is Prometheus and Covenent "just doing it to explain all the backstory of Alien." They are their own separate films with their own stories and themes, which you even admit are really cool. To be honest, these kind of complaints seems silly to me. Alien is a good movie, and will continue to be a good movie. Prometheus and Covenant aren't threats to it.
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May 23, 2017 22:47
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Shaocaholica posted:That's not how high level AI works. You don't program AI with, rape, murder, cooking, knitting, etc. Just like how human babies aren't born with those tendencies. They are learned over time and external stimulus.
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May 23, 2017 22:49
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Lord Krangdar posted:People choose to interpret it in a way that makes no sense, but of course then it makes no sense. This attitude is what gives rise to Cinema Sins, etc. But the interpretation that makes sense is right there: Its visualized like a paternity test, and the test is a match. Because the Engineer DNA was an antecedent to human DNA, as implied by the opening scene. The point of the scene is Shaw discovering her theories are at least partially correct. Exactly. It communicates a simple idea in a clear way, unless you're fishing for reasons to be mad at the movie. In related news, Weyland didn't hire a crack team of the best scientists, he hired schmucks who smoke weed in their space suits while on duty, because it was never a serious scientific expedition. This isn't even subtext, it's just... the plot.
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May 23, 2017 22:50
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I didn't like that MUTHUR is now voice activated, like it's the computer from Star Trek.
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May 23, 2017 22:51
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SimonCat posted:I didn't like that MUTHUR is now voice activated, like it's the computer from Star Trek. Mother was always intended to have some form of voice interaction. The typing room was for eyes-only communication. It's why Ripley screams at Mother that she turned the cooling system back on.
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May 23, 2017 22:54
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CelticPredator posted:Oh okay, my bad. I thought you were talking about the Alien series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P0rLslL564
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May 23, 2017 22:55
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I feel like people who hate Cinema Sins think about it a lot more than people who watch them in-between 10 other memetastic videos.
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May 23, 2017 22:59
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dont even fink about it posted:I feel like people who hate Cinema Sins think about it a lot more than people who watch them in-between 10 other memetastic videos. They're not really the problem, its the attitude that the goal of watching a film is to outsmart it.
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May 23, 2017 23:01
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of course the people who take issue with them think about it more than the type of folks that it appeals to.
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May 23, 2017 23:01
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Lord Krangdar posted:They're not really the problem, its the attitude that the goal of watching a film is to outsmart it. Yeah, I watched Clear and Present Danger the other day. It is a fairly dumb movie. I didn't feel like that was much of an intellectual struggle to arrive at that conclusion. Groovelord Neato posted:of course the people who take issue with them think about it more than the type of folks that it appeals to. What I'm trying to say is that I don't think it matters that much. Like someone mentioned it in the hallway at work the other day and I didn't file that away as someone who needs to be re-educated for the good of movies. This is great though.
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May 23, 2017 23:05
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Schwarzwald posted:Can you say how, specifically, how the owner of a companies son being villainous takes "a fat poo poo" on a story about "regular Joes caught between a rock and a hard place?" You're missing the point. The audience is now told that actually the alien is the creation of a robot, and not actually "alien." It's bioengineered. quote:In no way is Prometheus and Covenent "just doing it to explain all the backstory of Alien." They are their own separate films with their own stories and themes, which you even admit are really cool. No, I only said that Prometheus is a hilarious, misread comedy. My reading of the film inferred that a portion of the audience is the butt of the joke. Now with Covenant, it's shown that Ridley Scott wasn't actually joking and my initial reading of Prometheus is wrong. In 1979 America existed in a very different culture during the Cold War and the Space Race, entertaining new ideals about space and what lies beyond the stars. It is very much a core theme to the film Alien that the Xenomorph is an unknown quantity to not only the crew but the audience as well. In our modern age of information overflow set amidst a backdrop of late-stage capitalism decay, going "oh well uh a handsome robot created by the evil corporation created the aliens in Alien" firmly pisses all over what Alien was actually about. Art exists within a context, and Alien very much has a cultural context to when it was released that defines the elements to the film. The joke to Prometheus is that caring about where Humanity comes from is for nerds, that "canon" is a lie, and here's your loving xeno, you dorks. Covenant is a "well actually, I was being totally serious" follow-up to try and save face after being critically panned for whatever reason. Now if Covenant actually ended with David trying to go back to Earth and selling the Xenomorph as a weapon and a bunch of internet journalists hounded Weyland/David while the "innovation Administration" welcomed such innovative initiative with open arms, you could have had an Alien sequel/prequel that actually played upon the themes and conflicts of the modern era we now inhabit. Instead we're just left filling in imaginary gaps. It's not "silly" to challenge how out of touch and frankly derivative Ridley Scott has gotten in his later years. Sure, I'll watch Alien again and enjoy it, but now it's impossible to watch it without the fact that Ridley Scott came back decades later and decided he needed to tell the story of where the monster came from. We already know where the monster comes from - men's sexual insecurities and fear of rape manifesting in the infinite blackness of space. Ridley Scott decided he needed to fill that hole with the phallus of the faux-philosophical. Taintrunner fucked around with this message at 23:13 on May 23, 2017 |
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May 23, 2017 23:10
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The original Alien design was always oddly connected to humanity. It had a body resembling a human skeleton, a giant penis for a head, and a human skull embedded in its face. Sure those elements didn't need to be explained in a literal way, but it was never completely alien.Taintrunner posted:No, I only said that Prometheus is a hilarious, misread comedy. My reading of the film inferred that a portion of the audience is the butt of the joke. Now with Covenant, it's shown that Ridley Scott wasn't actually joking and my initial reading of Prometheus is wrong. That tone that we saw in Prometheus which is missing from Covenant can probably be attributed to Lindelof. It definitely shows up in his TV series The Leftovers. Lord Krangdar fucked around with this message at 23:18 on May 23, 2017 |
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May 23, 2017 23:15
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Taintrunner posted:You're missing the point. The audience is now told that actually the alien is the creation of a robot, and not actually "alien." It's bioengineered. Pretentious are we?
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May 23, 2017 23:16
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ImpAtom posted:Mother was always intended to have some form of voice interaction. The typing room was for eyes-only communication. It's why Ripley screams at Mother that she turned the cooling system back on. Really? I thought it was just Ripley screaming at MUTHUR in desperation. Have to say that Covenant feels a bit compressed. Like the writers came up with a list of plot beats they wanted to hit, but it feels like they were rushing through them.
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May 23, 2017 23:23
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Scott wasting how many years of his life for what could be said in 3 seconds in an interview is an interesting read of the Alien prequels.
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May 23, 2017 23:25
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alien walking upright doing human things is way creepier than alien running around doing animal things
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May 23, 2017 23:26
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Lord Krangdar posted:The original Alien design was always oddly connected to humanity. It had a body resembling a human skeleton, a giant penis for a head, and a human skull embedded in its face. Sure those elements didn't need to be explained in a literal way, but it was never completely alien. I mean, close enough. Star Trek and Mass Effect get away with having humanoid aliens. My point being that it doesn't originate from something that could have been created by a human or a humanoid. The xenomorph comes from a chest burster embedded by a facehugger which comes from an egg laid by a queen could have certainly picked up some human DNA in its gestation or whatever.
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May 23, 2017 23:26
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Ridley Scott is a PoMo arch-genius, skewering all of this teetering farcescape of a shadowsociety with the wit of Twain and the knowing inversion of macro trope of David Byrne *David plays the Prometheus theme diagetically* Oh dammit, nevermind. He's just retarded.
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May 23, 2017 23:28
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Taintrunner posted:I mean, close enough. Star Trek and Mass Effect get away with having humanoid aliens. My point being that it doesn't originate from something that could have been created by a human or a humanoid. The xenomorph comes from a chest burster embedded by a facehugger which comes from an egg laid by a queen could have certainly picked up some human DNA in its gestation or whatever. That explanation is actually further from what you just said, though: "We already know where the monster comes from - men's sexual insecurities and fear of rape manifesting in the infinite blackness of space." This way the story came back to David's sexual insecurities, by way of Weyland's insecurities about mortality. Also I feel like Star Trek actually did explain why humanoids are so prevalent in the galaxy, but I forget the details.
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May 23, 2017 23:31
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Intel&Sebastian posted:My wife started laughing hard in the theater at the inner ear shot and said "what is this? Magic school bus?" Lmao Is Alien: Covenant the first scifi movie your dumb wife has seen? An alien organism going into a body orifice is pretty common.
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May 23, 2017 23:35
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Intel&Sebastian posted:Ridley Scott is a PoMo arch-genius, skewering all of this teetering farcescape of a shadowsociety with the wit of Twain and the knowing inversion of macro trope of David Byrne That was great though. The Prometheus theme owns.
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May 23, 2017 23:35
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In Star Trek, a precursor race if engineers seeded life throughout the galaxy with goo that was somehow predisposed to evolve into humanoids like them.
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May 23, 2017 23:35
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Lord Krangdar posted:That explanation is actually further from what you just said, though: I'm just going off the lifecycle shown in the film. What I said was a metaphor, which is what the Alien is. It's a rape monster. The corporation in Alien is supposed to be faceless. Characterizing not just one, but two faces and making one of them responsible for the Xenomorph firmly undercuts the metaphor the original film is actually supposed to be about.
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May 23, 2017 23:36
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Yaws posted:Is Alien: Covenant the first scifi movie your dumb wife has seen? An alien organism going into a body orifice is pretty common. I think they are a couple who are too clever by half.
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May 23, 2017 23:38
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I like how David's weird repression issues tie right back to Ian Holms rapiness in the first movie.
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May 23, 2017 23:38
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Taintrunner posted:You're missing the point. The audience is now told that actually the alien is the creation of a robot, and not actually "alien." It's bioengineered. Nah, Covenant's pretty ruthless with continuing the joke. I mean, the movie basically ends with what tantamounts to this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Auta7Jc6g34&t=9s
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May 23, 2017 23:45
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Intel&Sebastian posted:Ridley Scott is a PoMo arch-genius, skewering all of this teetering farcescape of a shadowsociety with the wit of Twain and the knowing inversion of macro trope of David Byrne This is good though.
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May 23, 2017 23:51
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Taintrunner posted:The corporation in Alien is supposed to be faceless. What about Ash?
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May 23, 2017 23:52
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Taintrunner posted:I'm just going off the lifecycle shown in the film. What I said was a metaphor, which is what the Alien is. It's a rape monster. I know you were speaking metaphorically, and I agree. The alien has never really symbolized the incomprehensible horrors of space (Prometheus actually did tackle that, though), it symbolizes something all-too human: sexual violence (filtered through nightmare imagery). In Covenant this metaphorical connection is made slightly more literal, since the Alien is born from David's perverse, sexually frustrated "love" for Shaw. But its all the same theme. Why does it matter that the corporation is faceless, in the sense that we literally can't see their faces? The point is that they don't care the tiniest bit about the crew of the Nostromo. That holds true whether we see Weyland on-screen in another film or not. He didn't even care about his own crew on his trip to meet the gods. Ripley will still never meet him or hold anyone accountable who casually decided she was expendable.
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May 23, 2017 23:54
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Yaws posted:Is Alien: Covenant the first scifi movie your dumb wife has seen? An alien organism going into a body orifice is pretty common. Yeah because it's the concept she was laughing at, not the inner ear shot like the 747 sized cave from Planet Earth. Nice job. You got her good.
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May 24, 2017 00:01
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s.i.r.e. posted:What about Ash? He's just an employee, an extension of the corporation. Lord Krangdar posted:I know you were speaking metaphorically, and I agree. The alien has never really symbolized the incomprehensible horrors of space (Prometheus actually did tackle that, though), it symbolizes something all-too human: sexual violence (filtered through nightmare imagery). In Covenant this metaphorical connection is made slightly more literal, since the Alien is born from David's perverse, sexually frustrated "love" for Shaw. But its all the same theme. Because now the alien's "made." By a humanesque android. It's not something that's "out there" in space. It's not even an "alien." It's just a bioengineered monster created by an evil scientist. We, as the audience, are not supposed to know or understand what it is or where it came from, as we sympathize with the crew, who is trapped between what they know and don't know. Space is big and dark and full of terrors that go out as far as the eye can see and our crew is trapped, isolated and alone, written off as expendable so their employer can profit. From here, the sexual violence of the xenomorph emerges, and impregnates our crew with the chestburster. To "fill in the gap" is to make Alien very much about something else entirely. The point is that the corporation is huge and vast and our crew and the audience very much don't see Weyland as anything other than a giant and faceless corporation. By giving them a face, and an evil one at that, it strips the audience from the understanding of Weyland as a generic corporation, and instead creates the possibility of a non-evil corporation because not every corporation could be headed up by an evil Weyland, right? It's a fundamental aspect to the anti-capitalist theme of the original Alien, that there isn't any actual character to Weyland. It's a big faceless corporation that exists to reap profits.
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May 24, 2017 00:12
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Didn't Burke put a face on Weyland in Aliens?
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May 24, 2017 00:16
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Taintrunner posted:I mean, close enough. Star Trek and Mass Effect get away with having humanoid aliens. My point being that it doesn't originate from something that could have been created by a human or a humanoid. Within the context of the original film, we do not know this. The way the eggs are laid out in the Engineer's ship almost suggest that they were cargo. (This would, in turn, make the Engineer yet another ordinary joe who died from his hazardous cargo.) Granted, we don't know that for certain, but there simply isn't enough evidence to say that the alien could not have originated from something created by a humanoid. Taintrunner posted:Because now the alien's "made." By a humanesque android. It's not something that's "out there" in space. It's not even an "alien." If the alien was "men's sexual insecurities and fear of rape manifesting in the infinite blackness of space" then it was never alien to begin with. It was always all too human. Schwarzwald fucked around with this message at 00:23 on May 24, 2017 |
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May 24, 2017 00:19
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