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EmptyVessel posted:Hmmmm. The SMG AI is the ultimate killing machine, an artificial kaiju trained on the only material available on the subject: film. Typologically he is a xenomorph.
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Jan 13, 2021 16:33
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Xenomrph posted:The Marines don’t bring any specialized equipment because they think Ripley is full of poo poo, and assume their gear can handle anything. He's just talking about the movie. Its ok. Relax. EmptyVessel posted:Hmmmm. SMG is more like David. SHISHKABOB fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Jan 13, 2021 |
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Jan 13, 2021 16:40
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Hodgepodge posted:The SMG AI is the ultimate killing machine, an artificial kaiju trained on the only material available on the subject: film. Typologically he is a xenomorph. You're too obviously a company man, and therefore inherently untrustworthy.
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Jan 13, 2021 16:40
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SHISHKABOB posted:He's just talking about the movie. Its ok. Relax.  vSuch is the SMG way, it’s why I generally don’t engage with him. No worries 
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Jan 13, 2021 16:54
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SHISHKABOB posted:SMG is more like David. Willfully going against his creator's intent? Beheaded for his hubris? Willing to vivisect his saviour? Forced to create his own monsters due to a perceived lack? Okay.
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Jan 13, 2021 17:06
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Xenomrph posted:When his thesis is based on imagined parts of the movie or omit details that happened, then he kinda isn’t. v It's more fun, IMO, to engage in good faith. It doesn't hurt anybody. You can't get hurt by a troll on the internet. If someone makes a factual error, then it can be corrected, and the course of conversation flows around that. Saying that Bishop is the face of the WY Company in Aliens isn't a factual error, it's a thematic interpretation of the movie. I guess it doesn't count, because it's from another movie, but Prometheus and Alien: Covenant get really blatant about how each movie's respective android is a sort of liaison between humans and the Company. The fact that Bishop may be owned by the military and is a part of their structure strengthens the idea that he's a liaison between normal human beings and the corporate body of Weyland-Yutani.
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Jan 13, 2021 17:09
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SHISHKABOB posted:It's more fun, IMO, to engage in good faith. It doesn't hurt anybody. You can't get hurt by a troll on the internet. If someone makes a factual error, then it can be corrected, and the course of conversation flows around that. It’s not that he’s making mistakes, everyone does that, the problem IMO is not acknowledging those mistakes. quote:The fact that Bishop may be owned by the military and is a part of their structure strengthens the idea that he's a liaison between normal human beings and the corporate body of Weyland-Yutani. More interesting points re: Bishop is what does he say about “racism” (species-ism?) w/r/t Ripley’s initial reaction to him - is she hostile to him because he’s a robot, or because she thinks his being a robot represents an inherently hostile element of the Company (and she assumes all robots are from the Company)? Or something else entirely? Does she distrust robots specifically because Ash attacked her and it’s a form of PTSD, or does she feel all robots are inherently untrustworthy because they can be “compromised” by malicious programming? Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 17:51 on Jan 13, 2021 |
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Jan 13, 2021 17:27
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EmptyVessel posted:You're too obviously a company man, and therefore inherently untrustworthy. You might say I'm more of the sort for parties, if anything. Fortunately you don't need to trust me and probably shouldn't as I am definitely a goon.
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Jan 13, 2021 17:31
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Xenomrph posted:I just started reading Starfish about a month ago with the intent to read the whole trilogy, so welp. My guy, Behemoth (no I'm not gonna track down the unicode to do his devastatingly-clever greek lettering gag) is one of the worst scifi novels I've ever been exposed to. It takes a special talent to marry that much apocalyptic misery porn with a level of stemlord technofetishism approaching religious ecstasy.
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Jan 13, 2021 18:44
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Yikes. I was going to read it because I absolutely loved the video game Soma, and the developers cited the Rifters trilogy as an inspiration.
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Jan 13, 2021 19:03
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Xenomrph posted:I agree with some of what you’re saying but not all of it, but I’m not here to debate the merits of SMG’s posts or waste my time endlessly fact-checking him. There are plenty of other posters saying interesting things about the movie. If anything I’ve written is untrue or inaccurate, it should be very easy for you to point it out. For the time being, your ‘fact-checks’ are for things that were never claimed. For example, you’ve insisted that Bishop was not confirmed to have been built by the Weyland-Yutani corporation in this film. That’s true, but it’s also rebutting something that was never asserted at any point. As a contrast, you’ve written many things that are straight-up counterfactual: Hicks didn’t read the mission briefing, Hicks doesn’t know what the acid is, Ripley tells Bishop to stop helping Burke, Bishop stops helping Burke because Ripley tells him to, etc. These are imagined scenes that are either the opposite of what occurs in the film, or are invented wholesale. There is, objectively, no scene in the movie where Ripley tells Bishop anything of the sort. There’s even diegetic video footage of Hicks pointing to the acid damage and saying ‘this is the acid described in the mission briefing I read’. There’s also just weak speculation, like that Bishop wanted to destroy the specimens but got lazy and just left them lying around, under the assumption that they would eventually be destroyed by the reactor meltdown. Nothing like that is shown in the film. One obvious reason things are going wrong is that, by your own admission, you are responding to my writing before understanding it. But you’re also just beginning with certain vaguely-accurate conclusions about the characters (Bishop is nice, the marines are ignorant, etc.) and working backwards from there. So you imagine scenes where Hicks doesn’t know what an alien is, and where Bishop tries to blow up the facehuggers. That’s something that’s come up much earlier in the thread: because Aliens Ripley is a dockworker, and the movie ends with the facility blowing up, it’s imagined that this Ripley is some kind of anarcho-communist revolutionary. In actuality, she’s heading home to get a job working for Weyland-Yutani. It would be nice if it were true, but Ripley’s politics in that film are far more moderate. Many people remember Ripley nuking the colony, when Vasquez was the one who actually destroyed the fusion reactor - and it was an accident. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Jan 13, 2021 |
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Jan 13, 2021 19:11
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Xenomrph posted:That works when both parties are engaging in good faith, though. I don't think Ripley is droid-racist per se, just like given what went down in Alien and then the specific mission and destination of the Sulaco and them not telling her ahead of time. Her reaction is pretty reasonable to me. I know she tells Bishop to keep away from her but in the heat of the moment of the scene she seemed angrier with Burke more for not just letting her know. It definitely struck me as more of a suspicion of what Bishop in particular is programmed to do than of droids in general. That said going by Hudson/etc. I assume generally droids aren't thought of as sentient at all in the setting? They strike me as like the replicants from Blade Runner where if they're like that by design but to be able to work and function like a human they're advanced enough that without a hard limit on their lifespan they would develop and mature to have a more independent personality.
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Jan 13, 2021 19:22
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I guess my thinking is, do Ripley’s actions end up making her a droid racist whether she intends to or not? To use an analogy, if I get attacked by a black guy and then view all black people as a threat, that’s pretty racist. I’m hadn’t even thought of Hudson’s casual “racism” in thinking Bishop is disposable or otherwise less than the rest of the humans. Like I know “are androids sentient and deserve equal treatment” are basic Asimov sci-fi tropes (and Cameron likely recognized that since Bishop references the Three Laws), but it’s still interesting. Tangentially, Bishop recognizes that he’s not human, but does he view himself as lesser, equal to, or greater than humans? David definitely views himself as greater than, for example.
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Jan 13, 2021 19:57
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:
I dont think Ripley came out of cryo and immediately started asking marines if they were gonna kill all the aliens no. That would be kinda weird when as far as shes aware its implied. After their initial contact where 90% of the squad is wiped out the plan is to nuke everything with no marines objecting. Burke at that point makes it clear extermination is not his plan and the marines tell him to gently caress off. After their ship crashes their main concern is survival. Bishop is told by Burke "dont kill the eggs I'm taking them to the company" and that's the last interaction Bishop has with Burke or anything else before being sent off to get ship #2. Later when Ripley tells the marines about Burkes plan to smuggle aliens via impregnation/sabotage their response is to just kill him. (Gorman doesnt object even if hes now technically back in charge) Nothing about Burkes plan requires Bishop or anyone else unless you want to argue weather Burke himself can carry 2 50 gallon aquariums of facehuggers onto the ship solo. Nothing in his plan requires marines. Burkes plan to keep the eggs secret is to keep them secret from the quarantine people which is apparently voluntary. This is the conversation. Ripley: you're going to smuggle weapons across the border? How? Burke: lol. im just not going to tell the border agent they're in my gas tank.
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Jan 13, 2021 20:02
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Xenomrph posted:I guess my thinking is, do Ripley’s actions end up making her a droid racist whether she intends to or not? To use an analogy, if I get attacked by a black guy and then view all black people as a threat, that’s pretty racist. Going by Alien 3 and the line "Not bad, for a human," and him talking about how much better he is than the line of droids Ash was, to me he generally sees himself as such a particularly top of the line droid that he's greater than many humans. But it also makes Ripley's distrust more understandable too, Bishop mentions that what Ash went through was a malfunction typical of that series, and it WAS because he very unnaturally flips the gently caress out. But that was triggered by his wanting to keep them from succeeding at killing/spacing the alien, which no one takes Ripley seriously about even existing.
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Jan 13, 2021 20:49
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banned from Starbucks posted:I dont think Ripley came out of cryo and immediately started asking marines if they were gonna kill all the aliens no. I'm talking about, like, before she even gets on the ship. Like, just asking Gorman for reassurance or something. You're right that the movie just jumps from crisis to crisis, and the breakneck pace prevents both the characters and audience from asking questions But that's part of its sleight-of-hand. Here's a concrete example: the first time Burke meets Ripley in her apartment, to tell her about the mission, Gorman is with him. Later, when Burke assures her that they won't collect specimens, Gorman is obviously absent. Then we skip directly to Ripley already on the ship, approaching the planet. Realistically, Ripley must have spoken to Gorman (or somebody with the military) at some point before getting into a pod next to him, but the movie just sidesteps that conversation. We never figure out the military's official stance on the aliens. That part of their characterization is just absent. I suppose the best explanation is that Burke was not, initially, lying: the mission is to wipe out the bugs, and he came along with the aim of just covering up his role in the incident. But, Burke got greedy when he saw these million-dollar aliens conveniently pre-packaged for him in tubes. Even though the mission was under military jurisdiction, he could use his authority with the company as leverage to expand the mission parameters somewhat. Maybe bribe the marines? "If you're smart, we can both come out of this heroes, and we will be set up for life." But here's a very important detail: Ripley: He figured that he could get an alien back through quarantine, if one of us was... impregnated, whatever you call it, and then frozen for the trip home. Nobody would know about the embryos we were carrying, me and Newt. Hicks: Wait a minute, now. We'd all know. Ripley: Yes. The only way he could do it is if he sabotaged certain freezers on the way home. Namely yours. Then he could jettison the bodies and make up any story he liked. These lines strongly imply that the marines are under orders not to allow any alien materials to be brought back. Burke clearly expected disgruntled employee Ripley to help him, which turned out to be a mistake. So that leaves the question of why Bishop complies - and you presumably can't bribe Bishop. (We should note, though, that Ripley's version of the plan doesn't altogether make sense. Even if they kill all the marines, she would know about the embryos. Do they really put people through quarantine without even waking them up?) SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Jan 13, 2021 |
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Jan 13, 2021 21:04
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It's probably easier to put people through the quarantine period while they're still out, and cheaper.
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Jan 13, 2021 21:19
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Leavemywife posted:It's probably easier to put people through the quarantine period while they're still out, and cheaper. And the quarantine specifically doesn't check people for illnesses, alien parasites, etc? It kinda makes sense if "quarantine" is actually future-speak for "customs", but then it seems like a pretty obvious gap in security if you can just hide contraband inside the pods.
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Jan 13, 2021 21:31
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:I'm talking about, like, before she even gets on the ship. Like, just asking Gorman for reassurance or something. We are only ever shown the military through Gorman and the Marines. Noone higher up the chain than a lieutenant. The marines offical stance is to shoot bugs and gently caress space pussy. Gormans, from what we can deduce from Burke specifically bringing him along as the new Lieutenant, is to make Major. What seems to be implied is that the deal he makes with Ripley (a boost up the ladder career wise) is prob similar to what he uses with Gorman. Gorman is officially in charge but if Burke smells an opportunity he can prob nudge him into doing whatever as long as it doesnt kill marines. This plan backfires twice when Gorman is knocked unconscious and then later fails to retake command from Hicks. In between is when he tries to use bishop who then rats him out to Ripley. Bishop is just kinda there doing his own thing. The APC driver doesnt even drive the APC to the rescue mission. (Who does? No clue.) Hes just off dissecting facehuggers. I dont even think hes at the initial briefing. We have no clue how in the loop he even is so we cant really say to what degree he has to follow the [kill everything] mandate when hes not even part of the combat element. If he is acting on Burkes orders he doesnt seem to care about abandoning them or they don't supersede his not letting humans get killed through omission program since he volunteers to go pilot down the ship. banned from Starbucks fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Jan 13, 2021 |
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Jan 13, 2021 21:48
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:(We should note, though, that Ripley's version of the plan doesn't altogether make sense. Even if they kill all the marines, she would know about the embryos. Do they really put people through quarantine without even waking them up?) It seems like the the quarantine thing is strictly on the honor system. Like just saying "nope nothing weird or possibly contagious happened." Is good enough to just bypass it. Burke even says they wont do anything if noone specifically tells them to look for stuff. So sailing through customs with them still in cryo could work.
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Jan 13, 2021 22:06
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Bishop “drives” the APC in the same sense that he flies the drop ship - he knows how to do it and likely does it for loading and mission prep, but based on how Ripley just sits down and goes it’s likely pretty intuitive.
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Jan 13, 2021 22:10
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I was just rereading Aliens: Music of the Spears, and I thought about how many movie monsters have ripped off the sound design for the xenomorph. It's honestly pretty loving annoying, and I feel like when I see a big monster in a movie I can often predict exactly what it will sound like. Who decided that if a monster doesn't resemble a common animal, or even if it does, it should emit a high-pitched shrieking noise?
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Jan 13, 2021 22:11
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Xenomrph posted:Bishop “drives” the APC in the same sense that he flies the drop ship - he knows how to do it and likely does it for loading and mission prep, but based on how Ripley just sits down and goes it’s likely pretty intuitive. The power loader seems pretty intuitive too. It stills seems odd that he just peaces out and makes someone else drive to the power plant. Technically according to canon Ripley should be able to pilot the dropship if she can pilot the Betty in A:R
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Jan 13, 2021 22:26
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banned from Starbucks posted:The power loader seems pretty intuitive too. It stills seems odd that he just peaces out and makes someone else drive to the power plant. Technically according to canon Ripley should be able to pilot the dropship if she can pilot the Betty in A:R The loader seems intuitive, but apparently you need/can get “ratings” to drive them, for what that’s worth. As for him not driving, we see him and Spunkmeyer doing whatever in the medical lab, I assume that them and Ferro were on standby and doing busywork to “set up a command center” in the Colony proper. Bishop isn’t a combat unit so it makes sense to not send him into a potential combat zone (although it makes one question why Ripley and Burke were brought into one, unless they just agreed/insisted that they go). Side note, this is EU stuff but The Weyland Yutani Report and USCM Tech Manual point out that Bishop actually observed all of the events at the hatchery when the Marines get massacred - the helmet cams and audio were also being transmitted back to the colony and Bishop watched the whole thing, as well as it being transmitted back to the Sulaco.
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Jan 13, 2021 22:35
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my dumb read on Bishop is that's he's just straight-up subservient to humans. if Newt gave him an order he'd probably follow it. edit: lance henriksen is the coolest. i wish we got more Millennium alf_pogs fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Jan 13, 2021 |
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Jan 13, 2021 22:38
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For what it’s worth Im pretty sure his “not bad for a human” line was meant ironically and in jest, not because he genuinely thinks humans are trash. If David said the same line, that would be a different story. It’s also a great line (especially given what just happened, and Bishop’s state when he says it), and it’s also the title of Lance Henriksen’s autobiography. 
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Jan 13, 2021 22:47
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Xenomrph posted:Side note, this is EU stuff but The Weyland Yutani Report and USCM Tech Manual point out that Bishop actually observed all of the events at the hatchery when the Marines get massacred - the helmet cams and audio were also being transmitted back to the colony and Bishop watched the whole thing, as well as it being transmitted back to the Sulaco. So what's he doing when the evacuation order is given over the radio? His character seems to just be "around when we need him and conveniently gone when we dont" which makes the entire conversation around him kinda pointless.
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Jan 13, 2021 22:50
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banned from Starbucks posted:So what's he doing when the evacuation order is given over the radio? What can he do? Ferro and Spunkmeyer fly the dropship and he presumably stays behind for triage and whatever when the Marines get back.
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Jan 13, 2021 22:56
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Xenomrph posted:What can he do? Ferro and Spunkmeyer fly the dropship and he presumably stays behind for triage and whatever when the Marines get back. Im talking about when everyones dead and Hicks orders Ferro to pick them up and nuke the site from orbit. The dropship calls Spunkmeyer back but Bishop is just left behind (obviously because the movie still needs him around but no reason other than that is given.)
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Jan 13, 2021 23:12
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Oh right, I see what you mean - if they were going to get picked up and immediately bug out then Bishop should have been on the dropship (and would have died with Ferro and Spunkmeyer). Someone in that equation is an rear end in a top hat.
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Jan 14, 2021 00:25
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banned from Starbucks posted:We are only ever shown the military through Gorman and the Marines. Noone higher up the chain than a lieutenant. The marines offical stance is to shoot bugs and gently caress space pussy. Gormans, from what we can deduce from Burke specifically bringing him along as the new Lieutenant, is to make Major. What seems to be implied is that the deal he makes with Ripley (a boost up the ladder career wise) is prob similar to what he uses with Gorman. Gorman is officially in charge but if Burke smells an opportunity he can prob nudge him into doing whatever as long as it doesnt kill marines. While that’s all true, reducing things to, like, ‘Gorman thinks highly of himself despite his inexperience’ is a depoliticization of the events. A lot of people died! As the investigative journalists like to say, it’s a question of who knew what, and when? So Bishop drops the fact that Burke’s preparing the aliens for shipment to Weyland-Yutani (presumably back on Earth). Jump-cut to Ripley confronting him - alone, in private. In the span of the cut, Ripley has already gone off and done some research into Burke’s activities. She’s already figured out that he’s planning to do some illegal smuggling, so there’s not much point in confronting him. She really just wants to watch him squirm, I guess. But then, nothing happens. Ripley’s like “hey, you’re a desperate criminal who’s already killed over a hundred people and I’m going to ruin your life soon. Ok bye!” And she doesn’t tell anybody. At least two hours pass, and she goes off to have a nap or something. Then Burke attacks. If Burke’s actions are against the marines’ orders (which they ought to be, because they’re illegal: he can’t legally get “a dangerous creature like that” through customs), then the marines have known about it for at least several hours - and are just letting him run free. Bishop’s known for much longer. And then, Ripley knows about that and additional illegal activities for at least two hours, but keeps them to herself. Besides all this legal murkiness, what is Ripley’s game plan here? Cynically speaking, Cameron needs Ripley to stay quiet for no reason so that he can have the upcoming action sequence where they battle the facehuggers. If she tells everyone what’s up, Burke has no motive to try to murder her. (Burke would also have less motive to murder her if they’d destroyed the specimens). But “it’s just a stupid movie” isn’t really sufficient, is it? If we actually interpret these events, it looks like Ripley is - consciously or not - goading Burke into doing something extreme so that the marines have an excuse to grease him. Ripley later claims that she just wants him to have a fair trial or something, but the subtext is that she literally wants to see him pinned to the wall and killed - as he eventually is. It’s some weird poo poo! But it’s also telling us about Ripley’s concepts of Justice and so-forth. Burke may be a poo poo, but there were ways to de-escalate the situation.
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Jan 14, 2021 02:53
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banned from Starbucks posted:So what's he doing when the evacuation order is given over the radio? Xenomrph posted:Oh right, I see what you mean - if they were going to get picked up and immediately bug out then Bishop should have been on the dropship (and would have died with Ferro and Spunkmeyer). In movie I think it supports Bishop just being a toaster to most of the marines, do any of them ever even interact with him other than "hey do the knife trick" and Hudson calling him that? And it's notable that Hudson has this conversation with the other humans in the room like Bishop isn't even there. Realistically though I can understand they wanted Bishop to be kind of low key and in the background so that we can more easily buy Ripley being suspicious and basically expecting him to gently caress around at some point.
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Jan 14, 2021 03:01
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Bishop is seen and treated by everyone but Ripley as a friendly piece of equipment, and he is programmed for this not to bother him. I did kind of realize while reading this thread that the first act of Aliens never really addresses Ripley's conversation with the computer from the first film. She's frustrated that the suits don't believe her and blame her for the destruction of the ship but she never explicitly addresses the crew expendable issue on screen. It separates the worlds of the two films a little bit. She initially treats Bishop unfairly because she is remembering what MUTHR and Ash did, but by the end of the movie she has realized it's the humans behind the programming that are the real evil. With the way she grows in the film to be comfortable and empowered with weapons you could fairly interpret the message of the movie to be "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" I think the first movie is about sex, relationships, and peoples' inner lives. The second movie passively retains some of those elements by still featuring Giger's work but Cameron focuses more on human society and our relationship with technology. Maybe that's why the third movie turned people off a little bit because there isn't really much to do with religion or spirituality in the first two movies and all of the sudden Fincher comes in and borderline hits us over the head with it. I also realized after watching it again 4 is just French Jurassic Park lol
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Jan 14, 2021 03:12
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Amarcarts posted:Bishop is seen and treated by everyone but Ripley as a friendly piece of equipment, and he is programmed for this not to bother him. i like thinking about this compared to David, who is programmed to apparently be sarcastic to the point of confusion
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Jan 14, 2021 03:16
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alf_pogs posted:i like thinking about this compared to David, who is programmed to apparently be sarcastic to the point of confusion If you read the novelization for Covenant it goes into more detail with the opening scene and basically shows that this scene is David's entire childhood compressed into 5-10 minutes. It's a great scene in an otherwise flawed movie and Guy Pierce is great as the rear end in a top hat father. It really makes up for his muddled final act appearance in Prometheus. Not really story related but IMO the single best effects shot in Covenant is the alien walking bipedally into the cargo bay looking for Daniels. I think it looks more real because it's shot at a distance and partially obscured by equipment. The other CGI in the movie is pretty ho hum and the series has always struggled with how to depict the movement of the Xenomorph. They started with men in suits which they naturally had to hide in shadows. As time went on and computer effects became better audiences wanted to see the creature more and they had to move to a more animal-like motion either on all fours or in Resurrection the velociraptor style walk so the movement would appear more natural but something about the mystery and horro of the creature is lost a little bit because now you just see it as a giant insect which we can categorize in our minds. This shot in Covenant was brilliant because it uses the power of modern effects to actually go back to movement style of the first film. Unfortunately I can't really recall any other creature shots that impressed me as much; the movie has a lot of problems.
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Jan 14, 2021 03:56
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There’s nothing ‘neutral’ about Bishop’s passivity, in the diegesis or out of it. Keeping him offscreen and away from the action for most of the film doesn’t generate any tension as to what he’s doing. It just obfuscates things, skipping over questions of who he actually answers to. Like, how does he behave in a combat situation? If Gorman gives a lovely order, does his anti-harm programming force him to intervene? The film just presents “android” as interchangeable with “minority” and gives him a bunch of stock race jokes. If the joke’s that “synthetic” is effectively a racial slur, what are we to make of Bishop dismissing all the Ash robots as inferior? Are the Ash an ethnic group? If they’ve been discontinued, is that genocide? You can go on like this forever, but film’s just not equipped to deal with this stuff because of the overwhelming fixation on just obliterating the xenomorphs. Let’s be frank here: a single alien isn’t going to take over the Earth. If Burke’s harebrained scheme actually worked somehow, it would obviously suck - but is it really worse than giving every Lt. Gorman in the galaxy his own nuclear arsenal? Killing all the aliens doesn’t really solve anything except the immediate threat posed by the aliens. Once they’re all dead, you’re still stuck in this Outland hellscape. There’s a reason Aliens is the #1 film parodied in Starship Troopers. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 04:25 on Jan 14, 2021 |
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Jan 14, 2021 04:22
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Amarcarts posted:If you read the novelization for Covenant it goes into more detail with the opening scene and basically shows that this scene is David's entire childhood compressed into 5-10 minutes. It's a great scene in an otherwise flawed movie and Guy Pierce is great as the rear end in a top hat father. It really makes up for his muddled final act appearance in Prometheus. i remember the exact shot you're talking about in Covenant and i agree! i was psyched when it showed up because the bipedal alien movement is way freakier to me also guy pierce is a treasure, even when he's monty burns. if you haven't seen the excellent Animal Kingdom, with him and Ben Mendehlson, really worth a big go
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Jan 14, 2021 04:42
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:
Its especially strange because when Ripley goes to take her nap she sees Gorman has woken up from his coma and Burke is right there and shes just like  Does she think Burkes is just gonna accept his punishment? Does she know Gorman will grow a spine? Is she confident in Hicks ability to remain in charge? I guess shes just sleepy and needs to think about it.
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Jan 14, 2021 05:18
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:There’s nothing ‘neutral’ about Bishop’s passivity, in the diegesis or out of it. Keeping him offscreen and away from the action for most of the film doesn’t generate any tension as to what he’s doing. It just obfuscates things, skipping over questions of who he actually answers to. Yeah every time I think about Aliens in comparison to the rest of the series I keep coming back to the idea that Cameron is just not that kind of storyteller (though I'll admit I haven't looked much into who wrote the second movie. It just seems like a Cameron picture through and through). It's hard to put into words but I think he prefers to keep his plots relatively grounded and simple. His art is pursuing as high a possible level of performance as possible from all aspects of production.
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Jan 14, 2021 05:50
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Amarcarts posted:Yeah every time I think about Aliens in comparison to the rest of the series I keep coming back to the idea that Cameron is just not that kind of storyteller (though I'll admit I haven't looked much into who wrote the second movie. It just seems like a Cameron picture through and through). It's hard to put into words but I think he prefers to keep his plots relatively grounded and simple. His art is pursuing as high a possible level of performance as possible from all aspects of production. Cameron wrote the original treatment then i think it got "punched up" by a bunch of other jokers
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Jan 14, 2021 05:59
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