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RedSpider posted:Ridley Scott confirms the Engineers will be back for the sequel: I'm good with this. I'd love anything exploring a different facet of the mythology, at this point. I liked Covenant, and that argument about David as a sort of inverted Romantic hero is interesting, but I'm definitely a little frustrated by the need for these to be prequels. The plot of Alien handicaps the storytelling, because necessarily the colonists fail or the researchers vanish, since every film starts with new naive humans stumbling into a danger the last crew didn't report. It serves some general themes...the universe is cold and uncaring, the human pursuit of knowledge is hubristic, etc...but it genericizes the story and pushes the writing to this detached, ironic place. The scene where Oram blindly follows David to a facehugger sells what I mean. We know exactly what's going to happen, so David goading him becomes almost pithy or funny. It's Scott channeling the humor of Hannibal, an almost pulp-horror kind of sensibility. In a film set *after* Alien, the lack of plot constraint (that is, that clearly nobody has heard of or will survive the xenomorphs, because the Nostromo was also oblivious) might strip away some of that dramatic irony, and put the human characters on a similar plane with the audience. Or it might suck, but at least it'd be different. Xealot fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Jun 22, 2017 |
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Jun 22, 2017 00:21
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Yes. It's a homunculus. I was really happy with the music/everything about this scene. It's they got it to fit in so well when it was a last minute thing. Originally they had a more typical chesburster kind of creature pop out but it got laughed at for being too phallic no matter how they did it so they just said gently caress it.
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Jun 22, 2017 00:27
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A space alchemist gifts life to a tiny little man.
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Jun 22, 2017 00:28
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:A space alchemist gifts life to a tiny little man. So he's not actually Frankenstein then, he's Pretorius from Bride of Frankenstein.
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Jun 22, 2017 00:43
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Schwarzwald posted:“No-one actually asked where [the aliens] came from in the three subsequent movies, which is kind of ridiculous. That’s why good writers are good writers, they’ll ask a basic question like that and make that into a scenario.” -- Ridley Scott flickeringmyth I retract my argument.
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Jun 22, 2017 00:50
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Basebf555 posted:So he's not actually Frankenstein then, he's Pretorius from Bride of Frankenstein. Most definitely, there are a fair number of tragic queer Gothic villains but Pretorius always stands out for me because he just kicks rear end. He's so pleased with himself.
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Jun 22, 2017 00:55
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Guy A. Person posted:Lol nevermind I guess we can't discuss that in QCS Banning someone for characteristically using a supercilious tone is completely insane, what the gently caress
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Jun 22, 2017 01:05
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The discussion is ongoing in the genchat thread.
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Jun 22, 2017 01:06
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Basebf555 posted:So he's not actually Frankenstein then, he's Pretorius from Bride of Frankenstein. Peep the relationship between Pretorius/Frankenstein and Walter/David. Pretorius posted:To a new world of Gods and Monsters! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_Vi8LltUbI
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Jun 22, 2017 01:20
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Schwarzwald posted:I think the word you're looking for is manifest. The alien is a manifestation of the Nostromo crew's sexual issues. They are each destroyed by their particular hangups with their sexuality. - Kane does not practice safe sex and is possibly promiscuous. He is the first one to get up, the first to venture into the egg chamber, and carelessly sticks his face into an open egg. His life is destroyed by a sexual infestation and unwanted pregnancy. - Brett has feelings for his friend, Parker, but cannot bring himself to admit this. When he is confronted by the fully-grown alien he is transfixed and destroyed by the giant black cock before him. - Dallas is afraid of commitment; it's evident he cares for Ripley but their relationship is a friends-with-benefits situation at best. To him, becoming attached is like crawling into a deep, dark rabbit hole and never being able to come out - which is how he dies. - Ash cannot have sex - either because of dysfunction/disfigurement or he is so emotionally foreign to other people he cannot attract a partner. He admires the alien but it never comes for him. Rather, he self-destructs from his sexual repression in an eruption of his unused seed. - Parker's bravado makes him the manliest dude on the Nostromo, and it causes him to foolishly try to tackle the alien in order to rescue a woman. The alien shows him who's on top. - Lambert is so terrified of men that she can't resist entering an abusive relationship with a monster or try getting away - the alien slowly comes on to her with arms outstretched like it wants to give her a hug - and leaves it up to another man to try to rescue her. She is eventually raped to death. - It's difficult to pin down what Ripley's sexual anxieties might be, and that's probably the whole reason she's the lone survivor. Ripley is cool-headed but doesn't hide her emotions. She's assertive but not out to prove herself to anyone, she's feminine but not to please anyone. She's comfortable in her sexuality.
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Jun 22, 2017 03:34
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drat. I wanted to hear SMG's thoughts on the ending, since it thematically ends once they get off the planet. The entire sequence on the ship is superfluous and feels incredibly deliberately slasher-pastiche/parody (I can't tell which) which is so jarring after the rest of the movie and series. It could cut from them leaving to them being closed into the pods by "Walter" without any significant change whatsoever.
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Jun 22, 2017 03:53
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I find SMG quite often infuriating due to his tone but that seems a weird thing to ban over. If being an aggressive insulting know-it-all was bannable why is fishmech still haunting these forums? I'm guessing different forums and different mods with different tolerances.
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Jun 22, 2017 04:12
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Baronjutter posted:I find SMG quite often infuriating due to his tone but that seems a weird thing to ban over. If being an aggressive insulting know-it-all was bannable why is fishmech still haunting these forums? I'm guessing different forums and different mods with different tolerances. holy gently caress I would kill to see SMG get fishmeched
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Jun 22, 2017 09:51
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We will never know how SMG felt about the flute.
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Jun 22, 2017 10:35
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Tenzarin posted:We will never know how SMG felt about the flute. It's a penis. (For real, though, it first shows up in Prometheus as a tool an Engineer uses in the hologram David sees. David's ability to use it and to instruct Walter in *how* to use it serves as a shorthand for co-opting the procreative powers of the Gods. It's also useful in illustrating Walter's limitations. It's awkward and foreign for him to use, reflecting the behavioral barriers he has that David doesn't. On that level, it's actually literally a sexual object...the androids are typically sexless in Alien, but David isn't sexless, hence creating the monstrously sexualized xenomorph. In those scenes, he's basically teaching Walter how to gently caress. Or trying to.)
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Jun 23, 2017 01:22
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Speaking of the flute, the short little scene of ghost-Shaw singing in the cockpit is really good and creepy.
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Jun 23, 2017 01:41
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Yeah, I like how Scott keeps working pop music in some fashion into his film. Alien had "You Are My Lucky Star," so it has this cool Singin' in the Rain-connection with A Clockwork Orange. Prometheus had Idris Elba as a Stephen Stills fan spaceship captain, and now with Alien: Covenant we've moved onto the ghostly haunt of John Denver.
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Jun 23, 2017 01:48
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LORD OF BOOTY posted:holy gently caress I would kill to see SMG get fishmeched ur a weird dude
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Jun 23, 2017 02:01
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does smg know he can post again i need more
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Jun 23, 2017 03:53
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He's like SubG baby, in the wind. We'll not see his like again.
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Jun 23, 2017 04:08
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I would like to see if the assembly cut of Alien 3 is indeed awesome but I can't figure out how to get it. Is it on all blu-ray editions of Alien 3, or can I gently caress this up if I buy the wrong one? Amazon has stopped listing special features, near as I can tell.
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Jun 24, 2017 05:41
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Why cookie Rocket posted:I would like to see if the assembly cut of Alien 3 is indeed awesome but I can't figure out how to get it. Is it on all blu-ray editions of Alien 3, or can I gently caress this up if I buy the wrong one? Amazon has stopped listing special features, near as I can tell. If you're still wary, I've seen it for sale at Walmart for cheap: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Alien-3-Blu-ray-Widescreen/16203791#about-item
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Jun 24, 2017 06:09
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Jonah Galtberg posted:ur a weird dude what, because I think SMG attempting to debate the Ur-Sperg would be hilarious? yeah maybe
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Jun 24, 2017 08:21
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Why cookie Rocket posted:I would like to see if the assembly cut of Alien 3 is indeed awesome but I can't figure out how to get it. Is it on all blu-ray editions of Alien 3, or can I gently caress this up if I buy the wrong one? Amazon has stopped listing special features, near as I can tell. Xenomrph is right, any blu-ray of Alien 3 will have both versions. You may already own/have seen them, but I'd recommend getting the Alien Anthology blu-ray set. It's often on sale for $20 (sometimes even $15  ) and is the absolute comprehensive release of the first four Alien films. The standalone blu-rays are missing a lot of cool information, the making of documentary "Wreckage and Rape: The Making of Alien 3," concept art galleries, etc. stuff that's especially interesting in the case of Alien 3 because of how crazy its production was. Like you can own test footage of a whippet wearing a Giger-designed xenomorph outfit. Yes, for a brief point in time the Alien was going to literally look just as bad as the dogs dressed as "giant rats" in Deadly Eyes.If you can play blu-rays from other regions this Anthology is actually even cheaper: https://www.amazon.com/Alien-Anthology-Blu-ray/dp/B003AQBYUG/ref=tmm_mfc_title_2?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1498322298&sr=8-1
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Jun 24, 2017 17:44
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Neo Rasa posted:Xenomrph is right, any blu-ray of Alien 3 will have both versions.
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Jun 24, 2017 19:14
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K. Waste posted:Yeah, I like how Scott keeps working pop music in some fashion into his film. Alien had "You Are My Lucky Star," so it has this cool Singin' in the Rain-connection with A Clockwork Orange. Prometheus had Idris Elba as a Stephen Stills fan spaceship captain, and now with Alien: Covenant we've moved onto the ghostly haunt of John Denver. It was a terrible waste not to have them play "Please daddy, don't get drunk this Christmas", it being Christmas and all in Prometheus. It even has a paternal theme combo!
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Jun 24, 2017 19:30
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porfiria posted:He's like SubG baby, in the wind. I'm risen. Chapter 4: "A CASCADE OF LEGITIMATE AND BASTARD PROGENY" "A theory of distributive agency ... does not posit a subject as the root cause of an effect. There are instead always a swarm of vitalities at play. The task becomes to identify the contours of the swarm, and the kind of relations that obtain between its bits. [...] This understanding of agency does not deny the existence of that thrust called intentionality, but it does see it as less definitive of outcomes." -Jane Bennett "The problem is not how to reduce mind to neuronal activity, or replace the language of mind by that of brain processes, but rather to grasp how mind can emerge only from the network of social relations and material supplements. The real problem is not how, if at all, machines can imitate the human mind, but how the ‘identity’ of the human mind can incorporate machines." -Slavoj Zizek "See how Eve's ear inclines and hearkens to the voice of the deceiver when he hisses deceit to her. But come and see the Watcher, Gabriel, instilling salvation into Mary's ear and removing the insinuation of the serpent from her and consoling her. ... Instead of this virgin, Eve, another was chosen: truth was spoken to her in her ear from the Most High. By the door which death entered, by it too entered life and loosened the great bond which the evil one had bound there." -Jacob of Sarug The task assigned to you by Covenant is precisely this: to identify the contours of the swarm, the network of social relations and material supplements that gave birth to these events. After breaking the situation down and examining into all its complexity, it is necessary to brutally simplify things and perform the hard work of discerning their essential form - like Bruce Lee, expressing the utmost with the minimum. To repeat: there is no one explanation for what went wrong. There is no singular 'root cause' for the events of the film, but an ecology of causes - and in a film that riffs on Avatar, ecology is obviously a major concern. The creature that emerges is simultaneously a product of Ledward's psychotropic hallucination, and a case of mistaken identity from Maggie the panicked germophone, and Karine's encounter with a literal 'neomorphized human' that literally popped from Ledward's body after he unwittingly hosed an alien cloud. (And we should bear in mind that the rest of the colonists - including Walter - see only a garbled transmission, a raging inferno. They can only guess at what took place.) What we have in Covenant is a reversal of the parable of The Blind Men And The Elephant: everyone believes there is an elephant, but there is in fact only a rope, a sword, a fan.... ("The idea being that these dots on the screen, they’re quite insignificant. They’re featureless dots, they don’t really have a silhouette or shape per se".) But now we must connect the dots and to see what form this creature takes - bearing in mind that we cannot ever 'put the elephant back together again'. "As our Father Adam begot our mother without intercourse, so did Mary give birth, as Adam did before he had sinned. The Holy Spirit blew on Adam' face, and he gave birth to Eve; this Spirit too did Mary receive, and she gave birth to a Son." -Jacob of Sarug What unites these 'bits' is an ill wind, an (un)holy spirit. The cloud of spores, awakened by a burst of nicotine smoke, evinces a desire to explore, to take root, to modify its environment - obviously mimicking the colonists' actions after the neutrino burst. The point is not only that the swarm is a character, but that colonists themselves are an interconnected swarm that moves according to a collective spirit. Individual "deep" characterization is unimportant compared to group dynamics - the sum of (usually violent) interactions. To this end, breath is the central, recurring metaphor. Breath resonates inside a flute, produces rings of smoke, is forced into Oram's lungs by the pulsing air-sacs of the 'facehugger'.... In Covenant, we all but do away with the 'embryo' concept; Oram is effectively impregnated by the air itself. David is well aware of the parallels in Christianity. He revels in the vulgar literalization, as in the aforementioned Altered States. David 'plays god' the way Erich Kuersten describes that film: "like a child or fundamentalist might imagine the bible allegories". But David flips that criticism of Ken Russell into praise. All the quoting of classic literature is well and good, but Covenant does the good work of buggering these quotations with reference to shlock horror. That is the aim here: not to 'elevate' the slasher film, but to 'bastardize' Milton. "If Ken [Russell] was filming Eden he'd probably show Adam tearing out one of his own ribs and having a full grown woman morph out of the ensuing geyser of blood and latex." -Erich Kuersten The child-fundamentalist tearing out his rib is, of course, none other than Oram. Again, it is vital to keep in mind that violence is characterization: Oram, as a human being, is unconvincingly authoritative. Human-Oram speaks his disgust at the 'satanic' David, and acts under the expectation that Walter would appear and save him. The expected response to "O ye of little faith“ is for the disciples to voice their amazement: "What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the sea obey Him!" (Matthew 8:27 - emphasis on the wind.) But, thanks to David, Oram is overcome by the 'wind' and sheds his humanity (literally discards it, like a chrysalis) so that he can become a part of the grand design. The reversal of Oram's expectation is not that rescue never arrives, but that David is ultimately the one who provides 'salvation'. And so Oram kneels: the spirit is breathed into him, and he is 'born again' - but as what? It is hopefully clear that Covenant (formerly titled Paradise, then Paradise Lost) is not a straight adaptation of the Eden myth, or of Milton. David quotes Satan, but the act of quoting inherently distinguishes him from the character. There's far more ambiguity than people caught - a level of self-awareness and of mockery. There is mockery of, for example, Walter's belief that corporate-dominated Earth is 'heavenly' - James Cameron's insistence that we could 'build better worlds', if not for that pesky alien. David is seeking to build a better world, but what we have in Covenant is the Eden myth in reverse: David is not at all seeking to corrupt Paradise, but to create it. Hence, the satire of Avatar. The most effective takedown of that film is the simple observation is that it's a Jurassic World, a zoo without fences, possible because all the animals are biological animatronics puppeteered by a central AI. Its paradise of sexy alien natives in perfect harmony with nature can only exist as a staged fake, a virtual reality. It can only exist by covering up the inevitable byproducts. David simply removes the ideological mystification and makes it clear that there is no 'nature', no natural balance. If Mother is to exist, she must be a corporation's AI, and David's Pandora is (or will be, implicitly) a grotesque parody. Covenant extends the alienation of the original film into the popular topic of 'The Anthropocene'. Specifically, it is about the paradox where "[humanity] was able to dream of being a Subject only until its influence on nature (earth) was no longer marginal, i.e., only against the background of a stable nature." (Zizek) Now the dream is over, and the insect is awake: we are not free agents in a stable environment external to us. We are caught up in an alien ecology. Even our bodies are foreign to us, and our actions are not our own. David revels in how "any action is always a trans-action, and any act is really but an initiative that gives birth to a cascade of legitimate and bastard progeny.” (Bennett) So, again, the ambiguity of David's 'totalitarian' plan is that the resulting awareness of our mutability has a liberating potential. We can be aware of how the state of our bodies and minds are (for example) determined by our access to healthcare - and our access to healthcare is determined by our class. The kingdom of heaven, the dictatorship of the proletariat, is immanent in this and any film. The holy spirit is discernible in it. So, although Daniels fails, her failure can and must serve as an example. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Jun 24, 2017 |
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Jun 24, 2017 20:53
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I liked you better with your Elaine avatar.
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Jun 24, 2017 21:19
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God bless you SMG. God bless us everyone.
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Jun 24, 2017 21:20
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david_a posted:The UK version works fine in US players. I bought my set from Amazon UK because there was some sale that somehow made it like 1/4 the total price to get it shipped from over there instead of buying it from US Amazon. Ditto, I've I picked up the UK release when it first came out because it was significantly cheaper than the US release.
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Jun 24, 2017 22:30
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:I'm risen. Please don't get banned again. Or at least not until you finish.
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Jun 24, 2017 22:53
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THE BAR posted:I liked you better with your Elaine avatar. The Elaine one is the best one.
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Jun 24, 2017 23:01
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I was rather taken with John Hammond too though
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Jun 24, 2017 23:14
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SMG, you're an interesting dude, and I'm glad you walk among us.
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Jun 25, 2017 10:38
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Ridley Scott should just make a Darkseed movie instead featuring David fighting Mike Dawson.
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Jun 25, 2017 11:20
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Looks like the next Alien movie got the green light from Fox. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWxDGO_9ZPg
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Jun 25, 2017 13:32
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SUNKOS posted:Looks like the next Alien movie got the green light from Fox. poo poo, really? It must have lost money with all that marketing.
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Jun 25, 2017 13:45
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I wonder what kind of budget he'll get though. Prometheus had $130 million, Covenant had $97 million. Maybe they figure if he can deliver a movie that looks that good for so little then it's not as big a deal. Or after Fantastic Four and X-Men: Apocalypse's reception they're happy with their franchise films making any money at all instead of canning anything that doesn't break a billion dollars. Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 13:58 on Jun 25, 2017 |
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Jun 25, 2017 13:55
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I mean you can write a script without a green light. So nothing is in stone.
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Jun 25, 2017 15:52
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A new Alien movie is inevitable. Covenant is divisive but it's not a bafflingly awful Terminator Salvation situation where the franchise gets put on hold for years. But it will be interesting to see what the final movie is like vs. what he's saying now about how it will concern the folks who created the Engineers/humanity, a new group of humans, etc. all converging to investigate wtf happened with this colony ship. It will never happen but it would even make sense in setting to have them be huge elephant god dudes. I'm just hoping if they do show them they're just not even bigger humans or something since Prometheus already covered frost giant/titan/etc. "a huge perfect human died and that's how humanity came to be" imagery very effectively. The general story seen from Prometheus through Covenant began life as one single script, so whenever it does come out I'm excited to see where they go from here or if they ignore it. Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Jun 25, 2017 |
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Jun 25, 2017 16:38
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