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Every time I rewatch Alien I re-remember how much of the movie is actually spent on that cat. Hard to imagine people who hate Prometheus because the characters don't carry out the optimal space mission manage to make it through the original film.
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Jul 16, 2017 04:20
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Alien (1979): A cat avoids trouble aboard a spaceship.
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Jul 16, 2017 04:23
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Remember when Harry Dean Stanton wandered off and got killed while failing to search for a cat, even though he had access to a motion detector that's specifically designed to track cat-sized things? He wanted to kill the cat, and therefor was a bad character who should not have been written.
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Jul 16, 2017 05:08
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To be fair he didn't fail to find the cat. He totally found that cat. He just found the cat's new buddy at the same time.
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Jul 16, 2017 05:12
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The best anecdote from the Alien Quadrilogy documentaries is about one of the production people watching it in a theater when it was just coming out, and during the climax apparently some really tense guy shouted "Leave the loving cat!"
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Jul 16, 2017 05:36
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Enjoy the direction the Alien prequels are taking on themes of life, evolution, death, and creation now while you can; because once Ridley Scott dies, you can bet 20th Century Fox is going to push out Xenomorphs vs Space Marines every few years for the mindless masses and fanboys out there.
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Jul 16, 2017 05:51
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Not if they get the guy who did Predators.
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Jul 16, 2017 05:54
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Just finished watching Alien (directors cut) and I never noticed the alien smacking Jonesy's cage out of the way after it looks him over. I always thought it just looked him over and then it cuts to Ripley, but right before the cut it smacks the poo poo out of that cage. Also just read this quote from Ridley that's just absolutely wonderful. I love that he was excited to gross out Giger. quote:"At one stage, I wanted to have a kind of subtle movement in the creature's brain, so I thought maybe we could fill a pocket in the cranium with white maggots and let them crawl around in there. Even Giger went 'Eeyuk!' at the one. But I decided to try it, so I had these huge tins of maggots brought in. We couldn't make it work, though, because the heat from the lights would put the bloody things to sleep and they'd just lie there like spaghetti. We tried using Spanish fish -- which look kind of like wireworms -- but they went to sleep, too. So finally I had to give up..." e: why hasn't there been an Art of Ridley Scott book released? His storyboards are loving sick. This guys Instagram account has a good collection of them. http://instagram.com/moonwaver ruddiger fucked around with this message at 06:08 on Jul 16, 2017 |
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Jul 16, 2017 06:01
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One of the channels was having an Alien marathon, including the Directors cut. I had forgotten how sloppy the cut was from Ash's dummy-head to Ian Holm's head-through a hole. One second it's clearly a dummy head, there's a couple frames of black, then it's the actor. Very jarring.
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Jul 16, 2017 15:54
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Ridley's impression of that is hilarious, I don't know how to find it other than on the making of. 
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Jul 16, 2017 19:16
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SolarFire2 posted:One of the channels was having an Alien marathon, including the Directors cut. I had forgotten how sloppy the cut was from Ash's dummy-head to Ian Holm's head-through a hole. One second it's clearly a dummy head, there's a couple frames of black, then it's the actor. Very jarring. The best part is the reason it's so jarring is because they couldn't go back and shoot it and make it look better, they loving burned the only copy of it they had.
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Jul 16, 2017 20:35
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K. Waste posted:Not if they get the guy who did Predators. Why is that?
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Jul 16, 2017 21:45
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RedSpider posted:Why is that? Because the realm of good filmmaking isn't limited to Ridley Scott and Predators is really good?
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Jul 16, 2017 22:00
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I just saw Gone Baby Gone for the first time so I'll say that good filmmaking is limited to that movie.
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Jul 16, 2017 22:03
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K. Waste posted:Because the realm of good filmmaking isn't limited to Ridley Scott Nice strawman. K. Waste posted:and Predators is really good? lol (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jul 16, 2017 22:24
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RedSpider posted:Nice strawman. The gamut of the internet all in one post. Nice.
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Jul 16, 2017 23:03
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Predators is pretty good.
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Jul 16, 2017 23:09
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Ferrinus posted:Why does a character being unlucky "feel cheap"? It's predictable and boring, save for half second shot of the helmet melting onto the dude's face which was pretty neat (but then disappears) but then he comes back as a mongoloid super zombie to thin out the cast with some lame kills. SuperMechagodzilla posted:Remember when Harry Dean Stanton wandered off and got killed while failing to search for a cat, even though he had access to a motion detector that's specifically designed to track cat-sized things? That part when he's told by his superiors to gently caress off and find the cat because he didn't grab it the first time and when they took the only scanner they had to continue looking for the Alien, hence the whole point of the scanners? When they use the scene to slowly build up the tension of the big reveal of the Alien? I remember that. In Prometheus we get a scene that shows us what the opening scene shows us, black goop reforms living DNA into new stuff and we're presented with... a white snake that bleeds blood and can instantly reform itself (an ability never revisited again) and payoff from that is a space zombie. Ho hum. I love that everyone is getting defensive about someone criticizing a script written by two dude's who haven't written a good script like this is some bizarro, contrarian opinion that isn't already all over the internet. I like Prometheus and enjoy watching it, plot twist, but that's mostly due to the visuals.
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Jul 17, 2017 05:31
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Today I watched Alien: Covenant and it was aggressively mediocre, despite some really cool and interesting design.
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Jul 17, 2017 05:56
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s.i.r.e. posted:I love that everyone is getting defensive about someone criticizing a script written by two dude's who haven't written a good script like this is some bizarro, contrarian opinion that isn't already all over the internet. Lindelof wrote plenty of good scripts for The Leftovers. Obviously there would be less point to defending a film that was already widely accepted as good.
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Jul 17, 2017 05:57
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s.i.r.e. posted:That part when he's told by his superiors to gently caress off and find the cat because he didn't grab it the first time and when they took the only scanner they had to continue looking for the Alien. That's really dumb of them
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Jul 17, 2017 05:57
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s.i.r.e. posted:It's predictable and boring, save for half second shot of the helmet melting onto the dude's face which was pretty neat (but then disappears) but then he comes back as a mongoloid super zombie to thin out the cast with some lame kills. He's introduced as an expert, people bitch about how unlikely an expert geologist getting lost is, yet somehow it's also completely predictable that he does get lost. How's that cake you're eating? quote:That part when he's told by his superiors to gently caress off and find the cat because he didn't grab it the first time and when they took the only scanner they had to continue looking for the Alien, hence the whole point of the scanners? When they use the scene to slowly build up the tension of the big reveal of the Alien? In the script they don't split up, which would be the smart thing to do. But, y'know, Ridley changed it because tactical realism doesn't mean poo poo when it comes to artistically constructing a scene. Just like Pr*metheus. But you enjoy your cake. ruddiger fucked around with this message at 07:07 on Jul 17, 2017 |
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Jul 17, 2017 06:46
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s.i.r.e. posted:It's predictable and boring, save for half second shot of the helmet melting onto the dude's face which was pretty neat (but then disappears) but then he comes back as a mongoloid super zombie to thin out the cast with some lame kills. That's definitely false. If it was predictable and boring then you wouldn't get this endless furor and confusion over the mapmaker getting lost. People aren't like "oh of course the dramatically ironic thing happens  " they're like "zuhh?? bwaahhh???? but the script SAID-"
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Jul 17, 2017 07:32
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Ferrinus posted:That's definitely false. If it was predictable and boring then you wouldn't get this endless furor and confusion over the mapmaker getting lost. People aren't like "oh of course the dramatically ironic thing happens I will say that I too was disappointed that the melted-in helmet didn't figure more in Fifield's Final Form design, just based on how amazingly horrible the melting shot looked.
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Jul 17, 2017 07:43
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Shanty posted:I will say that I too was disappointed that the melted-in helmet didn't figure more in Fifield's Final Form design, just based on how amazingly horrible the melting shot looked.
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Jul 17, 2017 16:11
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s.i.r.e. posted:It's predictable and boring, save for half second shot of the helmet melting onto the dude's face which was pretty neat (but then disappears) but then he comes back as a mongoloid super zombie to thin out the cast with some lame kills. What you're now doing is simply describing scenes in Prometheus, and then stating that they are lame, boring, or ho hum. There's no other argument being presented at all, aside from an appeal to the consensus of "the internet". Yes, a guy comes back as a space zombie after being killed by a snake that bleeds blood(?) and can instantly reform itself. How any of that is bad is something that is left completely untouched by your post, there isn't any argument offered whatsoever.
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Jul 17, 2017 16:29
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Shanty posted:I will say that I too was disappointed that the melted-in helmet didn't figure more in Fifield's Final Form design, just based on how amazingly horrible the melting shot looked. Ersatz posted:Yeah, that seems like a missed opportunity.  I think that shot works better as a repetition of the motif running throughout Scott's alien films, which is of the particular fear of suffocation - the facehugger; Ash with the rolled up magazine; and now the visceral image of Fifield's helmet melting onto his face, simultaneously burning him horrifically but also forming over his mouth; and also the scene of David trying to calm the Neomorph, whose mouth is more of an aperture or anal-like orifice. This is why the criticism of the film's 'mundane' explanation of the aliens' origins are misguided. It looks past the straightforward progression in the use of this stock character to explore the common themes of the films in more nuanced ways. In Alien: Covenant, you are presented with the scenario that the xenomorph is just a scared infant, like It's Alive. The Neomorph is characterized as suffocating.
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Jul 17, 2017 16:39
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ruddiger posted:He's introduced as an expert, people bitch about how unlikely an expert geologist getting lost is, yet somehow it's also completely predictable that he does get lost. How's that cake you're eating? Him being a geologist and an expert has nothing to do with it. And yes, him making poor decisions leading to his death is predictable; this is a horror staple that's been run into the ground. You can question a character's actions while still knowing it's just poor set-up to get them killed. Ferrinus posted:That's definitely false. If it was predictable and boring then you wouldn't get this endless furor and confusion over the mapmaker getting lost. Do people not discuss predictable, boring or generally bad things now? Or does discussing something make it inherently good? The Plinkett Star Wars reviews are discussions about the confusions presented in the prequel trilogy and I don't think anyone will argue that those films are good. I wonder why they didn't keep this going for the rest of the design.
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Jul 17, 2017 17:42
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s.i.r.e. posted:The Plinkett Star Wars reviews are discussions about the confusions presented in the prequel trilogy and I don't think anyone will argue that those films are good. In continuation of a trend, you'd be wrong about that.
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Jul 17, 2017 17:44
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s.i.r.e. posted:Do people not discuss predictable, boring or generally bad things now? Or does discussing something make it inherently good? The Plinkett Star Wars reviews are discussions about the confusions presented in the prequel trilogy and I don't think anyone will argue that those films are good. I mean, if the movie had been released last week and you were just offering a simple review, sure that stuff is fine. But we're years down the line here, and it's kind of expected that a discussion of Prometheus is going to involve more than that. It's been established that you think it was boring and predictable, either add something more to that or just let it go.
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Jul 17, 2017 17:45
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s.i.r.e. posted:Him being a geologist and an expert has nothing to do with it. And yes, him making poor decisions leading to his death is predictable; this is a horror staple that's been run into the ground. You can question a character's actions while still knowing it's just poor set-up to get them killed. The million page Star Wars thread is right over there, where dozens of posters regularly defend the prequels. I think they're pretty good, which is about as good as Star Wars has ever been.
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Jul 17, 2017 18:27
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I really dislike the Star Wars prequels, and didn't like A:C nearly as much as Prometheus (never mind Alien)... but just posting a slightly longer version of LULZ SUXXORZ over and over is just dumb and boring.
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Jul 17, 2017 18:34
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DeimosRising posted:The million page Star Wars thread is right over there, where dozens of posters regularly defend the prequels. I think they're pretty good, which is about as good as Star Wars has ever been. I think that's the thing, I don't think ESB is so good it can't even be compared to other films. It's not really that precious.
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Jul 17, 2017 18:46
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A New Hope is more than just pretty good. Selling that crazy world while constantly being engaging and moving forward, without ever laboring through the exposition because they sell so much through that fantastic production design, is legitimately a feat. The others vary from fine to pretty good, but the first is a great film.
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Jul 17, 2017 18:56
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Put on Alien resurrection last night while I was noodling around on the guitar and found out Tuco from breaking bad/better call Saul is in it. That and short hair Winona Ryder made up for how crappy the rest of it was. Just watched covenant for the first time and it's made me go back and watch all the alien moves again.
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Jul 17, 2017 19:02
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s.i.r.e. posted:Do people not discuss predictable, boring or generally bad things now? Or does discussing something make it inherently good? The Plinkett Star Wars reviews are discussions about the confusions presented in the prequel trilogy and I don't think anyone will argue that those films are good. What I'm saying is that your immediate shift from "this doesn't make any sense" to "pffft, how... boring. how... generic. how... unearned. how... cliched. how... predictable. how... simplistic. how... every other contentless mildly negative word I can come up with. how...uninspired. how... overrated. how-" is just a rhetorical tactic designed to prevent your opponents from scoring points rather than an honest attempt to describe the movie.
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Jul 17, 2017 19:03
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K. Waste posted:
Something I didn't notice about that until looking at the still but, at least in that shot, it evokes imagery of the human skull underneath the xenomorph's translucent dome in Alien, which is pretty neat. You can see they were really trying to make that connection in the deleted version of the sequence where Fifield attacks the ship.
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Jul 17, 2017 19:12
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K. Waste posted:
Consider this post a prologue to Chapter 6.
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Jul 17, 2017 19:19
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Consider this post a prologue to huffing my own sweet, sweet farts.
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Jul 17, 2017 19:42
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Basebf555 posted:I mean, if the movie had been released last week and you were just offering a simple review, sure that stuff is fine. But we're years down the line here, and it's kind of expected that a discussion of Prometheus is going to involve more than that. It's been established that you think it was boring and predictable, either add something more to that or just let it go. Do you think anyone would be discussing it if Alien: Covenant wasn't just released and/or because it's tied to the Alien series? You don't have to read or reply to my opinion if you don't want to. DeimosRising posted:The million page Star Wars thread is right over there, where dozens of posters regularly defend the prequels. I think they're pretty good, which is about as good as Star Wars has ever been. I'll save this thread from discussing that, but yikes. Ferrinus posted:They do, but they don't regard the crucially important and utterly central "Fifeld and Millburn happen to get lost" plot point as though it were predictable or boring. They discuss it as an irreconcilable anomaly completely out of kilter with everything else in the film which calls Prometheus's status as science fiction as opposed to some kind of dadaist installation into question. On the SomethingAwful Forums? Do you remember what most of the posts were around the time of Prometheus' release or hell even A:C? Most were quick, "Film sucked/owned" posts. I don't think you'll be getting any of that discussion for any film in this series with this thread dying out unless it's another SMG post. I'll leave it at that though.
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Jul 17, 2017 20:07
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