|
The Nostromo was set to travel through the Tannhauser Gate to jump between deep space and Ganymede.
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2024 15:08
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 09:39 |
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:
I feel like many of the company’s decisions can be explained by applying this heuristic.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2024 15:11
|
|
|
Apollodorus posted:I feel like many of the company’s decisions can be explained by applying this heuristic. It’s just looking at thing in terms of the economics. When you ignore that stuff, you get EU authors inventing space madness as a justification for the pods, while we speculate that the company refuses to feed employees ‘cause they’re just evil for no reason. However, there is also the more freaky possibility that there is no faster-than light travel in Alien 1. Huh? Well, it could be that the 10 months the characters refer to is the subjective travel time of someone inside the pod, while the actual journey from Zeta Reticuli to Earth (at close to lightspeed) takes around 40 years. But that would make Aliens NON-CANON….
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2024 15:48
|
|
|
Splicer posted:This is the kind of info that would distract from the film. They're space truckers on a space cargo vessel and their trip takes <long enough that your don't question why nobody has been here before but not so long that it starts raising weird questions about the practicality of how long it takes them to return to their lives or deliver the goods>. Going into the details would be distracting and counterproductive unless it's plot relevant or the lack of explanation would itself be noticeable. While this is a good way to view it, we do know the math if you’re curious. https://alientimeline.wordpress.com That’s the closest thing to an “official” timeline you’ll find - the site has been around for like 25 years (and has been cited by a bunch of official media, not just EU stuff) and the author was hired by Fox for a while. Zeta II Reticuli (where LV-426 is located) is a real place, as an aside. josh04 posted:You're in the science fiction board now! I want to know exactly how fast the Nostromo travels and the plausible means by which it generates that thrust by the end of the day, or I'm going to start handing out sixers like like a wounded alien spraying spurious acid blood. I got you covered boss! You’ve blown the trans-axle, ease down! Edit— the Micro Machines Action Fleet APC featured the blown trans-axle as a play feature (when you rolled the APC it made a clicking noise). It also had a splattered Alien sculpted on the undercarriage!  
Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Jan 22, 2024 |
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2024 16:21
|
|
|
Further Aliens thoughts: SMG is absolutely right that the plot falls apart after the gang retreat from the atmospheric processor. Ripley works out what Burke did and then for hours tells nobody. She walks into a conversation between Burke and Gorman that clearly looks like it some Interesting Things were said but this is never followed up on. After they've spent ages securing the Ops complex Bishop notices the emergency venting and tells them they have a couple of hours before the thing explodes, at which point he admits that he could have just gone out and remote piloted the second dropship down this whole time. Only after Ripley learns that they're on a 2 hour clock to get off the ground before the processor becomes a nuclear bomb does she decide that it would be a good time to take a nap. It feels a bit like the list of things that needed to happen in that Act were there from the start, but the sequencing is determined by the fact that Burke can't be outed as the villain to the group until the aliens are about to attack, and the aliens can't attack until we are in the final 30 minutes before explosion and the film is going to become a real-time action sequence. So Cameron relies on momentum to get you through.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2024 20:59
|
|
|
Alchenar posted:After they've spent ages securing the Ops complex Bishop notices the emergency venting and tells them they have a couple of hours before the thing explodes, at which point he admits that he could have just gone out and remote piloted the second dropship down this whole time. Ripley does, however, opt to take a nap with Newt later on while they’re waiting for Bishop to come back and they’ve presumably secured the Ops center as much as they can. There kind of isn’t any reason not to, if nothing else than to comfort Newt.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2024 21:53
|
|
|
The only reason they are spending time securing the Ops centre is because they think they don't have a way off the planet. That's the primary problem. When they start urgently troubleshooting the imminent explosion Bishop literally goes "there's an outpost satellite uplink but I checked earlier and the cabling is out. Oh go out there myself and manually control the dish? Yeah I guess I could do that". If they just go straight from the refinery to the uplink then the dropship comes down and they are away before nightfall and the last third of the film just doesn't happen.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2024 22:01
|
|
|
Xenomrph posted:the Micro Machines Action Fleet APC featured the blown trans-axle as a play feature (when you rolled the APC it made a clicking noise). It never occurred to me that the clicking sound was the blown transaxle. Those toys were the poo poo though. I had all three of the Aliens ones, they were all so detailed. I think the Narcissus even had a little Jonesy in the crate inside it. The APC was the coolest one for sure, sliding door and retractable roof and you could actually fit like six minifigures in it. I never managed to snag the Predator ship one, but I had a handful of Star Wars ones as well. Wonder where they all went.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2024 22:04
|
|
|
Alchenar posted:The only reason they are spending time securing the Ops centre is because they think they don't have a way off the planet. That's the primary problem. The uplink was out in the open with a significant transit time on foot from the Ops center, plus Bishop needing like a half hour time align the dish and patch in, plus another half hour to ready the other dropship, plus another hour of flight time. I don’t think the survivors want to stand out in the open while they wait for Bishop to do his thing, with dozens of Aliens milling around. Even if Bishop left to get the dropship the moment they were compromised, it’s still a significant wait. Presumably the Marines were prioritizing securing their location at Ops with the assumption that finding a way off the planet could wait a little bit for them to catch their breath and aren’t going to become Alien food right away. Bishop noticed the venting, says “uh oh”, and reports it to the others. Like I mean I guess Bishop could have spoken up and said “hey we have another dropship, you want me to get it?” earlier, but it wouldn’t have changed their situation much - the dropship doesn’t matter if Ops isn’t secure while you’re waiting for it. Mister Speaker posted:It never occurred to me that the clicking sound was the blown transaxle. Those toys were the poo poo though. I had all three of the Aliens ones, they were all so detailed. I think the Narcissus even had a little Jonesy in the crate inside it. The APC was the coolest one for sure, sliding door and retractable roof and you could actually fit like six minifigures in it. I never managed to snag the Predator ship one, but I had a handful of Star Wars ones as well. Wonder where they all went. I have the Predator dropship, it’s based specifically on the ship from the first AvP comic series. I didn’t have the USCM Dropship, although it was roughly scaled properly with the little mini-APC from the main Micro Machines line, and it could roll up into the bay. They also had plans to do the Daihotai tractor the Jordens are driving when they find the derelict in the Aliens directors cut.  Edit— yes the Narcissus one had a little orange blob that was meant to be Jones in the cat carrier.  Speaking of Narcissus (and Conrad), I took a brief break from reading ‘Heart of Darkness’ so I can get through the second half of ‘Dune’ before the movie comes out. But I’ve got surgery tomorrow, so I’ll have some time to get caught up on some reading while I’m recovering. Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 23:50 on Jan 22, 2024 |
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2024 22:13
|
|
|
No, Alchenar's correct. The chain of events is as follows: the surviving marines lose their ability to contact the backup shuttle when the APC is destroyed, so they retreat to Operations to formulate a new plan. Bishop tries to use the colony’s transmitters to reach the shuttle, but discovers that the connection is down. So, the survivors weigh their options and conclude that bunkering down for 17 days is smarter than going out to patch into the transmitter directly. (Later, when they find out that they can’t survive 17 days, they go back to the ‘riskier’ Plan B.) The problem with the film is that the events don’t occur in that order. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 03:30 on Jan 23, 2024 |
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2024 02:37
|
|
|
Ferrinus posted:No, the Engineers created the first-ever alien by seeding the planet Earth with life billions of years ago such that humans eventually evolved. David merely finished the job. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpkKCeiOn1M
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2024 17:10
|
|
|
Recovering from surgery. Bought an Aliens comic for the first time in several years, my first Marvel ones in fact. The last couple Dark Horse volumes by Brian Wood were real fuckin’ bad, and I heard the first couple Marvel ones weren’t great either. I think this is volume 4, but I’ve got volume 3 on order too. ALIEN BY SHALVEY & BROCCARDO VOL. 1: THAW https://a.co/d/itbMxJ7 First page, first sentence, it says WY rerouted the Nostromo to LV-426. I got a sensible chuckle out of that. Anyway, I’ll see how much reading I can do this evening. I also started replaying Aliens: Infestation on the Nintendo DS, I forgot that that game referenced the UPP right from the start. Aliens: Infestation was meant to tie into Aliens: Colonial Marines when it was in development, and features a very different plot that was based on early A:CM story ideas. Infestation got finished, the publisher sat on it, Colonial Marines had major development overhauls, so the publisher said “gently caress it” and released Infestation on its own. Being in the hospital after the surgery and having a mask on my face reminded me of the myriad batshit crazy alternate endings for ‘The Predator’ that we almost got, including one where Ripley or Newt show up. No really, they partially filmed that poo poo.  https://www.reddit.com/r/LV426/s/CH1eUeb3DH Studio ADI, the guys who have done a ton of special effects for Aliens, Predator, and AvP movies, have done some cool design videos about their work over the years. Here’s some stuff from ‘The Predator’: https://youtu.be/o3nOCBCw9Uw?si=VQ-hAt-jMqBp3pmZ https://youtu.be/4N58PkPAQzA?si=HxKcxwBGsS_jbhYn Here’s the main Predator from AvP Requiem: https://youtu.be/s0oBiAfFaE8?si=-xn6nbEkRV2WxSAv Speaking of whom, he was portrayed by actor Ian Whyte. He also played the Predators in the first AvP movie any time there was only one Predator on-screen at a time. He also played the surviving Engineer in ‘Prometheus’. He also did an intro for me for one of my old AvP Let’s Play videos from over a decade ago. He even did multiple takes with multiple tones of voice. I still have the raw audio file somewhere, but the Let’s Play videos themselves are long gone. Here’s some behind the scenes videos for the hosed up Ripley clones from Alien Resurrection: https://youtu.be/wEn22-kffi0?si=B0pAlFfr1xRadnVV https://youtu.be/ke62icwXJkM?si=uipJ2fVzvCGRJUVz Seriously check their channel out, they have a ton of great stuff from a whole bunch of movies.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2024 01:43
|
|
|
makes sense to me that David, an AI, couldn't actually create the alien but just copied and hosed up a version of what the Engineers had already made
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2024 11:06
|
|
|
thatbastardken posted:makes sense to me that David, an AI, couldn't actually create the alien but just copied and hosed up a version of what the Engineers had already made
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2024 11:13
|
|
|
Splicer posted:If that had been explicit in the film it would have been a much better film It's a film very explicitly about cosmic mystery and unaswerable questions lol
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2024 11:30
|
|
|
No Dignity posted:It's a film very explicitly about cosmic mystery and unaswerable questions lol They for some reason decided to solve the cosmic mystery and unaswerable question from a previous film with "a sad robot did it relatively recently in the timeline because he was mad at his dad". I would prefer that they'd left the Alien alien out entirely, but if that wasn't an option then I would have preferred "a sad robot made a bad copy relatively recently in the timeline because he was mad at his dad, and there's still a lot of cosmic mystery left in the original".
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2024 11:41
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:No, Alchenar's correct. Yeah it's very important that the film only reveals the existence of the colony transmitter after they need a Plan B because it is so obviously the preferable option if you are given a moment to think about it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2024 11:44
|
|
|
The “Alien Film Encyclopedia” book got delayed again, into like September or something. As a long time fan of fictional “reference” books, and as someone who literally wrote an Aliens Encyclopedia website back in the 90s, it’s even got me questioning “do I need this?” Like we’ve got multiple half-decent fan wikis, available to read online for free (even if viewing Fandom wikis on mobile is loving godawful). A print encyclopedia would have to have really interesting knowledge presented in a novel way that’s worth forking over the cash and having it take up valuable real estate on my shelves. But that’s the thing, reportedly this new book won’t feature anything from the new Alien movie or TV series, for some reason. At best it makes it feel like a cynical cash grab, where I should be waiting for the inevitable “revised and expanded” edition that will come out in a couple years and will feature all of that stuff. It feels like a repeat of the Weyland Yutani Report situation from like 2014, where the book got delayed repeatedly and ended up being a really surface-level coffee table book. Which is, like, fine, it’s just not what it was marketed as, or had the potential to be.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2024 12:14
|
|
|
Gotta say, do not see any appeal at all in a version of Alien: Covenant that concludes that actually David is a fundamentally lesser form of being, incapable of original creation.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2024 13:14
|
|
|
josh04 posted:Gotta say, do not see any appeal at all in a version of Alien: Covenant that concludes that actually David is a fundamentally lesser form of being, incapable of original creation. There’s ways to work around the events of the movie, still maintain that, and still deliver on something satisfying. Show that David thought he was the original creator, but that he was mistaken. He can still create things, seemingly independent of other people, but learning that he didn’t do it *first* would be a huge blow to his ego and would play into the tragic gothic horror villain motif. David is already on shaky ground in the text regarding attributing authors (he goofs up the Ozymandias quote although he doesn’t realize it), and “multiple discovery” is a very well-known phenomenon in scientific development. David could very well have independently “created” the Xenomorph, but having him not be the *original* creator maintains the idea while adding a thematically appropriate layer of characterization to David while simultaneously preserving the “mystery” Splicer was talking about.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2024 17:11
|
|
|
'Your creation made it's own creations and you find them a horrifying abomination' in a run-theme through both films.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2024 17:29
|
|
|
This made me randomly remember that mighty max / Polly pocket was a thing. I had a few Star Wars versions
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2024 21:22
|
|
|
FastestGunAlive posted:This made me randomly remember that mighty max / Polly pocket was a thing. I had a few Star Wars versions There’s an Alien and Predator one, as well. I have the Alien one. http://www.actionfigurebarbecue.com/2019/10/the-scream-of-31-days-of-toy-terror_16.html?m=1 Edit— Here’s the actual honest to god no-foolin’ (and totally  ) credits music for Aliens: Infestation:https://youtu.be/cqzYjWLqgNA?si=kpB5dRbxugax7cP6 Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Jan 28, 2024 |
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2024 22:24
|
|
|
josh04 posted:Gotta say, do not see any appeal at all in a version of Alien: Covenant that concludes that actually David is a fundamentally lesser form of being, incapable of original creation. It’s 100%,cope. The misinterpretation of the film involves somehow ignoring everything going on in David’s laboratory, including the hundreds of hand-drawn pieces of concept art, along with plans and schematics. So, like, the claim is that David tests possibly hundreds or thousands of different variations on the alien design, and the one he finally settles on is - 100% coincidentally - near-identical to one that has always existed elsewhere in the universe for billions of years. Like, you’ve only seen like two movies before. So you practice for decades and accidentally end up with an exact shot-for-shot remake of Alien Resurrection. It’s very unlikely! The funny thing is that the Scott prequels provide an absolutely sensible origin for that particular species of alien. It’s carbon-based because it’s derived from carbon-based life, and it can mix genes with humans both because it’s specifically designed to, and because its biology incorporates some gene-splicing nanotechnology.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2024 22:54
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:The funny thing is that the Scott prequels provide an absolutely sensible origin for that particular species of alien. It’s carbon-based because it’s derived from carbon-based life, and it can mix genes with humans both because it’s specifically designed to, and because its biology incorporates some gene-splicing nanotechnology. I absolutely do not want a sensible origin for the Alien. it's Alien. that's the point.
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2024 00:06
|
|
|
Xenomrph posted:There’s an Alien and Predator one, as well. I have the Alien one. That is sick. I really enjoyed Infestation, still have my copy. Deserves a re release and I’d like to see another try at the Metroidvania genre
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2024 00:21
|
|
|
I recognize that song and dance.
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2024 00:38
|
|
|
josh04 posted:Gotta say, do not see any appeal at all in a version of Alien: Covenant that concludes that actually David is a fundamentally lesser form of being, incapable of original creation. apologies if i was unclear, i was joking about AI or LLM art, not attempting to impugn the noble synthetic.
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2024 00:53
|
|
|
Gravitas Shortfall posted:I absolutely do not want a sensible origin for the Alien. it's Alien. that's the point. I want layers and layers of new mysteries. For every answer provided, give me 2 new bizarre haunting cool enigmatic things to wonder about. Just make sure they're not less interesting than the one you answered, which is the tough part.
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2024 00:55
|
|
|
thatbastardken posted:apologies if i was unclear, i was joking about AI or LLM art, not attempting to impugn the noble synthetic. Aha! Phew.
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2024 01:02
|
|
|
Gravitas Shortfall posted:I absolutely do not want a sensible origin for the Alien. it's Alien. that's the point. No it isn’t. ‘Alien-ness’ doesn’t demand some kind of illogical origin. In the most basic use of the word, aliens are just entities from other countries, planets, etc. We can identify those origins without much issue, like Martians come from Mars. Besides being factually wrong, it’s also a weird stance because evolution is very familiar to us, while the idea of a creature crafted through alchemy is very bizarre.
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2024 01:56
|
|
|
feedmyleg posted:I want layers and layers of new mysteries. For every answer provided, give me 2 new bizarre haunting cool enigmatic things to wonder about. Just make sure they're not less interesting than the one you answered, which is the tough part. Best I can do is a polar bear and a statue with four toes 
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2024 02:22
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:No it isn’t. ‘Alien-ness’ doesn’t demand some kind of illogical origin. I meant in the adjective form. Alien; strange, different, "not of ones own". Also I don't demand any "logical origin" at all. In fact I would prefer never to have one. It'd be like finding out Jean Jacket from Nope was created by the original black jockey using Frankenstein's notes and now he's back for revenge.
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2024 08:16
|
|
|
feedmyleg posted:I want layers and layers of new mysteries. For every answer provided, give me 2 new bizarre haunting cool enigmatic things to wonder about. Just make sure they're not less interesting than the one you answered, which is the tough part. Part of my issues with prometheus and covenant is that the unknown questions don't feel like they're unavailable, just smugly withheld. Alien feels like archeology, prometheus and covenant feel like playing guess who with That Guy. We've traded a haunting space ship with an incomplete but evocative atmospheric narrative for a petulant robot with a flute fetish. It was a bad trade. Splicer fucked around with this message at 12:00 on Jan 29, 2024 |
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2024 11:56
|
|
|
Splicer posted:We've traded a haunting space ship with an incomplete but evocative atmospheric narrative for a petulant robot with a flute fetish. It was a bad trade. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2024 12:34
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:It’s 100%,cope. The misinterpretation of the film Retconning David's Alien as a recreation would minimise what needs to be discarded from the film to some background art. But also the more I think about it, David's first project(s) being challenging himself to /deliberately/ recreate his creators' creators' most convoluted creations could have been the basis for what I would consider a much more interesting end to Covenant. Splicer fucked around with this message at 12:41 on Jan 29, 2024 |
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2024 12:38
|
|
|
How did David get the jump on Walter, anyway?
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2024 12:51
|
|
|
Prometheus explicitly shows that the alien existed before any humans arrived. The Engineers worship the creature imo, to the point that their physical form has been altered to more closely resemble it.Xenomrph posted:That was always my head-canon for years, but interestingly the intent behind the adult Alien and its behavior when filming was always that it was born from an ox - the Alien birth scenes were filmed after the adult Alien scenes had been filmed and with the intent that they’d go on to film the ox birth, and then when the special effects didn’t work as intended they changed it to be the dog. I recently learned that Alien 3 was going to have a hive, and the crew actually began creating the set for it (there's a picture - it's very much in the style of the Alien deleted scene, rather than Aliens) before a last-minute change to the script again made them stop work on the props. Apparently the general idea was that after Golic releases the alien, it begins building a hive in preparation for the incoming queen. Golic is in there and still alive, referring to the alien as Sir/Master (I forget which now) and there was going to be a scene where Dillon and some others discover it and notice Andrews is one of the captives of the hive as well. What's interesting is that they were going to bring back the blue lasers from Alien for this scene as well, and have it alert the alien to the presence of Dillion & co. when they enter the hive, but it gets there too late as the plan was for Dillon to torch the hive since fire is one of the few tools at their disposal and Andrews would have been pleading for death. Apparently when the alien returns to the hive it would have been on the other side of the fire to Dillon and the others, which I guess got repurposed into the scene where Junior is cut off from the others due to the fire and lures the alien into being trapped? Would have been an entertaining scene imo (Golic owns) and the horror of seeing him in there while Andrews is freaking out and Dillon has a crisis of faith would have been great. I don't think the blue lasers being an alien thing would have been a good idea, though.
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2024 14:54
|
|
|
By “blue lasers” you mean that thin sheet of mist covering the eggs in the derelict? In-universe I don’t think it’s supposed to be lasers.
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2024 15:14
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 09:39 |
|
|
Apollodorus posted:How did David get the jump on Walter, anyway? Without paying attention to the actual beat-by-beat plot, the funniest answer is that Walter got back on the ship, convinced to David's point of view because the human crew are nothing but boring idiots anyway.
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2024 15:43
|
|
