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MacheteZombie posted:DAMMIT SMG SOME OF US ARE WAITING ON YOUR NEXT CHAPTER YOU OLD BITCH I took some weeks off for Canada Day. Chapter 6: "HE LOOKS LIKE THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA."  "I didn't think you for a musical fan." "Oh, that's a musical?" The joke of this reference is not that Tennessee is uncultured, of course, but that he's actually right; The Phantom Of The Opera was first a horror novel, then two films, then a radio play, a TV miniseries.... The story has been adapted dozens of times - so many so that the characters in Covenant have fully lost track of its origin. But the reference still proves to be all too apt; Covenant seems to refer directly to Grimaces Of The Real - Zizek's essay linking The Phantom Of The Opera ("undoubtedly mass culture's central apparition") to the Xenomorph and the various humanoid monsters of the enlightenment.* Zizek lists as key features the missing nose, the darkened void(s) where the eyes should be, the distorted face... and the exceptional voice that 'takes on a life of its own' and escapes the body it contorted. The name given to the Phantom's disembodied voice, in the novel, is "The Angel Of Music". This angel coaches the young Christine, and teaches her to sing.... The obvious point is that this second xenomorph, that exploded from Lope's chest, is his voice. So Tennessee's unfortunate mistake is that he doesn't take his pop-culture reference seriously enough (a mistake David would certainly never make). He neglects to consider what this Phantom must sound like. And while Lope is drugged into silence and the others discuss how to make him 'normal again', an inhuman scream has been building up inside his chest. Not a song - as Oram's is clearly a song - but a scream. This is half the point of the original Alien's tagline, and of Munch's famous painting: "The energy of the hindered scream, which cannot burst out and release itself in the sound, finds outlet in the anamorphotic distortion of the body, in its 'unnatural' serpentine windings ... as if these spiral lines are here to materialize sound vibrations in a kind of effect of conversion of the hindered sound into a distortion of matter." -Zizek How much dialogue did Lope even have, anyway? Three of Covenant's four monsters (xenomorph and neomorph) emerge from the largely-voiceless background characters, and their violence is best read as revenge against the stars.** As for the fourth, keep in mind Oram's stuttering, halting speech, his jealousy of his rivals, and his eagerness to please the rest of the crew. What we have in Covenant is a tale of mutiny aboard a tall ship, with a captain unfit for command - but some of the crew are still quietly loyal to him, for reasons that the heroes literally cannot comprehend. It's as it is in Aliens - which, it bears repeating, is about a labour uprising where the revolting workers appear as monsters, are treated as aliens, are xenomorphized. There's a whole social dynamic being overlooked when the aliens are treated as merely bugs, even though doing so prevents any understanding of the film. It's important to underline that there are two very different xenomorphs in Covenant. One is raised from birth where the other is abandoned. One is obedient where other is rebellious. And, as noted earlier, one is the materialization of a song and one is the materialization of a scream: "The scream and the song ... form an opposition: the status of the song is that of a stain which materializes incestuous enjoyment, whereas the scream is---to put it simply---a horrified reaction to this stain." -Zizek So the crucial difference between Lope and Oram is that Oram secretly wants to be overtaken by this creature, and gives himself up to David's experimentation. He wants to escape his impotent body, and sing. That's why he looks into the 'egg', in defiance of commonsense: jealous of Daniels' rock-climbing husband, he emerges as this expert climber - and, where Captain Branson is immolated, Oram's alien-form persists even after being lit on fire. Daniels wields a rock-climbing axe against this alien to cement the association between the titling platform (where the battle takes place) and the mountainside in the video, earlier in the film, where the dead Branson beckons her to join him. When Oram is understood as striving to become the demonic reincarnation of Daniels' husband, replacing him, then we can understand the creature's motivation is not purely to kill. Its goal is simply to prevent Daniels from leaving this planet - from leaving Oram's planet. It would keep her there - and perhaps build a 'cabin', a nest for her. No wonder that, once this creature is dead, Daniels is ready to move on from the death of her husband, and heal. The thing to keep in mind here is that Oram's alien-form was raised and likely trained by David, while Lope's alien-form is a blank slate. Wandering the halls of the ship, alone, it learns human interaction by watching Ricks seduce his wife. The imagery of Ricks' death is unavoidably that the alien is attempting to wear his body, like a suit. It's learning, trying to communicate. So the ending is not at all a redux of Alien. It's a twist on Star Crystal - where, infamously, the alien ends up learning the bible and converts to Christianity - except that Covenant's protagonists never reach any agreement with the monster. What we have is a satire of Aliens, where the heroes unwittingly launch their most powerful potential ally out the fuckin' airlock. But the idea of the xenomorph as an angel/demon has already been thoroughly established at this point - as have the associated themes of music, wind, voice, and spirit. The main thing to focus on is Covenant's context as both the eighth Alien film and the fourth Alien prequel. The point is that, like The Phantom Of The Opera (or Frankenstein, or Dracula...), the story's on track be retold dozens of times. The joke is the inevitability of Alien: The Musical - and may be that Covenant is this musical already. Ridley Scott apparently suspects that, in 100 years' time, people may very well forget that Alien was a film at all.  The obscene voice, heard over the telephone: "Send me a kiss by wire / Baby, my heart's on fire!" Find rationale here for Covenant's multiple unambiguous references (and close structural similarity) to the blockbuster-parodying Lost World: Jurassic Park, which presented its blatant ideological lessons (the power of family, the triumph of Nature, the danger of greed, and so-on.), and its inherent gratuitousness, with a shrug and a wink at the absurdity of it all. Covenant shares the 'raptors in the tall grass, the interruption of a mercenary's piss-break by tiny spiteful creatures, the conflict between rival factions within a single corporate expedition.... But the main thing it shares is the ending, with a family united after the death of the evil greedy businessman, watching as the dinosaurs are locked up and shipped back to 'where they belong.' Daniels simply realizes that she and the 'dinosaurs' are one and the same. *The essay also deals with the figure of the Mother in psychoanalysis, and the idea of confronting one's double... **Taken to an extreme, the human character that most closely resembles the Phantom, in all the Alien films, is none other than Alien: Resurrection's unfortunate, skull-faced 'newborn'. Another would be the Predator. (From the Phantom novel: "Blood!... Blood!... That's a good thing! A ghost who bleeds is less dangerous!") Both these characters are not purely alien as the xenomorph is, which is deliberate. They are 'alien men', as Stan Winston noted with his Predator design: "a man in a suit works just fine as long as you connect the character's mythology as humanoid, as an alien man." (My italics.) SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 04:15 on Aug 4, 2017 |
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Aug 3, 2017 00:34
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Adam Savage pokes around David's little workshop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY3Dwq4HOYM
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Aug 3, 2017 01:36
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Both these characters are not purely alien as the xenomorph is, which is deliberate. They are 'alien men', as Stan Winston noted with his Predator design: "a man in a suit works just fine as long as you connect the character's mythology as humanoid, as an alien man." (My italics.) 
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Aug 3, 2017 10:23
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ADVENT doesn't really resolve the is David the true progenitor of the Xenomorph debate for me anyway. He certainly thinks he is, but he also notes he followed a very specific blue print, and mentions and shows us a depiction of an ancient ritual meant to bring about the "wolf" from the engineers society he wiped out there. Yes the human form is apparently very good for his experiments (man aren't we special), but we're still just some different version of the engineers or their master planning race so I think it's still open ended as to how they'll ultimately decide to resolve it. This specific mutation of the xeno might be from him, but I still am not sold he's actually doing anything more than following in others footsteps, foolishly as there was a good reason they chose to lock it all on an abandoned planet. Poor Shaw though all because she really didn't like his romantic approach to genocide. It does not bode well for Daniels either. It was some really excellent 6 mins of footage, and they should have had the last supper and advent included in the release.
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Aug 4, 2017 00:49
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Covenant was all right, but I'm kind of getting sick of David. He's in danger of overexposure IMHO.
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Aug 4, 2017 01:03
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porfiria posted:Covenant was all right, but I'm kind of getting sick of David. He's in danger of overexposure IMHO. Two movies five years apart. This is a weird complaint.
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Aug 4, 2017 01:11
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The Notorious ZSB posted:ADVENT doesn't really resolve the is David the true progenitor of the Xenomorph debate for me anyway. He certainly thinks he is, but he also notes he followed a very specific blue print, and mentions and shows us a depiction of an ancient ritual meant to bring about the "wolf" from the engineers society he wiped out there. Yes the human form is apparently very good for his experiments (man aren't we special), but we're still just some different version of the engineers or their master planning race so I think it's still open ended as to how they'll ultimately decide to resolve it. This specific mutation of the xeno might be from him, but I still am not sold he's actually doing anything more than following in others footsteps, foolishly as there was a good reason they chose to lock it all on an abandoned planet. He made the Aliens dawg. Don't worry. Someone will come along and recon it because they were mad about it soon enough.
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Aug 4, 2017 01:16
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CelticPredator posted:He made the Aliens dawg. I love the idea of an android creating the ultimate bioweapon for the purpose of wiping out a futuristic humanity run by corporate boardrooms.
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Aug 4, 2017 01:22
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CelticPredator posted:He made the Aliens dawg. I mean, yeah you're prb right. I just really want David to recognize before his demise he got played the whole time.
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Aug 4, 2017 01:46
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Snowman_McK posted:Two movies five years apart. This is a weird complaint. Doesn't John Cleese have a quote about Shakespeare getting 4 hours out of Hamlet and so getting 6 out of Basil Fawlty is pretty good? I feel like that's about as much as you're going to get out of most characters (this is why television is a degenerate form).
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Aug 4, 2017 01:56
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I really liked this movie in theaters, and then I started to pick it apart after it left. Now I just watched it again and sure enough, it owns.
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Aug 4, 2017 03:50
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SMG, how long does it take you to write up one of those?
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Aug 4, 2017 03:57
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porfiria posted:Doesn't John Cleese have a quote about Shakespeare getting 4 hours out of Hamlet and so getting 6 out of Basil Fawlty is pretty good? I feel like that's about as much as you're going to get out of most characters (this is why television is a degenerate form). Hamlet isn't an inherently interesting character, his circumstances and journey are what make him interesting. I get Cleese's point, it's just a weird play to use to make it. Also, considering there are 712 different versions of Hamlet that would total hundreds of hours, it doesn't quite work either.
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Aug 4, 2017 04:08
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The Notorious ZSB posted:I mean, yeah you're prb right. I just really want David to recognize before his demise he got played the whole time. I want him to be Anakin's dad next.
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Aug 4, 2017 05:21
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CelticPredator posted:I want him to be Anakin's dad next. Anakin didn't have a dad. He was an immaculate conception of the Force performed through Shmi skwalker.
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Aug 4, 2017 05:26
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Covok posted:Anakin didn't have a dad. He was an immaculate conception of the Force performed through Shmi skwalker. Actually, it was David and his black goo
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Aug 4, 2017 05:28
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Sheev and Dave would probably get along ok
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Aug 4, 2017 07:44
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Covok posted:Anakin didn't have a dad. He was an immaculate conception of the Force performed through Shmi skwalker. The Force, manifested in the form of Michael Fassbender. I see no issues there.
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Aug 4, 2017 07:51
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Michael Fassbender playing Sheev in the Star Wars reboot 15 years from now would be amazing.
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Aug 4, 2017 08:20
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http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Xenomorph
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Aug 4, 2017 08:23
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How about David killed Harry Potter's parents, and Voldemort stole the praise!
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Aug 4, 2017 08:55
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quote:In Terminators: Five Movie Monsters to Torment Your PCs, an article published in InQuest 39, Wizard Entertainment gave an explanation for the Star Trek, Aliens, Terminator and Star Wars universes being joined together so that players of Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game could use characters, creatures, and machines from those settings as adversaries in Star Wars roleplaying adventures. However, the article has not been confirmed to have been officially licensed by Lucasfilm.3
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Aug 4, 2017 11:08
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:I took some weeks off for Canada Day. Hope you relaxed and enjoyed the break
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Aug 4, 2017 16:28
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Snak posted:Emphasis mine. No loving poo poo. "I'll be back." -Lance Henrisken's most iconic line as Obi-Wan Kenobi.
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Aug 4, 2017 17:09
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CelticPredator posted:He made the Aliens dawg. Nah, I'm unconvinced. There's plenty of wiggle room, and it's way more interesting if he didn't (and even more so if he thinks he did).
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Aug 4, 2017 17:22
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Xenomrph posted:Nah, I'm unconvinced. There's plenty of wiggle room, and it's way more interesting if he didn't (and even more so if he thinks he did). Next alien ends with Welyand sending david a time released message, "Hello son, I lied to you and you can not create anything. We hid programming technobabble in your robot brain that can only copy.". Picture from Alien Revelations.  Ridley would need a cheesy name for the next one and more hamfisted. Alien: BOOK OF REVELATIONS! Tenzarin fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Aug 4, 2017 |
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Aug 4, 2017 17:45
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Snak posted:Emphasis mine. No loving poo poo. I mean, obvious conclusion is dimensional fuckery. Tie Planescape into it and you have a D&D idea that's workable.
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Aug 4, 2017 17:51
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Snak posted:Emphasis mine. No loving poo poo. Hi and welcome to the most baller roleplaying game ever
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Aug 4, 2017 18:36
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dont even fink about it posted:Hi and welcome to the most baller roleplaying game ever Why would anyone play a game that's not officially licensed by the giant soul-less corporation that owns the rights to it? It's not canon, so it can't be any fun.
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Aug 4, 2017 21:12
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:But the idea of the xenomorph as an angel/demon has already been thoroughly established at this point - as have the associated themes of music, wind, voice, and spirit. The main thing to focus on is Covenant's context as both the eighth Alien film and the fourth Alien prequel. The point is that, like The Phantom Of The Opera (or Frankenstein, or Dracula...), the story's on track be retold dozens of times. The joke is the inevitability of Alien: The Musical - and may be that Covenant is this musical already. Ridley Scott apparently suspects that, in 100 years' time, people may very well forget that Alien was a film at all. The Xenomorph has been referred to as a 'demon' in Alien 3 as well. How is Alien 3's demon metaphor different from Covenant's?
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Aug 4, 2017 21:25
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Xenomrph posted:Nah, I'm unconvinced. There's plenty of wiggle room, and it's way more interesting if he didn't (and even more so if he thinks he did). I thought this was what they were going for even in Covenant and liked it a lot. He acts as if he's God but he even says outright that (and in Advent) that the stuff already transforms into all kinds of things and all he's really doing is guiding it via tons of trial and error. We already know he's a mad scientist/malfunctioning regarding his concepts of creativity and conception via all of his actions and conversations throughout Covenant so that fits more to me than that he created the alien as we know it. I mean we already see a mural of one in Prometheus and the Deacon alien-esque one at the end of that movie. David having an affinity for bio-mechanics is a given due to who and what he is and where he originates, but like his creator I think it's a given he thinks he's way more important than he is - the fruits of the millennia of Engineer labor are made completely extinct by humans across three movies and less than a century of time who never even learn what an Engineer is. I think that the two worlds David has been to, I mean obviously they were massively effected by the Engineers/their creators over long periods of time before David and company showed up, which made me think that the goo is so crazy powerful because it's on those planets specifically where Engineers were working on them for a long amount of time, like what ecology and climate exists and the goo there is are fully acclimated to each other. Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Aug 4, 2017 |
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Aug 4, 2017 21:39
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Snak posted:Why would anyone play a game that's not officially licensed by the giant soul-less corporation that owns the rights to it? It's not canon, so it can't be any fun. I think they're not implying that so much as "this is just some goofy poo poo from a mag, don't expect Lucasfilm to call back to it in the movies or anything"
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Aug 4, 2017 22:06
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Are the comics canon? Because there is a Xenomorph is in the background of one of the Rogue Squadron comics. It's kind of like the ET alien cameos in different media though. None of the characters acknowledge them being there.
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Aug 4, 2017 22:41
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The Xenomorph is canon in Judge Dredd, but I think this is the one exception to that because with Dredd they actually keep all of the Dredd vs. Batman/etc. crossovers in continuity and refer to them afterwards/even keep some characters on from them. Prometheus is of course in the same universe as Samurai Shodown though: 
Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Aug 4, 2017 |
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Aug 4, 2017 22:53
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LORD OF BOOTY posted:I think they're not implying that so much as "this is just some goofy poo poo from a mag, don't expect Lucasfilm to call back to it in the movies or anything" Yeah, I was just saying "why would you need to say that lucasfilm hasn't actually endorsed a crazy 5-way crossover between star wars and aliens."
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Aug 5, 2017 00:19
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I watched AVP with the commentary from Paul WS Anderson, Lance Henriksen, and Sanaa Lathan last night. It's hilarious. Lance Henriksen is so complimentary and happy about the movie, he kept gushing about how incredible the lighting was and would respond with "wow!" to everything Anderson said. "It's super dense, this movie. It really is." - direct quote from Lance Henriksen
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Aug 5, 2017 01:03
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That commentary is really stupid, but funny and endearing.
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Aug 5, 2017 01:06
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Low Desert Punk posted:I watched AVP with the commentary from Paul WS Anderson, Lance Henriksen, and Sanaa Lathan last night. It's hilarious. Lance Henriksen is so complimentary and happy about the movie, he kept gushing about how incredible the lighting was and would respond with "wow!" to everything Anderson said. That's because AvP is a good movie.
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Aug 5, 2017 01:11
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Low Desert Punk posted:I watched AVP with the commentary from Paul WS Anderson, Lance Henriksen, and Sanaa Lathan last night. It's hilarious. Lance Henriksen is so complimentary and happy about the movie, he kept gushing about how incredible the lighting was and would respond with "wow!" to everything Anderson said. I was looking for the making-of-AVP Featurette on youtube the other day, and I couldn't find it. I remember watching some of it years ago, and I found the parts about the Pyramid designs and artwork a bit fascinating.
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Aug 5, 2017 01:14
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Lance Henriksen is a loving treasure. No matter how many times it's been said, it's okay to say it again.
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Aug 5, 2017 01:22
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