|
Played through Alien Isolation normally at first. Great game. I'm not a huge survival horror fan because it can get too stressful but I'm a huge fan of the movie. A long time later I had an Oculus Rift and found out about the VR mod for the game and gave it a try and it was loving awesome. It's one of the only recent gaming experiences I've had that felt like it was a true leap revolutionary leap forward in entertainment rather than just a slight incremental improvement. On the topic of the movies I wanted to point out what I think really caused Alien 3 to sink. If you look at the first two movies they are masterworks in set design, props, costumes and lighting. Regardless of how much work they actually did on it, Alien 3 looks like they found some abandoned factory and really didn't do anything to it. The set, props, and costumes are totally uninspired. The lighting is memorable, but everything plays together so it comes off as a bold desperate attempt to cover up how lazy/underfunded they were with everything else. I'm such a huge fan of the creature and overarching story that I can't help but liking the movie a little bit, but it's also why the assembly cut doesn't do anything for me because I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the editing or the plot or characterization. It's the look and feel of a movie that really sells it.
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2021 03:58
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 09:51 |
|
|
Amarcarts posted:On the topic of the movies I wanted to point out what I think really caused Alien 3 to sink. If you look at the first two movies they are masterworks in set design, props, costumes and lighting. Regardless of how much work they actually did on it, Alien 3 looks like they found some abandoned factory and really didn't do anything to it. The set, props, and costumes are totally uninspired. The lighting is memorable, but everything plays together so it comes off as a bold desperate attempt to cover up how lazy/underfunded they were with everything else. I'm such a huge fan of the creature and overarching story that I can't help but liking the movie a little bit, but it's also why the assembly cut doesn't do anything for me because I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the editing or the plot or characterization. It's the look and feel of a movie that really sells it. The Dog Catcher suits didn’t stand out to you? Being set in a dismal prison/lead works doesn’t really lend itself to spectacular sets but ironically I think they were all custom built. Aliens was literally filmed in a dressed-up abandoned power plant for at least the atmosphere processor parts (not sure if any of the colony was filmed there). There are odd set touches in Alien 3 like the elaborate stained glass that shows up in places recycled from when they were making Vincent Ward’s medieval monks in space script. The lead works seem pretty distinctive to me along with some of the notable rooms. It effectively sold the setting of a run-down off world industrial facility to me, so maybe your issue is really more the setting and not the sets?
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2021 04:28
|
|
|
david_a posted:The Dog Catcher suits didn’t stand out to you? I'll have to watch the series again it's been a while but I just remember 3 being so boring to look at. Everything may have been custom made and they may have worked really hard on it but it does not pay off for them (For me at least) 2 may have been filmed in an abandoned power plant but the work they did to make each location look unique is so apparent. There is so much variety and detail. You have the undamaged colony, the damaged colony, the atmosphere processor with and without the secretions/and people on the walls, you have the APC, the earth space station and the Sulaco. Even within the Sulaco which is a small portion of the film you have multiple rooms that have their own character. It feels like a huge movie and it feels real. 3 feels small and feels more surreal than real. There are a bunch of different rooms but a lot of them feel like they could have easily been the same room shot from different angles and/or lit differently. 2 also has the benefit of way more props. If they wanted to go with a story for 3 where they had no weapons or technology they should have done something more elaborate with the set design to make up for it. I do have to watch it again though there may be some stuff that I'm overlooking. I'd also like to see some sort of a breakdown of the budgets of the three original films I think it would be very interesting.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2021 04:52
|
|
|
Amarcarts posted:I'd also like to see some sort of a breakdown of the budgets of the three original films I think it would be very interesting. Alien 3 dwarfs the other two combined, but how much of that actually shows up on screen is really debatable. There’s a bunch of stupid stuff padding the budget, like Sigourney had something in her contract that they would have to pay her megabucks if they needed more footage with her head shaved (which of course they did) so they instead made some super elaborate and expensive skullcap headpiece thing for like a few shots. Michael Biehn got paid a large sum because they had used his likeness without consent and created a mannequin of his chestburst corpse - that entire thing was wasted because they didn’t get his consent to use his likeness and he rejected that, settling on the one pixelated monochrome photo instead.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2021 05:25
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:In case anyone was wondering, Breach (aka Anti-Life (with inexplicable Bruce Willis)) is exactly as blandly amateurish as it looks from the trailers - and it's very fashy on top of that. It's exactly like a feature-length version of the crummier "40th Anniversary" Alien fan shorts. Strong avoid!  It was really bad.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2021 05:35
|
|
|
Alien 3 is a perfectly serviceable movie. Killing the emotional centers of Aliens off-screen (understandably) makes everyone bounce off it *hard* and it's not like the movie is a warm experience that goes out of the way to win people back. When I watched it randomly, not having seen any alien movies in a few years and knowing what was going to happen at the start (but not really remembering anything else other than the very end) I really enjoyed the movie. There are some great set pieces and kills, themes of the oppressive systems humanity creates being the real evil while bad people may be redeemable on an individual level.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2021 05:39
|
|
|
david_a posted:Alien 3 dwarfs the other two combined, but how much of that actually shows up on screen is really debatable. There’s a bunch of stupid stuff padding the budget, like Sigourney had something in her contract that they would have to pay her megabucks if they needed more footage with her head shaved (which of course they did) so they instead made some super elaborate and expensive skullcap headpiece thing for like a few shots. Michael Biehn got paid a large sum because they had used his likeness without consent and created a mannequin of his chestburst corpse - that entire thing was wasted because they didn’t get his consent to use his likeness and he rejected that, settling on the one pixelated monochrome photo instead. For those wanting to know more about the Hicks corpse they *did* use in the movie, here you go: http://alienexplorations.blogspot.com/1992/09/alien-3-cpl-dwayne-hickss-dead-body-prop.html?m=1
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2021 05:50
|
|
|
Amarcarts posted:I'll have to watch the series again it's been a while but I just remember 3 being so boring to look at. Everything may have been custom made and they may have worked really hard on it but it does not pay off for them (For me at least) 2 may have been filmed in an abandoned power plant but the work they did to make each location look unique is so apparent. There is so much variety and detail. You have the undamaged colony, the damaged colony, the atmosphere processor with and without the secretions/and people on the walls, you have the APC, the earth space station and the Sulaco. Even within the Sulaco which is a small portion of the film you have multiple rooms that have their own character. It feels like a huge movie and it feels real. 3 feels small and feels more surreal than real. What you're really talking about is the assload of miniature effects in the first two films. I haven't given it a thorough examination, but I'm confident saying that Alien3 has the biggest and most elaborate sets. On the flipside, there are very few exterior shots of the planet surface, or scenes involving spaceships and whatever.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2021 06:23
|
|
|
I just re-watched 3. HBO has both the theatrical and assembly cuts on streaming (AC is listed as the Special Edition). I watched the AC and realized I had never actually seen it, just watched a few clips of the added scenes on Youtube. I agree it does really improve the film but it's still really rough around the edges. There's also next to nothing inspiring about it visually except maybe the opening exterior shots of the prison planet and the first shot of the rod puppet as it starts to run down the hall after being born out of the Ox. There's also the closeup of the infirmary where it confronts Ripley for the first time. I think the movie may suffer from the whole religious bent they put in the story.There really isn't any of that in the first two movies. They emphasized that a little too much at the expense of traditional character development. By itself it wouldn't necessarily be a deal breaker but there anything else from the production that can redeem it. SuperMechagodzilla posted:What you're really talking about is the assload of miniature effects in the first two films. I haven't given it a thorough examination, but I'm confident saying that Alien3 has the biggest and most elaborate sets. On the flipside, there are very few exterior shots of the planet surface, or scenes involving spaceships and whatever. I'm talking about the sets. The only big parts of 3 are the cafeteria and the meeting hall. There are a handful of other small unique rooms and everything else is just generic industrial tunnels where you never get a coherent picture of the space, especially with the camera shots they chose. I was shocked when I saw the production budgets for the films I can't believe Alien 3 costs more than 3 times Aliens. Obviously you have to account for inflation and Weaver's salary but I have no idea where all that money went because it doesn't appear to be on screen. The only thing I can think is that they sunk way too much into visual effects before the technology they were trying to use was cost effective enough for primetime. The rod puppet compositing is atrocious and maybe the small amount of CG they did was insanely expensive. It may also have to do with James Cameron's reputation for his totalitarian dictator approach to making a movie. It probably doesn't make for an easy work environment but you have to think it kept the people on set on their toes and performing at a high level. Look at the sheer variety of sets and decorations for Aliens along with all the props and creatures. The power loader. The guns, the APC, the full sized shuttle. They had to have a handful of drone suits as well as the queen, the eggs, the facehuggers, etc. Alien (1979): $10,700,000 Aliens (1986): $17,000,000 Alien 3 (1992): $55,000,000 Alien Resurrection (1997): $60,000,000 AvP (2004): $70,000,000 AvP Requiem (2007): $40,000,000 Prometheus (2012): $125,000,000 Alien Covenant (2017): $97,000,000 https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Alien#tab=summary&franchise_movies_overview=oa5 If anyone has any more in depth information on breakdowns of the production budgets I'd love to hear about it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2021 08:37
|
|
|
Don't forget that 3's budget included all the money spent on the aborted earlier versions of the film, from the William Gibson and Eric Red scripts to the not-insignificant amounts written off from the Vincent Ward 'wooden planet' version - IIRC, sets had actually been built for Ward, which had to be scrapped or redesigned for Fincher.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2021 08:45
|
|
|
I don't think the that the budget being sunk into the sets necessarily precludes the loss of the detailed miniatures work in the other films being related to what you're saying. That set of specialized skills was not one that most studios had much interest in at that point due to the promise of completely replacing the entire profession with cg in the near future. A simple explanation would be overcompensation for the loss of convincing shots which establish that what we are looking at takes place in an alien world and/or space with elaborate set design. I barely remember the film, so this is pure theorycraft. Hodgepodge fucked around with this message at 10:35 on Jan 10, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2021 10:32
|
|
|
Wikipedia claims they “only” spent $7 million before filming began (words on paper are a lot less expensive than actors & sets) so I don’t know where the other roughly $50,000,000 went. Was anybody on the cast besides Weaver and maybe Charles Dutton a big name at the time?
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2021 21:27
|
|
|
Charles Dance & Lance Henriksen are probably not that cheap, even in 1992. They're high level character actors, albeit still character actors. A few million for Sigourney, a few million spread amongst the cast, probably a few hundred k in hush money for Michael Biehn, a few million for Fincher. There's a lot of expenses outside of stuff that ended up in the bin. They're probably still paying the Giger estate. From an outsider perspective, movies seem like they leak money everywhere, and Alien 3 seems particularly leaky.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2021 23:13
|
|
|
The producers would get a good chunk of above-the-line money as well. Swimming pools don't pay for themselves! Edit: Also add in fees for two prior directors (Renny Harlin and Vincent Ward), David Twohy's script as well as Gibson and Red's drafts, an emergency script doctor hired by the producers, and a shitload of overtime for the production crew - this was one of Fox's big movies for the year, and had to be finished even though it started without a completed script. The money wasn't on the screen because it was being haemorrhaged behind it. Small Strange Bird fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Jan 10, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2021 23:37
|
|
|
Amarcarts posted:Look at the sheer variety of sets and decorations for Aliens along with all the props and creatures. The power loader. The guns, the APC, the full sized shuttle. They had to have a handful of drone suits as well as the queen, the eggs, the facehuggers, etc. Those things are pretty much all miniatures, most of the time. The queen's egg sac (with eggs beneath it) was a miniature, the queen herself is frequently a miniature puppet, they used miniatures to make the hive look bigger, the APC is usually a miniature, etc. But the other thing is that those are all fairly toyetic, while nobody's getting a playset of the prison morgue with Newt autopsy figurine, or dead Bishop in the junkyard recreated in Lego. They built the full-sized escape pod (with impact damage!), but that's just not a good toy.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2021 01:22
|
|
|
The irony being that we didn’t get Aliens toys until Alien3 was coming out, and they cribbed from Alien3’s “take DNA from the host” idea. Very little of the toy line, including the Marines and their equipment, resembled the movies.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2021 01:53
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:Those things are pretty much all miniatures, most of the time. The queen's egg sac (with eggs beneath it) was a miniature, the queen herself is frequently a miniature puppet, they used miniatures to make the hive look bigger, the APC is usually a miniature, etc. Its genuinely weird how appealing the xenomorph is to kids. My kid is a huge fan from like age 6 due to a parody music video of Alien: Isolation.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2021 01:59
|
|
|
I think a typical child's reaction to something scary in a film is: stark terror -> wait, the movie is over and I'm not dead -> that was awesome. See also the spookier Disney cartoon stuff, like Ursula becoming huge or the Fantasia segment with actual Satan.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2021 02:06
|
|
|
That and immediately wanting to know everything about the monster.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2021 02:11
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:I haven't given it a thorough examination, but I'm confident saying that Alien3 has the biggest and most elaborate sets. I can't remember if any of Alien3's sets were larger than this, could be wrong though: 
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2021 02:23
|
|
|
 pretty big!
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2021 02:27
|
|
|
Xenomrph posted:The irony being that we didn’t get Aliens toys until Alien3 was coming out, and they cribbed from Alien3’s “take DNA from the host” idea. Very little of the toy line, including the Marines and their equipment, resembled the movies. The only Alien that sorta looked like the movies, besides the queen play set, was that Scorpion Alien that I could never find as a kid. It wasn't until they released that baby blue Alien did I get a chance to snag something that resembled the movie. Fun story about that which is kinda cute is my mom said she'd buy that for me if I did well in school for the week and we would spend the week "fixing it". Basically we did like day 1, I could buy it. Day 2 we could "slime it up" where we put jello, soap and other stuff all over it. And then a few days later (i forgot the rest of the process lol) we could paint it black with spray paint. I remember it being super sticky because I never let it dry and it always had paint rubbed off it, but I loved it. https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0758/8457/products/107_839bb651-481c-41ba-8d75-84e5f0c0afdc_large.JPG?v=1571439157
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2021 02:47
|
|
|
sigher posted:I can't remember if any of Alien3's sets were larger than this, could be wrong though: The set for Hicks & Newt's funeral is significantly larger than that - to the point that you can't really see the full scope of it in a given shot. (The "Space Jockey" set there was actually built at like 2/3rds scale, with the astronauts played by little kids to make it look bigger.)
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2021 03:08
|
|
|
well why not posted:
There’s a time lapse video of the construction of one of Alien3’s sets and it’s pretty big from what I remember. In the meantime here’s a making-of video of other stuff from Alien3: https://youtu.be/79cHyA836Bw And another video: https://youtu.be/QTzrasBUOf4 Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 03:19 on Jan 11, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2021 03:16
|
|
|
Hodgepodge posted:That and immediately wanting to know everything about the monster. Yeah that’s basically my story  I think I actually read the novelization of the first movie before I saw it. I have a childhood memory of the the science museum in Boston (where we lived at the time) having some kind of “movie magic” exhibition where they had amongst other things Bruce from Jaws and the full-size Alien Queen and Power Loader. I couldn’t look the the Alien Queen for very long because it freaked me out so much. Man what I wouldn’t give to go back in time and see that whole thing. I think the Queen & Loader ended up in the sci-if museum in Seattle which I want to pay a visit to.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2021 03:20
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:The set for Hicks & Newt's funeral is significantly larger than that - to the point that you can't really see the full scope of it in a given shot. Not just little kids, but Ridley Scott’s kids. The adult actors would complain that the astronaut suits were too hot and they couldn’t breathe in them. Scott thought they were just whining, until one of his kids passed out in his space suit. Parenting!
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2021 03:21
|
|
|
david_a posted:Yeah that’s basically my story yeah, my kid was too scared at the same point to go see the woolly mammoth display at the museum. still holding off a bit on the films, showing him engaging scenes on youtube for some things but he's already been spoiled enough on alien stuff.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2021 03:24
|
|
|
Xenomrph posted:Not just little kids, but Ridley Scott’s kids. passing out on set while helping your dad make a sexually charged space movie is peak 1979
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2021 03:33
|
|
|
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pjv7Z1oGOE
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2021 04:15
|
|
|
Payndz posted:The producers would get a good chunk of above-the-line money as well. Swimming pools don't pay for themselves! whoah i had no idea Renny Harlin nearly directed an Alien movie. that's hilarious
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2021 04:23
|
|
|
I want one so bad. But not 500 + bad. I wish someone would remake it. And yeah I know about the GG one thats like 3 feet or whatever. No I dont want that
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2021 04:48
|
|
|
CelticPredator posted:The only Alien that sorta looked like the movies, besides the queen play set, was that Scorpion Alien that I could never find as a kid. It wasn't until they released that baby blue Alien did I get a chance to snag something that resembled the movie. My mom braved the gross world of comic book stores to find and pay the ridiculous markup price for the gorilla Alien for my birthday.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2021 07:40
|
|
|
Amarcarts posted:I'm talking about the sets. The only big parts of 3 are the cafeteria and the meeting hall. There are a handful of other small unique rooms and everything else is just generic industrial tunnels where you never get a coherent picture of the space, especially with the camera shots they chose. I was shocked when I saw the production budgets for the films I can't believe Alien 3 costs more than 3 times Aliens. Obviously you have to account for inflation and Weaver's salary but I have no idea where all that money went because it doesn't appear to be on screen. The only thing I can think is that they sunk way too much into visual effects before the technology they were trying to use was cost effective enough for primetime. The rod puppet compositing is atrocious and maybe the small amount of CG they did was insanely expensive. It may also have to do with James Cameron's reputation for his totalitarian dictator approach to making a movie. It probably doesn't make for an easy work environment but you have to think it kept the people on set on their toes and performing at a high level. I agree Alien 3 is pretty drab looking, but I think you're underestimating the level of detail it takes to make a set truly convincing at that scale - and those sets were gigantic on top of that. The fact that it really looks like location shooting is incredible. When I watch Alien 3 I actually cringe because it looks like a lot of wasted money. Aliens looks awesome, but that doesn't mean it looks expensive. In fact, Aliens looks downright cheap! And it only got cheaper looking when they remastered it, unfortunately. All the 'big' stuff is all miniatures, projection, and matte paintings, and frankly you can tell. And there's an awful lot of bare walls and such being hidden in the shadows (the movie isn't that dark *just* to be scary, it turns out). The spaceships look like toys, the aliens look like rubber, and the LV426 exteriors look like a set they shared with the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. But it doesn't even really matter, because sometimes if it looks awesome and scary, who cares if it isn't necessarily convincing.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2021 13:12
|
|
|
SidneyIsTheKiller posted:I agree Alien 3 is pretty drab looking, but I think you're underestimating the level of detail it takes to make a set truly convincing at that scale - and those sets were gigantic on top of that. The fact that it really looks like location shooting is incredible. When I watch Alien 3 I actually cringe because it looks like a lot of wasted money. Yeah I think it's something that a ton of people making movies need to learn is that good writing + good performances will trigger audiences to look past certain things. Like I said before I don't actually dislike Alien 3 as a movie. I watch it every couple of years. It's just disappointing in the historical context that it killed the momentum of the franchise. On the other hand Cameron may have already poisoned the well a little bit. As much as Aliens is a great movie, it's gotta be hard to follow as an inexperienced director. I would have loved to see 3 directed by Stanley Kubrick. Like they said in Scream 2, sequels are hard.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2021 16:38
|
|
|
There's a generational thing going on too with Aliens/Alien 3. People who grew up in the 80's and early 90's don't see a matte painting or a miniature and automatically go "that looks cheap". To us that's what a big blockbuster looks like, those things make the movie feel bigger, more epic. The ways that Alien 3 looks cheap are more relevant to what movies became in the 2000's, and we older folks find that to be drab and boring. Gritty, "realistic", and lacking in anything flashy or colorful that might call attention to a less than convincing special effect. Science Fiction that doesn't trust the audience to use their imagination, and doesn't have enough confidence to sell itself. Stan Winston and Cameron didn't give a gently caress about potential failure, they said yea we're gonna have a gigantic Alien Queen stomping around and the audience will eat it up because we'll make sure it works.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2021 16:51
|
|
|
Amarcarts posted:As much as Aliens is a great movie, it's gotta be hard to follow as an inexperienced director. I would have loved to see 3 directed by Stanley Kubrick. As far as realistic options go I think Vincent Ward was probably the most interesting, although I haven’t actually seen any of his movies. The wooden planet thing would have been really out there and apparently a big reason he was fired was because he was making it too “artsy” according to the galaxy brains at Fox  . A Fincher version where the studio wasn’t trying to kill him would also have been interesting to see.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2021 18:18
|
|
|
I’d love to see some kind of version of the Ward script with the Alien stripped out (or genericized somehow) directed by Terry Gilliam. A wooden planet inhabited by space monks sounds right up his alley.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2021 20:38
|
|
|
Amarcarts posted:Yeah I think it's something that a ton of people making movies need to learn is that good writing + good performances will trigger audiences to look past certain things. Like I said before I don't actually dislike Alien 3 as a movie. I watch it every couple of years. It's just disappointing in the historical context that it killed the momentum of the franchise. On the other hand Cameron may have already poisoned the well a little bit. As much as Aliens is a great movie, it's gotta be hard to follow as an inexperienced director. I would have loved to see 3 directed by Stanley Kubrick. Alien 3 is well-written and has great performances from, like, the whole cast - especially Weaver and Dutton. I’m also unsure as to what is meant by “the momentum of the franchise”, when Alien3 was followed by five sequels and two high-profile “cinematic” videogames. If you mean continuing down the path laid out by James Cameron, where you have increasingly large-scale wars, then you end up with Gibson’s quasi-ironic Starship Troopers concept where both sides of the Space Cold War unite to defend Space Earth against the Space Zombies. And that’s simply not interesting. (See: Independence Day Resurgence). The ‘problem’ of Cameron’s sci-fi films (after Terminator) is that they’re stylish, thematically rich, crowdpleasing, and stupid.* So any sequel is either going to double-down on the dumb aspects and approach self-parody (e.g. Terminator 3), or offer a necessarily-confrontational critique of that’ll bounce off many fans (e.g. Terminator 4). *it always bears repeating that, besides a quick reference to a “bioweapons division”, Cameron presents the Weyland-Yutani corporation as totally neutral.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2021 00:13
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:*it always bears repeating that, besides a quick reference to a “bioweapons division”, Cameron presents the Weyland-Yutani corporation as totally neutral. can you elaborate on this a bit? i always remember Burke as the "face" of WY in Aliens, and he doesn't come across as a particularly neutral character. profit-driven, sure, but that's just another way of saying "evil"
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2021 00:20
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 09:51 |
|
|
alf_pogs posted:can you elaborate on this a bit? i always remember Burke as the "face" of WY in Aliens, and he doesn't come across as a particularly neutral character. profit-driven, sure, but that's just another way of saying "evil" He is portrayed as a rogue element within the company.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2021 00:33
|
|
