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The art design in Alien Isolation is loving fantastic, I’d love a mod where you could just…. wander around and look at stuff and push buttons and poo poo without the threat of some Alien turning you inside-out or something. The concept art book for the game is really, really good.
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Jul 30, 2021 16:11
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That does exist as a mod, actually.
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Jul 30, 2021 16:17
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Ha - it just struck me that at the end of Alien, when Ripley fires the shuttle's engines to blast the xeno? She should have gone "thunk" against the window under the g-force. But that might have undermined the impact of the ending (where Ridley Scott originally wanted the alien to bite off Ripley's head and read the final log report in her voice).
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Jul 30, 2021 16:23
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Payndz posted:Ha - it just struck me that at the end of Alien, when Ripley fires the shuttle's engines to blast the xeno? She should have gone "thunk" against the window under the g-force. Since you don’t know the actual rate of acceleration, you are beginning with a presumption (that the shuttle is accelerating at an astonishing rate) and then concluding that the movie must be wrong for not matching your presumption. Therefore, you are absolutely right and Ripley actually dies at the Alien when the shuttle instantly accelerates to beyond light speed & explodes. Everything after is possibly a dream.
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Jul 30, 2021 18:12
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Payndz posted:Ha - it just struck me that at the end of Alien, when Ripley fires the shuttle's engines to blast the xeno? She should have gone "thunk" against the window under the g-force. Another fun fact: the Nostromo had a second (inoperable) shuttle that was part of the script, and I think may have been represented on the Nostromo miniature but I can’t recall. It’s featured on the Nostromo “blueprints” and given the name Salmacis.
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Jul 30, 2021 18:33
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Since you don’t know the actual rate of acceleration, you are beginning with a presumption (that the shuttle is accelerating at an astonishing rate) and then concluding that the movie must be wrong for not matching your presumption.
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Jul 30, 2021 18:35
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Payndz posted:YAAAAAAAWN Again, I’m agreeing with you: Ripley’s head should have slammed into the window, because we are presuming extreme acceleration. Because it is impossible for presumptions to ever be wrong, the fact that the film doesn’t match our presumption means that Ripley must have been transported to some sort of dream realm at the moment she pressed the button. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jul 30, 2021 19:32
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Xenomrph posted:Fun fact: the engine blast effect was achieved by mounting the shuttle model facing downward and the camera pointing upward, and water sprinklers and misters on the inside of the prop engines. A lot of space explosions were filmed that way, with the camera looking up. You can tell if some of the sparks go side wards at the screen edge due to hitting the screen between it and the camera.
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Aug 1, 2021 13:55
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Xenomrph posted:Fun fact: the engine blast effect was achieved by mounting the shuttle model facing downward and the camera pointing upward, and water sprinklers and misters on the inside of the prop engines. Named for a nymph known for idling around doing nothing 
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Aug 1, 2021 18:46
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When I was a kid, my step-father had a TurbographX 16 and one of the games on there was Silent Debuggers. A weird proto-FPS where you were stuck in a space statiosn facing evil alien monsters. Not exactly a great game but it did have a cool intro music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UKBWl-OWyE He also had R-Type, where the first boss is a barely disguised homage to the Xenomorph.
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Aug 3, 2021 16:51
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Reading a Popular Science from early 1941. This article about the "Oriental Wasp" being used to destroy Japanese Beetles sounds looks like it could have been written by David.    And of course, the life cycle of the parasite: 
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Aug 4, 2021 02:20
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TerraCat posted:Reading a Popular Science from early 1941. Something I love about Alien and Prometheus and Covenant is that the actual ways all the stuff grows and works in them is stuff that happens irl in nature already, the only difference is the speed at which it takes place. Like when a caterpillar becomes a butterfly it's not like the caterpillar just loses some legs and grows wings, it basically melts itself down to almost nothing and then a butterfly grows from that goo/few remaining organs, that fuckin' rules https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK_iZZ4Bx2o Obligatory mention of the black dragonfish also, these guys fuckin' rule  There's a lot of variations of them but the reason it seems to basically be all jaw is because the male black dragon fish's stomach doesn't actually function in adulthood because as soon as they reach adulthood their only purpose is to mate and then get killed. But to me the coolest thing about them is that they have literal, actual eye beams. They can a beam of read light from their eyes that helps them see prey more easily, it's a frequency of light is that only they can actually see, other sea-life doesn't see these red spotlights highlighting them, that's fuckin' amazing. They also have chlorophyll in their eyes they're uh pretty far from sunlight so WTF. IIRC they are the only animal that exists that has this. I loving love these things because they're basically the xenomorph irl in that they're like perfectly tuned to survive and hunt prey but also nothing about them makes sense like just read or watch any video about them.
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Aug 4, 2021 05:21
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That's awesome. I'm sure this is a much more common fact but that particular type of shrimp (I think?) that can see more colors than humans can perceive has always fascinated me. Always wondered what they see that we don't since it's so hard to comprehend. Not sure if this is true any more (or even if I'm remembering correctly) but I have vague memories of an article about how we know more about space than we do our own oceans. We know there's some terrifying stuff down there but we haven't actually explored that deep at all. Will be exciting if we ever develop the technology to withstand the pressure since anything that can live in that environment must be fascinating. That caterpillar video was really interesting, particularly the part about remembering the past life which is a fun reading of Alien if you take it as a standalone film. I forget where but someone put together a compelling reading for Alien and the xeno being Kane reborn. Disagree personally but it was an enjoyable read with some good points. I like stuff out of left field like that, such as the birth trauma theory.
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Aug 4, 2021 12:50
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SUNKOS posted:That's awesome. I'm sure this is a much more common fact but that particular type of shrimp (I think?) that can see more colors than humans can perceive has always fascinated me. Always wondered what they see that we don't since it's so hard to comprehend. Even within our own species women can see a larger range of colors than men. I believe being better at distinguishing color shades is fairly common, but somewhere I heard that some women see farther into the purple end of the spectrum too.
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Aug 4, 2021 14:10
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david_a posted:Even within our own species women can see a larger range of colors than men. I believe being better at distinguishing color shades is fairly common, but somewhere I heard that some women see farther into the purple end of the spectrum too. Most of the research I see shows that, barring colorblindness, there's not a significant difference in color perception and gender biologically. The way you perceive, categorize, and talk about color is more about your culture, socialization, and language. If a little boy started discussing the differences between violet, puce, and lavender, there's a very good chance he'd be bullied. The eyes of the Himba are no different from other humans, but they perceive greens with a lot more nuance than Westerners. You see what you are taught to see. https://gondwana-collection.com/blog/how-do-namibian-himbas-see-colour
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Aug 4, 2021 16:10
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Dienes posted:Most of the research I see shows that, barring colorblindness, there's not a significant difference in color perception and gender biologically. The way you perceive, categorize, and talk about color is more about your culture, socialization, and language. If a little boy started discussing the differences between violet, puce, and lavender, there's a very good chance he'd be bullied. I was just having a conversation about this with someone regarding the King of Fighters character Iori Yagami. The magical flames the character uses, like just violet straight up. But in Japanese stuff are always called either blue or purple, and are just called blue in earlier English releases but purple later on. The actual in-game color has been constant but the "canon" color they're called in cutscenes and official stuff has changed regularly. And it's not a huge deal but interesting because it's like a double-level of stuff being used interchangeably in both languages.
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Aug 4, 2021 16:25
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Again, I’m agreeing with you: Ripley’s head should have slammed into the window, because we are presuming extreme acceleration. I salute to the mods for cracking down on bullshit, and am glad to have helped set a precedent against bad-faith posting that can now be enforced universally. It turns out that claims of total sincerity are no excuse for a conscious disregard for the truth. So! SUNKOS posted:That caterpillar video was really interesting, particularly the part about remembering the past life which is a fun reading of Alien if you take it as a standalone film. I forget where but someone put together a compelling reading for Alien and the xeno being Kane reborn. Disagree personally but it was an enjoyable read with some good points. I like stuff out of left field like that, such as the birth trauma theory. Strictly speaking, we can assume that the creature isn’t literally Kane because, of course, Kane’s brain is discarded along with the rest of his body. At the same time, though, the alien is unmistakably the distorted image of a human astronaut, and happens to enter the film at the exact moment that Kane exits. The mechanism behind this xenomorphization of Kane (or anthropomorphization of the alien) isn’t in the scope of the film, because the point is simply that John Hurt has been replaced by (what Mother perceives to be) a “perfect organism” - which she and Ash clearly define as an organism “without delusions of morality”. What we have in the film narrative is a Walter/David situation where the two persons function as aspects of a single character. The alien is what remains after Kane’s human features are erased. Of course, lots of things ‘don’t have morality’, so we can assume that the alien couples that trait with humanlike intelligence. This is why the alien is desirable: a company capable of producing Ash would find it trivially easy to make a face-jumping crab - but why even bother, when it just puts a dude in a coma for a few hours and then turns him into a bug? Strap a bomb to a drone instead; who gives a poo poo. But, to Mother, the alien is specifically a potential replacement for flawed humanity. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Aug 5, 2021 00:53
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:I salute to the mods for cracking down on bullshit, and am glad to have helped set a precedent against bad-faith posting that can now be enforced universally. It turns out that claims of total sincerity are no excuse for a conscious disregard for the truth. quote:Strictly speaking, we can assume that the creature isn’t literally Kane because, of course, Kane’s brain is discarded along with the rest of his body. At the same time, though, the alien is unmistakably the distorted image of a human astronaut, and happens to enter the film at the exact moment that Kane exits. The mechanism behind this xenomorphization of Kane (or anthropomorphization of the alien) isn’t in the scope of the film, because the point is simply that John Hurt has been replaced by (what Mother perceives to be) a “perfect organism” - which she and Ash clearly define as an organism “without delusions of morality”. The notion of the Alien carrying over behavioral traits and being a dark mirror of them is a salient point, although the sequels use it to varying degrees. It’s essentially absent in the sequel, but the third movie has the Alien “playing with its food” like a dog. So if that’s what it’s saying about dogs in the third movie, what is it saying about humans in the first movie when the Alien is a psycho-sexual rape monster? The second AvP movie even takes it in an interesting direction - in a deleted scene (which I think was included in the director’s cut?) the PredAlien is shown to have skinned the bodies of the Predators on the crashed Predator ship, and then the Wolf Predator takes the time to skin and hang some trophies midway through the movie. Perhaps that behavior isn’t strictly learned or performative, but is actual some kind of instinctual carryover for Predators. Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 01:11 on Aug 5, 2021 |
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Aug 5, 2021 01:07
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Predalien also rips the cooks’ skull out too.
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Aug 5, 2021 04:13
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) Sad to see SMG banished from the thread, but that probation message.
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Aug 5, 2021 06:49
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JW Rinzler, author of the absolutely fantastic The Making Of Alien and Aliens (and numerous other extremely in-depth, superbly researched making-of books) just died.  I recently finished his Alien book, which is filled with previously unreported behind-the-scenes material - the funniest anecdote is Scott reviewing dailies and complaining "Can't that oval office in the projection room show anything in focus?", followed by a voice over the intercom saying "oval office here. Do you want me to run that again?" - and detailed coverage of the earlier drafts of the scripts, one of which has the Dwight Theory being correct as Mother is overtly evil (and calls Ripley a cocksucker while being HAL 9000ed).There's also this photo, where Ridley Scott makes the odd directorial choice to distract from the horror of Parker's death by tossing a teddy bear's head through the scene. 
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Aug 5, 2021 10:06
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Shanty posted:Sad to see SMG banished from the thread, but lol that's loving art, MZ
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Aug 5, 2021 12:24
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Shanty posted:Sad to see SMG banished from the thread, but feedmyleg posted:lol that's loving art, MZ Yeah okay but like, was Machete consciously deciding to do that on their own after reading SMG's posts or did someone from Weyland-Yutani alert them about said posts ahead of time?
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Aug 5, 2021 14:15
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Neo Rasa posted:Yeah okay but like, was Machete consciously deciding to do that on their own after reading SMG's posts or did someone from Weyland-Yutani alert them about said posts ahead of time? a far reaching goonspiracy, its heart deep in the mod forum... and further still. in the forums code? david.
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Aug 5, 2021 14:44
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 https://hasbropulse.com/products/nerf-lmtd-aliens-m41-a-blaster
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Aug 17, 2021 15:55
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Beat me to it, I was just about to post that. I cannot loving believe we are getting a goddamn NERF gun based on the pulse rifle from Aliens. What a time to be alive.
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Aug 17, 2021 15:58
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I ordered it lmao. I wish it was colored correctly but it’s still dope.
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Aug 17, 2021 15:59
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I have never preordered anything so fast in my loving life. It fires two types of ammo and has a working LED ammo counter.
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Aug 17, 2021 16:01
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That was the thing that made it unmissable. Like lmao what the hell. I can’t wait to shoot this into the air screaming “let’s rock!!!”
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Aug 17, 2021 16:02
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Now Free League Publishing's writers have to work a Nonlethal Energy Rounds Firearm (NERF) weapon into the next Alien RPG module.
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Aug 19, 2021 03:24
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:-Why is Jim so stupid? Wait don't kick him out yet.  First tell me who is Jim??
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Aug 19, 2021 06:12
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DropsySufferer posted:Wait don't kick him out yet.
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Aug 19, 2021 06:24
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Aug 19, 2021 06:39
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DropsySufferer posted:Wait don't kick him out yet. 
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Aug 19, 2021 12:13
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How can someone look like that standing next too her majesty
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Aug 19, 2021 17:29
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He's got some real "consort of the queen" energy going on there.
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Aug 19, 2021 18:20
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To this day I still marvel at how they managed to pull of that Alien Queen. RIP Stan Winston.
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Aug 19, 2021 18:22
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Twist ending! I've been reading through various script drafts for fun. In the October 4, 1978 draft of Alien, Ash is actually working alone. No Jimspiracy. Mother is presented as neutral/helpful, while Special Order 937 was written by the company for the crew. Ash personally makes the decision to hide the mission from them, because he believes the humans will be too scared to go into the derelict. When the characters ask why he did it, Ash blames humanity for giving him the free will to choose evil: Ripley: We built you. You're supposed to be part of our survival equipment. Ash: You gave me intelligence. With intellect comes the inevitability of choice. In other words, it turns out that forums poster Xenomorph misread the script. There is no Jimspiracy, even in this form. When the "Ash: rogue alien hunter" plot point was removed for the actual film, many other key changes were made that completely altered the story - like, for example, making Mother into the antagonist.
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Aug 20, 2021 03:52
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the true puppetmaster
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Aug 20, 2021 06:21
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Here’s the Oct 4th draft I’m looking at, which has a little more context than you’re providing. https://www.avpgalaxy.net/files/scripts/alien-1978-10-04.pdf I’m not going to hand key a quote because I’m phone posting, but the bit you’re quoting is from page 99; on page 97 he says he was following Company orders to re-route the ship, and that they placed him onboard. If anything it presents an interesting parallel to ‘Prometheus’, where David (an intelligent being, following orders given to him by humans) observes what he perceives as the downfall of the human species in the face of something far worse. Ash is noting the irony that in placing him on the ship and rerouting them after the Alien, humanity has doomed itself (and the Nostromo’s crew are a microcosm of what will happen to humanity at large once the Company gets its hands on the Alien). Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 06:38 on Aug 20, 2021 |
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Aug 20, 2021 06:28
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