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Do you like Alien 3 "Assembly Cut"?
Yes, Alien 3 "Assembly Cut" was tits.
No, Alien and Aliens are the only valid Alien films.
Nah gently caress you Alien 3 sucks in all its forms.
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SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN

Xenomrph posted:

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.

I know the context, because I am talking about the entire script. I have read the script cover-to-cover, specifically to figure out why your account of its contents made no sense.

The plot in the script is explained very clearly: Ash is an alien-hunter placed on the ship, carrying Special Orders for the crew. Ash, however, chooses to hide those orders because he is evil and has fallen in love with the alien. There is no real conspiracy in this version, except Ash plotting to endanger the crew for fun.

I will now present a montage of quotes from the draft, laying out the entire plot of the script:

Ash: The derelict spacecraft landed on the planet. Like Kane, they encountered one of the Alien spores. Before they all died, they managed to set up the warning.
Ripley: The corporation must have picked up the transmission. We happened to be the next ship going by. They put Ash on board to check it out and make sure we followed something Mother calls Special order 937.
Ripley: Did you ship out with Ash before?
Dallas: First time.
Ash: My orders, in essence, directed me to reroute the ship to the source of the signal. There, we were to investigate a life form, certainly hostile, and bring it back for observation.
Dallas: I just run the ship. Anything that has to do with science division, Ash has the final word.
Lambert: Why didn't you warn us?
Ash: Because you might not have gone in. The shares notwithstanding.
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. I have had the rare honour of witnessing one of those moments when a major evolutionary step is take. Two highly successful species in immediate competition for resources and survival. I am loyal only to discovering the truth. A scientific truth demands beauty, harmony and above all simplicity. The problem between you and the Alien will produce a simple and elegant solution. Only one of you will survive.

Now, basically everything I just quoted was eliminated from subsequent version(s), and the final film offers different explanations for the events.

There a lot of possible reasons for this: making Mother into the deranged and evil 'personification' of capitalism, so that Ripley can curse her out before nuking the ship, is just good drama, for example. But the script draft also has some big narrative holes: if Ash is motivated to just see who wins, why is he actively helping the alien? In truth, the alien was defeated by simple quarantine procedures and Ash needed to cheat. Also, the company waiting for the crew to arrive at the moon before divulging the orders is a huge narrative contrivance.

So the final film has an entirely different plot and a subtly different narrative. Here are some of the other changes:

First, the line "course: returning to earth" was added to the opening text. This line doesn't exist in the script draft:

"Function: Petroleum tanker and Refinery.
Capacity: 2,000,000,000 tons.
Length: One and one half kilometers."

Second, a line stating that Ash has never worked as a science officer before was removed:

Ripley: Did you ship out with Ash before?
Dallas: First time. I went five hauls with another science man.

Third, the script was changed so that Ash builds the tracking devices from scratch.

Script: I've taken care of that...tracking device. You set it to search for a moving object...
Film: I've taken care of that. I've designed this tracking device. You just set it to search for a moving object.

[The initial design for the tracker prop was a sort of factory-produced professional scanner (because Ash is an alien-hunter). This was changed to the ugly, kitbashed-looking thing in the film.]

Fourth, the wording of the "Special Order" was changed. In fact, the Special Order is never actually shown in the script at all, but summarized to us by Ash and Ripley in extensive detail. In their description, it's said that the 'xenomorph eggs' are actually a type of fungal spore native to this moon.

Fifth, scenes of Mother being creepy and hostile were added. In the script, Mother is presented as neutral, or even helpful. While Ash is scheming in the background, Mother sincerely works on translating the warning message, and Ripley doesn't get upset with her at all. No "Mother! You bitch! God drat it!", etc.

There are numerous other small changes. In the script, Ripley has a topless sex scene with Dallas, Dallas is melted into a pile of fungus, there's no "space jockey", the derelict crew were merely a bunch of humanoid astronauts, the derelict didn't crash-land....

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Xenomrph
Dec 9, 2005

AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill



There’s a later draft from December 1978 that I can’t find a copy of online that was actually written after principal photography finished; i’ve found physical copies of it that were sold online, but not an actual scanned copy that shows all the changes.

https://alienseries.wordpress.com/2016/07/27/alien-the-1978-scripts/

https://www.walterfilm.com/shop/date-added/apr-2021/alien-dec-28-1978-revised-final-draft-by-walter-hill-and-david-giler/

Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Aug 20, 2021

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN

Xenomrph posted:

There’s a later draft from December 1978 that I can’t find a copy of online that was actually written after principal photography finished; i’ve found physical copies of it that were sold online, but not an actual scanned copy that shows all the changes.

Ok, but question is if any of these script drafts features a Jimspiracy. It's up to you to establish this first.

As noted above, the company in the October 1978 script draft is acting somewhat duplicitously: the plan is to reveal the special order after the crew arrive at the moon, because they want to increase their leverage over the workers. The crew will have already been working for ten months before being threatened with the forfeiture of shares. That is very bad, but it's also just mundane contract fuckery, and not any sort of elaborate murder conspiracy. It's just the company saying "go catch this alien or we'll cut your pay". They aren't obsessed with it or anything.

Ash then turns evil and tries to kill everyone - but that's him acting alone: "I am loyal only to discovering the truth."

This plot is loosely retained in the final film, except that:
a) the contractual clause and the "Special Order" are made distinct.
b) the clause is automatically invoked by Mother, who turns evil and creates "Special Orders" for Ash.
c) instead of being "loyal to the truth", Ash is creepily devoted to pleasing (his) Mother - hence the murder.

In other words, aspects of Ash's and the company's characterization in the script draft were combined and transferred to Mother in order to make her the primary antagonist of the film. This makes sense because Ash dies fairly early in the movie.

Xenomrph
Dec 9, 2005

AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill



There is no Jim, there is no Jimspiracy.

There is only the Company, who put Ash onboard, wrote the Special Order, and diverted the Nostromo.

I disagree with your interpretation, clearly you disagree with mine.

The mods already said to stop talking about this topic because it got too stupid.

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN
It would be very silly to prohibit the analysis of script drafts in a movie thread.

So, here, we have a script draft where the Ash characters literally says “I am acting alone and of my own free will because I choose to disobey humanity”. And you claim to disagree.

But what exactly do you disagree with here? The act of reading?

Anyone can check the script and confirm that what I’ve written is true and accurate. I encourage everyone to do so.

You had escaped attention, for as long as you have, simply because nobody had bothered to verify your claims - until now.

You see, I am loyal only to the truth.

Xenomrph
Dec 9, 2005

AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill



The script also says he’s following Company orders. You even quoted it.

quote:

Ripley: The corporation must have picked up the transmission. We happened to be the next ship going by. They put Ash on board to check it out and make sure we followed something Mother calls Special order 937.

Ash: My orders, in essence, directed me to reroute the ship to the source of the signal. There, we were to investigate a life form, certainly hostile, and bring it back for observation.

Ash’s “choice” is whether or not to follow the orders or protect the crew, and how he chooses to do so. Ripley says “we made you to protect us”, Ash says “I’m choosing not to protect you”, in favor of his orders to get the Alien.

Like I said, it’s paralleled in Prometheus.

The mods shut down discussion of the Jimspiracy and whether Ash was put on the ship on purpose. For some reason, you want to keep talking about it.

DeimosRising
Oct 17, 2005

¡Hola SEA!


It is interesting how similar the script Ash is to David in Prometheus. In both cases they’re sort of maliciously adhering to orders, while also sometimes doing stuff that clearly isn’t allowed that they justify with sophistry, because they like the weird aliens better than people.

DeimosRising
Oct 17, 2005

¡Hola SEA!


Xenomrph posted:

The script also says he’s following Company orders. You even quoted it.

Ash’s “choice” is whether or not to follow the orders or protect the crew, and how he chooses to do so. Ripley says “we made you to protect us”, Ash says “I’m choosing not to protect you”, in favor of his orders to get the Alien.

Like I said, it’s paralleled in Prometheus.

The mods shut down discussion of the Jimspiracy and whether Ash was put on the ship on purpose. For some reason, you want to keep talking about it.

The script doesn’t include the crew expendable stuff. He only says he was supposed to be discreet.

The script also has an interesting bit where the crew considers suicide, and a bunch of typos like confusing “your” and “you’re”

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN

Xenomrph posted:

The script also says he’s following Company orders. You even quoted it.

Yes, we've gone over this. In the October 1978 version of the story, the company knows about the alien in advance and sends the crew out to try and capture it. Ash then conceals those orders and 'goes crazy' - disobeying the company in order to perform bizarre murder experiments. That's the context of what you are talking about. Earlier, you were saying that context was important. Now you are decontextualizing things.

As we have determined, you have been combining elements of the 1978 draft (where the company knows about the alien and Mother is a neutral machine) with elements of a different version (where the company doesn't know about the alien and Mother 'goes crazy') to create a third version - one where the company knows about the alien and is largely or entirely run by crazy murderers.

The belief that the company is run by crazy murders is what I have been referring to as "the Jimspiracy", and it is false. That version of the story doesn't actually exist except in your posts.

It's important to figure this out, because we are talking about the plot of the movie Alien, and this is the Alien thread. If you've uncovered some shocking new details in the text that change how we must interpret the film, that's a big deal. This is an important part of film history, after all! Imagine finding some hidden clue in Hitchcock's Psycho that exonerates Norman Bates.

But, if you haven't actually got any evidence and are pushing this anyways, then you are being duplicitous. And, y'know, lying is... bad.

Xenomrph
Dec 9, 2005

AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill



I am not “lying” (lmao), I am interpreting the evidence presented differently than you are.

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

Yes, we've gone over this. In the October 1978 version of the story, the company knows about the alien in advance and sends the crew out to try and capture it.
That’s it, you said it.

That’s the claim: the Company knew about the Alien in advance and sent the crew out to try and capture it. You just acknowledged it.

Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Aug 20, 2021

Apollodorus
Feb 13, 2010

TEST YOUR MIGHT
:patriot:
Hey y’all maybe you covered it in the last 6 pages that I couldn’t bring myself to read but “rerouted” is most clearly construed as a past PARTICIPLE in that fragment.

Past participles in English can be used to form present tense forms, such as the present simple passive “is rerouted” or the present progressive passive “is being rerouted” or the present perfect passive “has been rerouted”. Any of those would be a plausible expanded reading of the order.

Don’t confuse tense with aspect and/or voice :eng101:

Apollodorus fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Aug 20, 2021

Apollodorus
Feb 13, 2010

TEST YOUR MIGHT
:patriot:

Xenomrph posted:

I am not “lying” (lmao), I am interpreting the evidence presented differently than you are.

That’s it, you said it.

That’s the claim: the Company knew about the Alien in advance and sent the crew out to try and capture it. You just acknowledged it.

I think SMG’s argument would be that the writers of ALIEN discarded that idea and thereby removed it from the story.

Just because something is an element of the story behind the story doesn’t mean it’s part of the story itself. This isn’t like the Iliad where we can never be sure what the “real” version of the poem was and so are empowered (or compelled) make arguments based on variant manuscript and papyrus readings. it’s a movie that well documented, historically-attested (and in most cases still living) people made and there are some things they decided not to include in the actual movie.

Xenomrph
Dec 9, 2005

AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill



Sure but the movie provides plenty of ammo to interpret Ash’s placement and the rerouting as intentional by the company, even if you treat the scripts as anecdotal.

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN

Apollodorus posted:

I think SMG’s argument would be that the writers of ALIEN discarded that idea and thereby removed it from the story.

Just because something is an element of the story behind the story doesn’t mean it’s part of the story itself. This isn’t like the Iliad where we can never be sure what the “real” version of the poem was and so are empowered (or compelled) make arguments based on variant manuscript and papyrus readings. it’s a movie that well documented, historically-attested (and in most cases still living) people made and there are some things they decided not to include in the actual movie.

Right: fandoms often/always make the mistake of taking an additive approach where we accumulate more and more plot content, disregarding contradictions as unimportant, until we end up with a robustly immersive virtual reality in place of a readable text.

So, like, it’s imagined that the giant elephant creature in Alien was killed by Cameron’s ‘Xenomorph Queen’ who then laid all the eggs. But the October ‘78 script draft says the ‘eggs’ are a type of fungus native to the moon, while Scott’s actual film implies that the eggs are storage pods created by the elephants for some sort of obscure purpose. Prometheus and Covenant then say the eggs are once again a fungus created by David,
and that they have some spiritual or religious significance. And those are just a few. AVP implies that the eggs were created by the ‘Predators’, also known as the ‘Yautja’....

Instead of treating these as distinct variations on the same imagery, fandom just mushes it all together. We could do the same with Psycho - which has multiple prequels, sequel, remakes, etc. - but that’s not a ‘nerd franchise’ with a ‘fandom’.

In this particular case, we’ve isolated the precise two different stories that this poster has mashed up in his head. It may not be a deliberate lie, because he claims to sincerely believe in himself, but the claim that is what happens in the film or the script is simply untrue.

In a certain sense, that is actually worse than a deliberate lie because a liar at least acknowledges the truth in his attempt to suppress it. Instead, again, we have an attack on the very concept of truth.

Xenomrph
Dec 9, 2005

AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill



SuperMechagodzilla posted:

the claim that is what happens in the film or the script is simply untrue.

This is false, as has already been demonstrated.

Again, your interpretation is not somehow The One True Truth.

It sure seems like you’re a little more fixated on the poster and “what/why” they’re posting than the movie itself.

Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Aug 20, 2021

Neo Rasa
Mar 8, 2007
Everyone should play DUKE games.

:dukedog:

Xenomrph posted:

This is false, as has already been demonstrated.

Again, your interpretation is not somehow The One True Truth.

It sure seems like you’re a little more fixated on the poster and “what/why” they’re posting than the movie itself.

All the "best" trolling involves making it personal in some way.

Xenomrph
Dec 9, 2005

AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill



Neo Rasa posted:

All the "best" trolling involves making it personal in some way.

Just what I was thinking

Edit— the Company (Jim) told me to think it

Schwarzwald
Jul 27, 2004

Don't Blink
Is there any advantage to continuing the conversation? Like, examining the earlier drafts of Alien is interesting! But it took barely any time for us to go from that to "this shows the company didn't know about the alien" / "no is doesn't" / "yes it did."

We've gone past discussing the movie and have gone into this pointless holding pattern. Anyone who was going to be convinced already has been, anyone who hasn't yet is going to be less likely to now that this has the edge of being personal.

Xenomrph
Dec 9, 2005

AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill



Schwarzwald posted:

Is there any advantage to continuing the conversation?
Jesus Christ, no.

Schwarzwald posted:

Like, examining the earlier drafts of Alien is interesting!
It really is! I find this kind of stuff fascinating and I enjoy getting a more “complete” picture of the filmmaking process and the film itself by seeing what could have been, what was changed, the evolution of the film as it developed, etc.

Right out of the gate, as mentioned earlier, the script’s parallels between Ash’s motivations and David’s in Prometheus is really neat, and makes me wonder if it was deliberate and if Lindelof/Scott looked back at the early Alien script and said “hey this is a cool character idea for an android, let’s expand on it”.

Schwarzwald posted:

We've gone past discussing the movie and have gone into this pointless holding pattern. Anyone who was going to be convinced already has been, anyone who hasn't yet is going to be less likely to now that this has the edge of being personal.
Exactly this.

Roth
Jul 9, 2016

I'm rerouting this conversation to an unknown destination that might kill us all.

CelticPredator
Oct 11, 2013
🍀👽🆚🪖🏋

Alien covenant is good

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Basebf555 posted:

To this day I still marvel at how they managed to pull of that Alien Queen. RIP Stan Winston.

I love how Cameron said that since Giger obviously started with a penis when designing the Xeno, he started sketching clits when coming up with the Queen.

MacheteZombie
Feb 4, 2007

CelticPredator posted:

Alien covenant is good

Correct.

No Dignity
Oct 15, 2007

CelticPredator posted:

Alien covenant is good

I don't normally agree with the tactical realism complaints but Oram looking in the egg after he's figured out that David is up to no good and that he does not have his best interests at heart by telling him to look in the egg is such an insane decision that makes absolutely no sense it takes me out of the movie every time

Other than that though, pretty cool. The neomorphs got robbed though, shoved out the way in their own movie for a reprise of a film we've already seen

Xenomrph
Dec 9, 2005

AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill



Darko posted:

I love how Cameron said that since Giger obviously started with a penis when designing the Xeno, he started sketching clits when coming up with the Queen.
I'll have to hunt down the exact quote, but if I remember right someone asked Giger what he thought of the Queen and he said he liked it a lot and wished he'd come up with it.


multijoe posted:

The neomorphs got robbed though, shoved out the way in their own movie for a reprise of a film we've already seen
The Neomorphs are great, and are one of my arguments for why the Alien prequels shouldn't have been Alien prequels - the movies have a bunch of interesting stuff that gets sidelined in favor of the familiar.

But if you've ever wanted to shoot a Neomorph in the face, they'll be in the new Aliens: Fireteam videogame that's out in a few days. :v:

The Notorious ZSB
Apr 19, 2004

I SAID WE'RE NOT GONNA BE FUCKING SUCK THIS YEAR!!!

CelticPredator posted:

Alien covenant is good

It is not as bad as the rap it gets. Prometheus either. It's no AVP or Resurrection that's for sure.

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN

Schwarzwald posted:

Is there any advantage to continuing the conversation? Like, examining the earlier drafts of Alien is interesting! But it took barely any time for us to go from that to "this shows the company didn't know about the alien" / "no is doesn't" / "yes it did."

We've gone past discussing the movie and have gone into this pointless holding pattern. Anyone who was going to be convinced already has been, anyone who hasn't yet is going to be less likely to now that this has the edge of being personal.

Ok, well, to change the subject:

All discussion is strictly impersonal; I don’t particularly care about the personal reasons behind why people make mistakes, except insofar as it may help identify the source of the error.

For my own part, if I were to make a mistake and have it pointed out - like if I believed a planet’s name was ‘Thetis’ when the subtitles reveal it is ‘Thedus’ - I would not ‘take that personally.’ I do not actually exist.

But we keep running into the simple fact that discussion of these films will inevitably touch on basic political stances, religious beliefs, etc. Like, we are exploring people’s worldviews through this art and the discussion of it. And the discussion is itself a type of art form.

If we are forced to avoid these topics, to avoid “getting personal”, that depersonalization is actually a guise for depoliticization. We’re stuck only being able to say, like, “Ripley is a nice lady in my opinion” or “videogames for sale!” - and even that ‘neutrality’ is an extremely political stance.

The statement “there are multiple truths” is an extremely political stance.

(You would certainly be dissuaded from saying “there is no one truth” w/r/t the efficacy of vaccines versus horse medicine - but this is oddly permitted when the topic is art history.)

So, okay, forget the specific conspiracy debate. We still need to talk about everything else in the film. Like, how long has Ripley been a part of the Nostromo crew? In Scott’s film, it’s implied that she is relatively new to the team while, in the October 1978 draft, it is basically her first day in the job. There is a very big difference there, because it affects how we read the characters’ interactions. There’s an animosity between Ripley and the mechanical guys, for example. Is it something longstanding or so Brett and Parker just spontaneously hate her? And are Ripley and Dallas in a relationship? They are in the script.

The point is here is not to ‘win’ some silly debate, but to show how tiny changes - in the order of scenes, or the wording of a piece of dialogue - can have a massive impact on a text.

I mean, that’s kinda why things like writing and editing are artforms at all.

Xenomrph
Dec 9, 2005

AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill



They’re also art forms because different people can have different interpretations and takeaways from a movie, for a myriad number of reasons. That’s the nature of “art”. Seeking “truth” is counter to that which makes it art. There is no one “truth”.

Also there’s a healthy middle ground between “Hicks is cool” chat and whatever the gently caress toxic bullshit the “Jimspiracy” discussion was, hth

Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Aug 21, 2021

Sir Kodiak
May 14, 2007


Xenomrph posted:

They’re also art forms because different people can have different interpretations and takeaways from a movie, for a myriad number of reasons. That’s the nature of “art”. Seeking “truth” is counter to that which makes it art. There is no one “truth”.

Of course there is. For instance, there is no topless sex scene in Alien (1979). That is true. If one were to claim there was a topless sex scene, one would be wrong. And it does not de-art Alien to assert that there are true and false statements about the movie.

One argument can actually be better than another in its adherence to the movie and our practices of reasoning. Intellectually, we should be open to the idea that our own interpretation could be wrong and take counter-arguments seriously. But nothing about a respect for art demands us to abandon the notion that some interpretations are better supported than others. Very much the opposite.

Xenomrph
Dec 9, 2005

AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill



Sir Kodiak posted:

One argument can actually be better than another in its adherence to the movie and our practices of reasoning. Intellectually, we should be open to the idea that our own interpretation could be wrong and take counter-arguments seriously.But nothing about a respect for art demands us to abandon the notion that some interpretations are better supported than others. Very much the opposite.
You are very much correct (although it’s a little more nuanced than that) and I mis-spoke, but i bolded the important part from your post.

“Better supported” (often times a subjective assessment) =/= “objectively true”.

For example, take the idea that David “created” the Alien. It is not “objectively true” that he did, or that he didn’t. There’s evidence both ways.

Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 01:48 on Aug 21, 2021

Gresh
Jan 12, 2019


CelticPredator posted:

Alien covenant is good

I rewatched the whole franchise about a week ago(with the exception of resurrection, gently caress that movie) and Michael Fassbender really holds that movie up, he is such a good actor. Overall, the movie is fine even though I wish it was more of a sequel to Prometheus.

When comparing Prometheus and Covenant, I'd say Prometheus has the stronger story but more uneven script whereas Covenant has the weaker story but more smoother script.

The best parts of Covenant were the Neomorphs and all the Fassbender stuff.

Prometheus has a lot more memorable scenes though like the opening scene, David being a creepy android alone on the ship, the surgery scene, David activating the map room, the engineer bringing the chair up out of the floor, and of course the engineer getting raped by that lovecraftian toothy vagina monster at the end.

Sir Kodiak
May 14, 2007


Xenomrph posted:

“Better supported” (often times a subjective assessment) =/= “objectively true”.

Yes, but we still generally consider the best-supported argument to be the correct one. You are conflating the fact that this consideration has to be provisional—open to new information—with an inability to reach a conclusion at all.

People who put forward competing arguments should be humble enough to read their opponent's reasoning, but it seems silly to demand that people act as if they don't think the argument they're putting forward is the best one.

Xenomrph
Dec 9, 2005

AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill



Sir Kodiak posted:

Yes, but we still generally consider the best-supported argument to be the correct one. You are conflating the fact that this consideration has to be provisional—open to new information—with an inability to reach a conclusion at all.
Not exactly. You can decide what you, personally, feel is the best conclusion, but that doesn't make it "fact" for anyone other than you. Trying to claim it's a "fact" and browbeat others into accepting this instead of, say, agreeing to disagree and moving on, just makes one look like an rear end in a top hat and drags the discussion down into toxic nonsense. Again, there's a healthy middle-ground between "I like _________" discourse and browbeating each other into submission instead of recognizing when to agree to disagree and find something new to talk about.

Sir Kodiak posted:

it seems silly to demand that people act as if they don't think the argument they're putting forward is the best one.
Well I mean, that's just common sense (devil's advocate stuff notwithstanding), although I've seen plenty of discussions where people put forth competing but potentially "weaker" ideas that even they don't necessarily agree with, just to spark discussion and look at things from a different point of view.

But of course a person is generally going to argue the interpretation that they personally agree with. If they convince other people to agree with it, then great. If other people present information that causes them to reevaluate their interpretation, that's also great. But trying to force people to abandon their interpretations is asinine.

Sir Kodiak
May 14, 2007


It's a web forum. If you oppose the use of force in controlling the conversation, then that's an issue with whatever moderation might be imposed. Language stating that you are, say, "lying" (the sort of thing I take it you object to) is a rhetorical technique that, at worst, you find unpleasant.

Xenomrph
Dec 9, 2005

AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill



Obviously the mods take issue with “forcing” people to believe one thing or another, they’ve nudged the discussion away from the same topic twice (and probated the same user twice) when it happened.

Claiming one is “lying” when discussing one’s interpretation of fiction and art is an attack on the person and not their argument, and as pointed out by others, serves no purpose other than to make the debate “personal”.

But enough about the nature of discourse, I think it would be more interesting to talk about the Alien movies in this Alien movie megathread.

Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 02:32 on Aug 21, 2021

Sir Kodiak
May 14, 2007


https://i.imgur.com/oruduHO.gifv

Schwarzwald
Jul 27, 2004

Don't Blink

Xenomrph posted:

Not exactly. You can decide what you, personally, feel is the best conclusion, but that doesn't make it "fact" for anyone other than you. Trying to claim it's a "fact" and browbeat others into accepting this instead of, say, agreeing to disagree and moving on, just makes one look like an rear end in a top hat and drags the discussion down into toxic nonsense.

Xenomrph posted:

Claiming one is “lying” when discussing one’s interpretation of fiction and art is an attack on the person and not their argument, and as pointed out by others, serves no purpose other than to make the debate “personal”.

This is saying too much. It's possible to say things about the film that are true, and it's possible to demonstrate that other things about the film are false. It is also possible to write with more or less sincerity.

Xenomrph
Dec 9, 2005

AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill



Schwarzwald posted:

It is also possible to write with more or less sincerity.

Sure, but it also doesn’t matter. One doesn’t have to “sincerely” believe the interpretation they’re presenting for it to have merit or be worth considering or discussing.

Sir Kodiak
May 14, 2007


Xenomrph posted:

One doesn’t have to “sincerely” believe the interpretation they’re presenting for it to have merit or be worth considering or discussing.

http://i.imgur.com/WZR77Lo.gifv

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SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN

Xenomrph posted:

You are very much correct (although it’s a little more nuanced than that) and I mis-spoke, but i bolded the important part from your post.

“Better supported” (often times a subjective assessment) =/= “objectively true”.

For example, take the idea that David “created” the Alien. It is not “objectively true” that he did, or that he didn’t. There’s evidence both ways.

Well, no. David doesn’t actually exist. He’s a character in the movie Alien: Covenant. (We all know this, but it bears repeating because we keep acting as though that’s not the case.)

And it is objective fact that David created the creatures in the movie Alien: Covenant.

That reading is beyond “better-supported”, in the basic sense that there is nothing whatsoever in the film to contradict it. There are aspects of the film that are ‘open to interpretation’ (e.g. the reason why David creates the monsters), but even that stuff is very extensively illustrated.

Now, you are presumably taking Alien: C and mixing in things from other films or whatever. Like, Aliens Versus | Predator: Requiem depicts near-identical creatures in a different setting that’s nearly a century earlier. But, when you do that, you are personally taking the step of grouping those two films together in a way that’s fairly arbitrary. Why not say David recreated the mutagenic liquid in Leviathan? Maybe he’s modified the hallucinogenic spider-drugs from Outland?

In any case, the phrase “David steals Yautja bioweapon tech in Alien: Covenant” is straightforwardly false. No such characters appear. We can talk about the thematic links between AVP and its remake, Prometheus, and how those themes progress in Prometheus 2, but that’s an entirely different kettle of fish.

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