|
Xenomrph posted:Yes, and that’s intentional. The latter is kind of fun to think about, but the former actually matters because at the end of the day these are fictional creatures set in fictional stories crafted by writers of fiction. We will only ever see them within that framework, so saying things like “oh yeah a battalion of Marines rolling up on an Alien hive with a bunch of tanks and air strikes from dropships would totally obliterate the hive” is ultimately meaningless because when the inevitable ‘Alien 26’ movie comes out as part of the Alien Cinematic Universe, none of those things will have ever happened. Okay but what you're admitting by taking the conversation in this direction is that, in fact, the alien is not that dangerous and always needs help if it's going to actually threaten anyone. There either need to be people on the alien's side (whether consciously in the case of Ash or unwittingly in the case of Brett and Parker) or God himself needs to contrive horrible coincidence after tragic accident in order to make sure that this space panther always either has a significant armaments or numbers advantage over whatever humans it's going to be up against. ...which is exactly what I'm saying. There's nothing exceptionally dangerous or flabbergasting about the thing-in-itself. All the horrible twists of luck that expose the Nostromo's crew to the alien could easily be horrible twists of luck that expose the Nostromo's crew to a foreign plague or to a human serial killer. Quarantine protocols work perfectly fine, which is to say, they can fail due to some combination of human error or freak accident, but that would also make them fail against completely normal threats, such that the alien does not have notable, extra-scary quarantine-piercing capabilities that the novel coronavirus lacks.
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2021 18:29
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 16, 2024 21:37 |
|
|
Neo Rasa posted:What type of music do people in the Alien setting listen to? Apparently John Denver and Stephen Stills
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2021 18:29
|
|
|
Not the worst choices, not the best either
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2021 18:35
|
|
|
Alien Megathread: I didn't get to see Bill Paxton's bare rear end
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2021 20:24
|
|
|
Alchenar posted:Alien Megathread: I didn't get to see Bill Paxton's bare rear end Alien Megathread: What you’ve written is, unfortunately, hyper-political
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2021 21:01
|
|
|
I watched this and thought about this thread. Don't know why. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYvWssvg1YU
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2021 21:45
|
|
|
Ferrinus posted:Okay but what you're admitting by taking the conversation in this direction is that, in fact, the alien is not that dangerous and always needs help if it's going to actually threaten anyone. There either need to be people on the alien's side (whether consciously in the case of Ash or unwittingly in the case of Brett and Parker) or God himself needs to contrive horrible coincidence after tragic accident in order to make sure that this space panther always either has a significant armaments or numbers advantage over whatever humans it's going to be up against. Going beyond even the question of what God needs with a star-beast, the implicit claim is that this God Himself is behind the creature's alleged supernatural abilities. This is how (it's imagined) that xenomorphs can time-travel, teleport, fly, spawn matter from nothing, infinite energy, etc. The very biology of the aliens is 'boosted' by God. The only conclusion we can draw, then, is that nothing actually works against the aliens. If a character shoots a gun at an alien, nothing happens at all. Then God, if He so chooses, detonates the alien in accordance with the character's beliefs (that guns work). This creates the illusion that bullets work on aliens, when the aliens are inherently quite bulletproof. In the meantime, God is also presumably the one who pulled the trigger. Hudson is just as omnipotent as the aliens, and God has simply made it appear that he is not. This is, of course, actually a very perverse form of franchise thinking that attempts to incorporate imdb goofs. Cinemasins and canon, combined.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2021 21:53
|
|
|
I'm pretty sure this conversation has run it's course. Move on.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2021 22:26
|
|
|
Ferrinus posted:Okay but what you're admitting by taking the conversation in this direction is that, in fact, the alien is not that dangerous and always needs help if it's going to actually threaten anyone. There either need to be people on the alien's side (whether consciously in the case of Ash or unwittingly in the case of Brett and Parker) or God himself needs to contrive horrible coincidence after tragic accident in order to make sure that this space panther always either has a significant armaments or numbers advantage over whatever humans it's going to be up against. We already established that the quarantine protocols only might have worked because of certain circumstances (the Alien wasn’t born yet). If a fully grown Alien rocked up on the Nostromo and Ripley said “oh gently caress, nope” and locked the doors and tried to take off immediately, my money is still on the Alien finding a way in. As for the other thing about the Alien always needing help (divine or otherwise), that’s a salient point… kinda. Does it need help? Sometimes; the Alien is still real dangerous for a whole host of reasons and is adept at solving its own problems. But the kicker is, it will get that help 100% of the time somehow, which makes them inherently dangerous. Interestingly, there are Aliens stories that straight up lampshade this - in at least one of the novels and comics, one of the characters laments the involvement of the Aliens in the plot because he recognizes that something always goes wrong and the Aliens get loose and kill a bunch of people absolutely every single time, no matter how well you try and plan and account for every variable. It’s like they’re cosmic agents of chaos - they’re going to find a way into/out of some place they’re not supposed to be, or a security system is going to fail, or the characters will overlook a minor detail that the Aliens exploit, or an earthquake is going to happen, or the Aliens will display some unexpected trait, or some character will betray the others, or something, absolutely every single time. The character basically says “Aliens are involved, so keep your head on a swivel because things absolutely will go sideways even if it’s not directly their fault.” They are the living embodiment of Chaos Theory. In other words they’re space cats. Space panthers, if you will.  Edit— Ripley8 in Alien Resurrection subtly lampshades it herself; she knows that somehow the Aliens are going to get loose and kill everybody, and even tells the other characters this. The point is that an extraterrestrial with an inherent quality of “poo poo goes wrong, always” is pretty novel IMO. It’s like a “bad luck/probability field”, to crib from superhero comics. Like it’s not merely coincidence anymore, it’s a genuine in-narrative property of the creature, as bizarre as that sounds. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Sep 3, 2021 |
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2021 22:50
|
|
|
If you're going to impute Scarlet Witch powers onto xenomorphs, you also have to start ascribing them to infectious diseases, economic crises, the weather, etc. However, this traps you in a world of gods and demons that leave you perpetually scared and confused and serves to exculpate the forces that are actually to blame. Alien wasn't actually some kind of oof oops ouch there I go again series of freak coincidences. The malefactor was clearly and straightforwardly capitalism; that's why the Nostromo went off-course at all, why the quarantine protocol failed, etc. Even in the endless EU hamster wheel of humans try to exploit aliens -> humans get owned -> more humans try to exploit aliens -> more humans get owned, the actual constant that keeps making things go wrong is the profit motive, not magic of the Fate Arcanum. If Weyland-Yutani and its equivalents weren't constantly on the hunt for increasing profits, they wouldn't constantly be taking insane risks while at the same time cutting more and more corners. Aliens don't have supernaturally good luck, they're just a perfect fit for our mode of production. It's why Ash admires them so much. EDIT: To keep using a topical example, many people predicted that COVID-19 would run rampant through the USA, afflicting us for many years if not permanently owing to our botched response to the virus. This is not because we were able to divine that the coronavirus has supernaturally good luck, but that beating it is only easy if you're willing to take a cut to profits, which everyone setting policy here in the States simply wasn't. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Sep 3, 2021 |
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2021 23:22
|
|
|
MacheteZombie posted:I'm pretty sure this conversation has run it's course. Move on. Although I would love to, this is another situation where the topic is universal in scope, affecting everything. There's no way to avoid touching on the claim that "TV Tropes" are a diegetic physical force in all narratives. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2021 23:23
|
|
|
Xenomrph posted:A couple things: I mean it’s certainly a choice to say that standard methods of narrative contrivance are in-universe magic powers. It’s very ‘meta’. But we don’t have to accept this reading.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2021 23:34
|
|
|
MacheteZombie posted:I'm pretty sure this conversation has run it's course. Move on. Considering the next thing we're likely to get out of the franchise even remotely relevant to this forum is a TV show at least a year from now, I have absolutely no clue what superior conversation you mods think you're making space for. If there's three people you have to probate who all want the conversation to keep going, it obviously hasn't run its course. How is just letting people talk about the Alien franchise not an option with this thread?
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2021 00:00
|
|
|
this is now the Jonesy thread What's really going on with that darn cat? Share your favorite theories
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2021 00:05
|
|
|
Jonesy is actually the titular alien. Makes you think. PS. Absolutely jumping on the 'just lock the thread if you want people to stop talking about the aliens films, don't prob a whole page of people having a good conversation' train
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2021 00:08
|
|
|
Regarde Aduck posted:I mean it’s certainly a choice to say that standard methods of narrative contrivance are in-universe magic powers. It’s very ‘meta’. But we don’t have to accept this reading. And we certainly have no reason to accept it when talking about the movie Alien (1979). Later filmmakers running the xenomorph into the ground doesn't change the plot of the original movie.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2021 00:15
|
|
|
Sir Kodiak posted:Considering the next thing we're likely to get out of the franchise even remotely relevant to this forum is a TV show at least a year from now, I have absolutely no clue what superior conversation you mods think you're making space for. If there's three people you have to probate who all want the conversation to keep going, it obviously hasn't run its course. How is just letting people talk about the Alien franchise not an option with this thread? I’ll take toy talk tbh. Toys are fun and less tedious than watching two people with different styles go back and forth.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2021 00:18
|
|
|
CelticPredator posted:I’ll take toy talk tbh. Toys are fun and less tedious than watching two people with different styles go back and forth. And I'd like some help with the issues I'm having with my PC, but I understand that I'm in the wrong forum for that.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2021 00:24
|
|
|
Alchenar posted:
Yeah, that seems weird. I glazed over and skimmed through a lot of those diatribes but I don't see why we need to probate people for megaposting about Aliens in the Alien Megathread. Who the gently caress is would even report posts like that?
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2021 00:26
|
|
|
I wonder what the franchise would have looked like if they would have gone with Vincent Ward for Alien 3. Personally I find his version far more interesting than William Gibson’s version. There’s a weird graphic novel on his personal site, but the site is unbelievably slow to the point it feels broken and it appears to be abandoned in an unfinished state. You can find the story & script on various sites, of course. I feel like the third film was probably always doomed to be a somewhat failed cult classic (at best), but the fourth entry would have been even wilder. If they had still gotten Jeunet I think they would have let him shape the movie more; I mean once you have a wooden space station you kind of have to go out there for a follow up. Whether or not that would resulted in a better fourth movie is probably debatable though. I get the feeling that they only got Sigourney back by giving her a lot of say, which wasn’t really to the benefit of the movie.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2021 00:28
|
|
|
Sir Kodiak posted:And I'd like some help with the issues I'm having with my PC, but I understand that I'm in the wrong forum for that. You can do whatever you want.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2021 01:36
|
|
|
We finally got to play some of the Alien: Fate of the Nostromo board game. The game is fun but having an actual cat in play makes makes accessing the cryo chamber almost impossible.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2021 02:20
|
|
|
Martman posted:this is now the Jonesy thread He respects the alien for its perfect ambush of Bret for sure Edit: possibly jealous
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2021 02:46
|
|
|
Blood Boils posted:He respects the alien for its perfect ambush of Bret for sure The xenomorph is CANONICALLY terrified of cats and since we know that they're bio-mechanical creatures and in a way programmed the same way we breed animals or grow specific strains of fruits and vegetables, we can assume that all phases of the xenomorph are terrified of cats. EXHIBIT A: After killing Brett Jonesy stairs the alien down and it immediately flees! EXHIBIT B: When the xenomorph encounters Jonesy in their carrier (making Jonesy even less threatening-seeming than before) the Alien seems interested in the carrier but upon realizing Jonesy is in it swats the carrier away and then it doesn't just run away or hide, IT IMMEDIATELY BOLTS FOR THE ESCAPE SHUTTLE! There's no other way to read it. If Ripley brought Jonesey with her and the cat was hanging around the Sulaco the facehugger in Alien 3 probably wouldn't even have hatched since it would perceive that conditions were not right on account of Nature's Serial Killer, the housecat, being nearby.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2021 04:37
|
|
|
i hope you realize that this conversation will merely lurk within the thread, growing, waiting until it is ready to burst out. or... perhaps that's the mod's secret plan? 
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2021 04:51
|
|
|
The xenomorph is CANONICALLY a lover of cats and since we know that they're bio-mechanical creatures and in a way programmed the same way we breed animals or grow specific strains of fruits and vegetables, we can assume that all phases of the xenomorph have a love of cats. EXHIBIT A: the alien attacks Brett after he corners and attempts to abduct a scared cat EXHIBIT B: When the xenomorph encounters Jonesy trapped in their carrier the Alien tries to break him out of his portable prison cell by swatting at it and when that doesnt work runs off in search of a way to free him Theres no other way to read it. If the prisoners in Alien 3 had a pet cat instead of a dog the facehugger wouldnt have attached itself to the cat out of respect for such a powerful friend and ally
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2021 04:59
|
|
|
Hodgepodge posted:i hope you realize that this conversation will merely lurk within the thread, growing, waiting until it is ready to burst out. Rothspiracy vs MacheteZombie acted on their own
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2021 05:10
|
|
|
This Jim person that people keep talking about is Jim Woodring, right?
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2021 05:23
|
|
|
All along Jim... was Jim Davis
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2021 05:24
|
|
|
Hodgepodge posted:i hope you realize that this conversation will merely lurk within the thread, growing, waiting until it is ready to burst out. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2021 06:00
|
|
|
Anyone here play MTG Arena? I'm using a lifedrain orzhov deck which is very fun, but I'm having a lot of trouble advancing beyond platinum tier tbh.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2021 09:58
|
|
|
Crespolini posted:Anyone here play MTG Arena? I'm using a lifedrain orzhov deck which is very fun, but I'm having a lot of trouble advancing beyond platinum tier tbh. What you have written is, unfortunately, hyper-political.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2021 15:04
|
|
|
Crespolini posted:Anyone here play MTG Arena? I'm using a lifedrain orzhov deck which is very fun, but I'm having a lot of trouble advancing beyond platinum tier tbh. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2021 19:50
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:
Okay, sure, check out this movie I imagined called Alien. There is a scene present in some versions of the film where you can see the Alien turning crewmembers into eggs. There is also another movie I invented and gave it the terrible name of Aliens vs Predator Requiem which has an alien pop out of a Predator (thus, 'predalien', stupid name). It seems to be able to barf out eggs or embryos into living hosts. I also made up another movie called Alien Covenant where they can seemingly spread from airborne spores. They are seemingly very large within minutes of being born without much time for eating/molting. If we ignore everything but the Paul Reiser film then yes, the Aliens can be said to breed in a predictable way with a Queen who lays X eggs a day. Xenomrph stated that the showrunners for the new series are basing it off all the films so I suspect we're gonna get more weird types that do even more bizarre poo poo rather than the 'standard' Queen n Drones concept of Aliens. Mr. Grapes! fucked around with this message at 03:37 on Sep 5, 2021 |
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2021 03:33
|
|
|
Xenomrph posted:
I think we're in agreement. I was responding to SuperMechaGodzilla's assertion that the Queen lays 15 eggs a day and needs specific temperature requirements to survive, and thus the Aliens are a way lesser threat than many believe. I disagreed entirely and tried to futilely point out circumstances in which the movies show this to be untrue. I think they don't really need food, because if they did, those facehuggers in jars would probably starve (plus a bunch of other stuff). Maybe you blocked him so his posts don't show and it looks like I'm talking to myself? Maybe I'm an android and don't know it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2021 03:40
|
|
|
The current blanket ban on cinema discussion plays right into the hands of those few individuals who have been all-along trying to prevent discussion of the Alien films. It is not a neutral decision. Only deceit benefits from this.
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2021 03:42
|
|
|
Ferrinus posted:Okay but what you're admitting by taking the conversation in this direction is that, in fact, the alien is not that dangerous and always needs help if it's going to actually threaten anyone. There either need to be people on the alien's side (whether consciously in the case of Ash or unwittingly in the case of Brett and Parker) or God himself needs to contrive horrible coincidence after tragic accident in order to make sure that this space panther always either has a significant armaments or numbers advantage over whatever humans it's going to be up against. Yeah, I think one of the main themes of the Alien movies is that People Will gently caress Things Up. Yes, if everyone behaves very intelligently and takes the long view of recognizing these things as a serious but manageable threat then there are things that could be done to stop them. But, people don't take that view. In Alien, Ash is willing to kill the entire crew so he can study the Alien. If Ash was an ethical science officer with an adherence to quarantine then yes, Kane dies on a rock alone. In Aliens, Burke is willing to sacrifice hundreds of colonists just to get a chance for profit. If Burke was a responsible person who wanted to stop the alien threat, he'd warn the colonists specifically to stay away from the derelict vessel until a Marine airstrike vaporizes it. In Alien 3, if the Company wanted to stop the Alien at all costs they'd want the prison authorities to kill Ripley, rather than keep her safe so they can grab her baby. In Alien Resurrection they obviously should not be breeding these things in the first place. Prometheus and Covenant have the Ash Problem again in that there is specifically a robot with a fascination for the aliens and a contempt for humans. Is this screenwriting trickery? Or are the Alien movies trying to tell us that humans through greed/malice/hubris/curiosity will always provide the Alien an opening to gently caress us up? Like, the reason an Earth Hive would get uncontrollable isn't because we lack enough tanks and artillery - it's because some jackass in a labcoat or army uniform is going to neglect to take them seriously or try to take them alive or do some other dangerous thing that leads to the Alien getting an advantage. To me, I like this aspect of the franchise. I can see how it would be infuriating to some, though. I suppose one could compare it even to Star Wars, which only works if the bad guys always make the dumbest and most 'unrealistic' choices all the time in order to allow the heroes' dumb choices to succeed. Is AVPR oddly enough the only film in which everyone just agrees to kill these things right when they see them? It's been awhile since I watched it, but I can't remember anyone expounding on its majesty or whining about Dollar Value. Mr. Grapes! fucked around with this message at 04:03 on Sep 5, 2021 |
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2021 03:52
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:The current blanket ban on cinema discussion plays right into the hands of those few individuals who have been all-along trying to prevent discussion of the Alien films. I suspect they have The Specimen in transit and they're moving onto a coverup of witnesses. Be careful entering your cryo-freezers everybody.
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2021 04:01
|
|
|
So, back to the usual.Mr. Grapes! posted:Okay, sure, check out this movie I imagined called Alien. There aren’t any ‘colonial marines’ in the 2003 movie Alien: The Director’s Cut. As you know, you are mixing the plots of several different films together to generate a wholly new plot. You can generate any plot in this manner. For example, I will write an unofficial sequel-epilogue for Aliens right now: Aliens Two Written & Edited by me While Lt. Ellen Ripley and her new family drift through space in the Sulaco, scientists have confirmed that Dallas was not being transformed into an alien egg. Rather, the alien was transforming its egg into a Dallas. It turns out that each individual alien births 2-3 fully-grown humans per day. There were consequently several thousand humans hiding around Hadley’s Hope at the time of the great bug war. These chaps luckily escaped the reactor explosion, but ended up starving to death. In conclusion, “eggmorphing” NEVER produces an alien of any kind. The End. (Copyright by me, 2021.) Looking at the Xenomorph behaviour in Aliens Two, it’s clear that “eggmorphing” never produces an alien of any kind. Applied retroactively the movie Aliens, we also now know that Ripley and friends killed several thousand innocent human beings because their population estimates were way off. Any proper analysis of Aliens MUST take Aliens Two account. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 06:45 on Sep 5, 2021 |
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2021 06:42
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 16, 2024 21:37 |
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:The current blanket ban on cinema discussion plays right into the hands of those few individuals who have been all-along trying to prevent discussion of the Alien films. Forget it, SMG. It's the Mod Forum.
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2021 08:04
|
|