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Samovar posted:I agree with you that the wee nuances are the things which make the 'Alien' films work, but how do you mean they 'go backwards'? Surely, they just... go away from? In Ripley's case, she detaches the shuttle and hits reverse, allowing The Nostromo to fly off without her. The imagery is of her falling, dropping back towards the ringed planet (another aspect of the film that was that was borrowed in Interstellar). Kane's body was launched in the same direction: out the rear airlock, towards the void. It's a small but crucial difference: Ripley doesn't move forward until the alien is killed. But the point of all this is in how the film associates Ripley with Kane - and this is not at all different from how Prometheus links various characters. We're told that Shaw's dad died of Ebola, then shown her boyfriend suffering of a terrible disease, and then there's a 'random' scene of the geologist mutating into a bizarre zomboid. These three characters are facets of one person. The same thing happens in Alien: all the human characters begin as 'part of mother' until they're woken and given a measure of autonomy. It's Ash who maintians the closest connection, and he comes across as an incestuous little weirdo.
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Jul 1, 2015 20:17
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But surely if that were the case, wouldn't the camera movement be the same with both Ripley and Kane? As it so happens, the the motions is in three different ways (if memory serves) Left-to-right with Kane's body. Backwards with the Narcissus leaving the Nostromo Right-to-left with the Alien being ejected from the Narcissus. Also, the shuttle doesn;t head towards the ringed planet - it goes away from the main ship - I admit, you might get some symbolism with the ringed planet with the resulting explosion, but you dinnae see LV246 after they leave it.
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Jul 1, 2015 21:18
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88h88 posted:His character arc was just odd though. He wanted the Dev dude gone so he took out a military robot and tried to shoot everyone to death? I know it's a film and interesting stuff needed to happen but I was sat there like "tell Sigourney he's stolen poo poo..." yeah see this is what I'm saying about some people somehow never having encountered that guy before he's exactly what would happen if say that senior programmer at my old office, who stashed guns in hidden caches in every room of his whitebread suburban house and constantly advocated for The Purge to happen literally IRL so he could murder his wife and get away with it, got everything he ever wanted A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Jul 1, 2015 |
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Jul 1, 2015 22:12
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Samovar posted:
Did Scott reference goatse.cx before it existed?
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Jul 1, 2015 22:21
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Alien 3 was the first Alien movie I ever saw, and remains my favorite to this day. I like that it's very pessimistic but not cynical; I adore it as a conclusion to Ripley's character arc, and I vastly prefer the skittering, animal-like quadruped alien to the more humanoid ones in the other films. I like the prison setting and the way the alien takes on the role of the Devil, not as a sentient tempter, but as a force so terrifying and predatory that people will do anything to escape or possess it. I like that they made Sigourney Weaver look harried and exhausted (and, of course, bald) -- it's such a departure from where her character started in Alien, but it makes sense for someone who's been through hell like that. I share the same opinions as you do. I actually rewatched Alien 3 a month ago, the assembly cut, and enjoyed it a lot still. Great film. Of the three Alien movies, Alien 3 is the one i've watched the most, followed by Alien, and then Aliens in a distant 3rd. I don't know what it is about Aliens, but I just could never get into it at all.
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Jul 1, 2015 22:27
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I think part of it is just Cameron's visual style compared to Scott. Scott is all about everything having a really deep texture to it, everything's (especially his earlier movies, The Duelists especially) is set up like a painting. Cameron is more about most shots having a really strong single character/event to focus on. Both are awesome but for me I would watch Alien so much as a kid because I'd see some new detail or thing in it every time. Cameron doesn't really use that sort of visual storytelling as intensely as Scott does. Both of those movies are excellent but Alien's lower amount of dialogue and more simple setup lends itself more to repeat viewing compared to even the theatrical cut of Aliens. I do have to say I like all three equally. Maybe Alien slightly more than the two sequels but all three are so excellent. 
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Jul 1, 2015 23:31
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I said come in! posted:I share the same opinions as you do. I actually rewatched Alien 3 a month ago, the assembly cut, and enjoyed it a lot still. Great film. Of the three Alien movies, Alien 3 is the one i've watched the most, followed by Alien, and then Aliens in a distant 3rd. I don't know what it is about Aliens, but I just could never get into it at all. Aliens is a well made film but it's just so drastically different from the first and third films. There's just something off-putting about turning the most deadly & terrifying creature that intelligently stalked and killed members of a spaceship into exploding redshirts getting steamrolled by machine gun fire en masse. Aliens saving grace was the queen. I still love Aliens I just prefer the first & third before it.
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Jul 2, 2015 00:23
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Immortan posted:Aliens is a well made film but it's just so drastically different from the first and third films. There's just something off-putting about turning the most deadly & terrifying creature that intelligently stalked and killed members of a spaceship into exploding redshirts getting steamrolled by machine gun fire en masse. Aliens saving grace was the queen. I still love Aliens I just prefer the first & third before it.
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Jul 2, 2015 00:34
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Alien would be hugely popular and well remembered regardless because of how groundbreaking it was at the time. Even in its time there were Alien toys, video games, etc. before Aliens was even released.
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Jul 2, 2015 00:36
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At least it went for an action/horror role instead of the horror/comedy that so many other titles fell into.
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Jul 2, 2015 00:41
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The mainline Alien movies are very much defined by their directors. Like you could watch the first three films in the series and get a very good sense of the same themes and techniques that Scott, Cameron, and Fincher would return to again and again in their careers. And whatever the hell Jeunet was going for.
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Jul 2, 2015 00:45
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Samovar posted:But surely if that were the case, wouldn't the camera movement be the same with both Ripley and Kane? As it so happens, the the motions is in three different ways (if memory serves) They don't show the planet onscreen, but it's obviously what The Nostromo was traveling away from. So, therefore, that's where Ripley is going before she punches the main engines. (On the other hand, while Interstellar actually shows the shuttle falling into the black hole, you're never shown all three planets in the same shot). You're right that Scott uses a variety of angles, but the action basically takes place along a straight line.
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Jul 2, 2015 00:46
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Neo Rasa posted:Alien would be hugely popular and well remembered regardless because of how groundbreaking it was at the time. Even in its time there were Alien toys, video games, etc. before Aliens was even released. Alien Online was my first Alien video games. Hourly charges on AOL to play that though lol.
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Jul 2, 2015 03:56
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The only Alien-related game I ever played was a Playstation version of that RPG Aliens Vs. Predator: Extinction. Mostly I just played the Alien campaigns 'cause swarming is a super easy battle strategy, it turns out, especially when wherever you are is home turf advantage.
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Jul 2, 2015 04:05
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I don't think I've watched anything but the assembly cut ever since it was made available. Personally I've always enjoyed Alien3 and for a long time it was my favourite of the series mostly because I would have been about 10 or 11 when it got released, in fact I distinctly remember being excited about seeing footage from it on a TV show called "Movies Movies Movies" When we finally got it on VHS it had a trailer for Alien War on it, this was a total reality experience in London that would involve being lead through a complex by a marine only to be attacked by xenomorph's my god did I want to go to that I never got chance though.
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Jul 9, 2015 21:28
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Gaz2k21 posted:I don't think I've watched anything but the assembly cut ever since it was made available. They had the alien queen puppet on display at our science centre and I cried because I was so scared of it. Until my early teens I had a super strong fear of the "xenomorph" and couldn't even imagine watching the whole movie ever. I'd even have to overt my eyes from the Aliens arcade machines. I now love the movies but can't imagine ever playing Isolation, I'd probably cry again.
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Jul 9, 2015 22:05
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Baronjutter posted:They had the alien queen puppet on display at our science centre and I cried because I was so scared of it. Until my early teens I had a super strong fear of the "xenomorph" and couldn't even imagine watching the whole movie ever. I'd even have to overt my eyes from the Aliens arcade machines. I wonder how many of us 80s/90s kids that were deathly afraid of the Alien are out there. I discovered this thing called "Alien" around 1991 or so because of that arcade game, the cabinet had a print of the creature on its side and watching the gameplay and knowing there was a goddamn MOVIE or two of this poo poo and imagining what it must have been like fueled my nightmares. Some key memories of the year or two of my peak Alien freaked-outness: - My parents had me switch bedrooms in the house because one night the heater (or something) was maknig weird noises and I couldn't stop imagining an Alien (or worse... AlienS!) was somehow involved. - I had a dream where I was nonchalantly opening my closet to get to my toybox, and a motherfucking Alien was waiting for me inside and instantly lunged at me. To date that's the only time I've had the "jolting awake from a nightmare" reaction you see in movies all the time. - We went out to see Star Trek VI and I'm just sitting there like a happy camper as the previews go by and, whadya know, they're debuting the trailer for ALIEN 3 and the drat creature is poking its head at Sigourney Weaver on the massive screen before me, and her expression in that famous shot was pretty representative of what I was feeling while watching it. The crowd loved it, there were audible woops and "yeah!"s at the end of the trailer. - One morning I'm just flipping channels and OMG WTF there is a goddamned ALIEN on the set of Regis and Kathy Lee! They were just showing off a life-size non-animated replica and being all like "ooh how intricate". Not only was the alien design its usual scary self, but the suddenness and randomness of it shocked me and it was surreal in an unsettling way to see the horrifying creature in such a modern, friendly setting. That HR Giger really hit some kind of psychological nerve with his design. While obviously I was just a kid and kids are afraid of monsters, I've never in my life had such instant feelings of terror from just looking at something before. I was terrified of the xenomorph creature on an almost phobic level. As you probably figured, I got over it eventually, and in my teen years actually sought out the movies in a "OK, I'm ready, I want to be terrified!' way and now they're some of my favorite movies. But I recently encountered this poster online (it's a gag poster, you place it on your door and it looks like a xenomorph is busting through it) and for just a moment it took me back to when I was little, and the awe I'd feel at the scariest-looking monster ever made.
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Jul 9, 2015 22:57
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:yeah see this is what I'm saying about some people somehow never having encountered that guy before "Hey, how come that crazy miltech nerd who wants to use Mechwarrior as a police unit tried to violently solve that problem himself, though without putting himself in danger, instead of following the chain of command and the proper procedures. Immersion ruined." Also, yeah, those people most definitely exist.
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Jul 10, 2015 00:26
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Baronjutter posted:They had the alien queen puppet on display at our science centre and I cried because I was so scared of it. Until my early teens I had a super strong fear of the "xenomorph" and couldn't even imagine watching the whole movie ever. I'd even have to overt my eyes from the Aliens arcade machines.  Somewhere along the line my fear of these things led to fascination. I think I actually read the novelizations of the first two movies before I watched them (less scary that way) lizardman posted:I wonder how many of us 80s/90s kids that were deathly afraid of the Alien are out there.  quote:That HR Giger really hit some kind of psychological nerve with his design. While obviously I was just a kid and kids are afraid of monsters, I've never in my life had such instant feelings of terror from just looking at something before. I was terrified of the xenomorph creature on an almost phobic level. * it's black and shiny so you can't get a good grip of the details * no eyes * that inner mouth just feels Wrong on some visceral level * those weird tube things sticking out of its back muddying its shape even further * long skeleton-ish tail (every kid likes dinosaurs and knows what a skeleton tail looks like) It's like the ultimate boogeyman really.
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Jul 10, 2015 00:30
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One of the major factors, certainly at first, is that it has no earth analogue. It's not a lizard, or insect or mammal or bird. It doesn't fit in any category of biology we know. Now, there's lots of sci-fi creatures in that category (Zerg, Tyranids etc) but not at the time.
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Jul 10, 2015 00:37
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Snowman_McK posted:One of the major factors, certainly at first, is that it has no earth analogue. It's not a lizard, or insect or mammal or bird. It doesn't fit in any category of biology we know. Now, there's lots of sci-fi creatures in that category (Zerg, Tyranids etc) but not at the time.
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Jul 10, 2015 00:41
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No eyes, that's the main thing. It was a conscious design choice by Giger so you could never be sure where the Alien was looking. It's also one of the major reasons why the actual creatures are so timeless and still effective in movies which are 30 years old. Any other movie from that era where a scary monster had eyes looks really off now.
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Jul 10, 2015 01:15
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The Alien is definitely a more-than-the-sum-of-is-parts thing, but I don't think you can overstate the effect of the absence of eyes. They're the window to the soul and all, and with no eyes it seems like a being incapable of any kind of empathy. You know right off the bat you cannot reason with it. It has no soul or mind as we think of them. Even without going the philosophical route, without eyes it's tough to convey emotional expressions: while a few artists have managed it, it's very, very difficult to make a "cute" or friendly-looking xenomorph. Even having the creature smile would take some work not to look creepy. I'm mildly arachnophobic, and the worst spiders for me are the ones that are black and shiny, with the legs connecting to the abdomen in a way that looks like some mockery of a rib cage. Wouldn't surprise me if spiders and the Alien design hit on some of the same primordial instincts.
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Jul 10, 2015 01:25
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Was literally scrolling down to post no eyes after I read that post too.  It's the attribute of the alien that's the most straight up wrong for something that's a little taller than us and walks upright on land. Like it shouldn't work. The shadowy boniness of it helps too of course.Many insects and arachnids almost have more in common with what we would call a robot than an animal due to the way they function and "think," so it's an easy parallel to the draw to the Alien. And while some people are scared of insects or just spiders or not at all or whatever combination, it's very instinctive to associate a lot of bugs with waste, decay, disease, etc. So even though the Alien wasn't just a giant ant until Aliens came out, I think that effect is definitely there, its look immediately tells you it has no emotion or empathy even before Ash lets us know about that. Which helps make it even weirder at the end when it's just sort of chilling in the shuttle instead of immediately seeking and destroying Ripley. Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Jul 10, 2015 |
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Jul 10, 2015 01:43
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Still wonder if it would've looked scarier if you could actually see the skull stuck inside the dome.
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Jul 10, 2015 01:47
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Hakkesshu posted:Still wonder if it would've looked scarier if you could actually see the skull stuck inside the dome. I think it would be wash. I would have a definitively more human thing to it, but then it would make jaws and mouth even more  than it is for the time. I think it would definitely make it an even more obvious cosmic horror type of thing.
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Jul 10, 2015 01:49
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I feel like a huge weirod because the Alien never scared me, and instead of having a teddy bear, I had a 11 inch Alien toy I used to keep in my bed to protect me from stuff. Alien was my home dawg.
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Jul 10, 2015 01:54
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david_a posted:Zergs are ripoffs of Tyranids which were heavily "inspired" by the Alien in the first place Oh, I know. There was one version where the Hive Tyrant had no eyes, as if it wasn't blatant enough. My point was simply that the only analogues for what the aliens are (bio-mechanical insect lizard things) are other fictional creatures.
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Jul 10, 2015 02:02
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Speaking of real world analogues, I'm sure I missed someone already mentioning the dragonfish. The female of the black dragonfish is probably the closest real life thing, though they're not very big, they're ferocious and some live 5000 meters deep, never surfacing. Some do surface at night to feed. The male black dragonfish is about 5cm while the female is about 40cm. The male dragonfish is so only in existence to make the species continue, that it has NO TEETH and DOES NOT EVEN HAVE A FUNCTIONING GUT. The male of the species is consumed like any other pray any time they're not actively fertilizing a female one. This is from a text about dragonfish, not from the Colonial Marines Technical Manual: A text about the black dragonfish posted:The skeleton of dragonfish is a lightly mineralized, with the exception of the jaws and other portion of the feeding apparatus, which are the most distinctive features of the scan. These bones include the premaxilla and maxilla of the upper jaws and the dentary and anguloarticular of the lower jaw. In addition, the major bones that support or reinforce the jaws, including the hyomandibula and preopercle, are easily visible. The pectoral girdle bones, which are used both in locomotion and feeding, are also well developed, including the post temporal and cleithrum. Also, they're bioluminescent, but that's no big deal because lots of fish are, right? WRONG. Unlike many other fish, in addition to having a lure hanging from its mouth,* it as two additional light organs behind its eyes. This is the coolest so sit down. These organs behind its eyes shoot out a faint reddish cone of light that, without lighting conditions made by us, ONLY IT CAN PERCEIVE. It projects this light that makes shrimp and its other prey glow brightly to it but none of its prey can perceive it, allowing it to navigate and hunt in a "normal" way in total blackness.   HI!!!  These are found in the Atlantic and on the US side of the Pacific, the Pacific/Asian version is similar but slightly translucent:  *There are 60+ species of dragonfish, some don't but please understand. Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 02:37 on Jul 10, 2015 |
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Jul 10, 2015 02:33
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Good point about the eyes - the seems to be the hardest part to get right in a special effect. Compare the CG Arnold from Genisys to the real thing:  Those lifeless doll eyes really give it away. Even with the dummy head from the 1984 original, it's the drat eyelashes that do the most harm to the illusion!  I know it's a small image, but try holding up a pencil or something to block the eyes and see if that doesn't make it look a million times better. Also dragonfish should stay down below with all the other unholy abominations swimming around down there   
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Jul 10, 2015 03:53
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My friend had a couple alien action figures and I would often position things so I wouldn't have to see them when I was over, I was god drat terrified. Glad I wasn't the only one! Then one time they weren't where I was used to them and I sat down and bumped one into my lap and it took every once of self control not to freak out because at 11-12 I should not be scared of an action figure. I picked it up and put it away on a shelf deep behind some other figures. Also yeah, nightmares. Never with the alien in it, but the dream would just suddenly take a turn where I'd know I was in the "alien universe" and I'd absolutely panic at the idea of maybe seeing one and be terrified that maybe I had an egg in me. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Jul 10, 2015 |
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Jul 10, 2015 04:01
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david_a posted:Also dragonfish should stay down below with all the other unholy abominations swimming around down there 
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Jul 10, 2015 05:47
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I like how the related (and equally nightmarish) megamouth shark was first discovered when it tried eating an anchor on a U.S. Navy ship in the 70s. The oceans are really criminally under-explored and there might still legitimately be enormous undiscovered species lurking around out there. Even giant fish like oarfish aren't seen very often. I would be super excited about one of the Avatar sequels being set underwater if it wasn't, you know, an Avatar sequel.
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Jul 10, 2015 14:57
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Scariest thing to me about the original Alien design was the double set of almost human-like teeth. Human teeth on non-human things will always be creepy. I guess the reason why the Alien continues to frighten audiences is that it has so many combined features that are unsettling to people.
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Jul 10, 2015 15:39
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A big part of the mysteriousness of the xenomorph is also that you only ever get short glimpses of what its actually doing to people when it catches them. That was obviously due to the creature being a dude in a rubber suit for the most part, but it works in its favor pretty much throughout the series. That principle is used to great effect in Alien 3, where you have dark corridors and tunnels, and there are some awesome shots of prisoners getting mauled in the background while someone else flees in terror. The creature and the guy getting ripped apart aren't in complete focus but you can get a gist of what's happening. Much scarier that way.
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Jul 10, 2015 15:50
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Well the thing that still makes the Alien films so effective from both the creature perspective and the action perspective is the lack of information being used correctly. James Cameron said the point of horror films is to frighten, not disgust, so limited gore or more importantly, the suggestion of gore is way, way more effective than showing everything fully lit and in focus. Where most horror films fail is the filmmaker's self indulgence in their work in that their vision is more important than the intent of the material; they tell you what to be scared of instead of allowing you to find it for yourself. An audiences' imagination is one of the most important and powerful tools a filmmaker (or an author or any creative person) has and so few works use it to their advantage. Alien does and it does it brilliantly. You get suggestions, you get a shape, something unrecognizable moving in the shadows and your imagination fills in the blanks. That is what makes the Alien so terrifying, you make it terrifying. That's the real brilliance of it. It's a great example of "less is more" filmmaking.
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Jul 10, 2015 16:26
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There's a horrible Italian ripoff of Alien called Alien 2: ON EARTH that came out before Aliens. Anyways, it's hilariously bad in all ways except the awesome soundtrack but what I love about it is that, in predating Aliens, what is rips off is the eggs and chestbursting, that's it. An alien doesn't burst out of you, rather, an egg hatches and gets you and then in the near future you just explode. The eggs are coming from an alien queen and a mad scientist that chill out in a warehouse on earth and just ship eggs wherever. Don't worry, warehouse basements look like a warehouse basement someone spent ten minutes trying to make like the Nostromo and the derelict ship at the same time, so it looks like a basement with a grated floor and big "ribs" on the sides. The alien itself is a stationary gigantic nose with an eyeball on top of it. It was released outside of Italy under the name Contamination and Alien Contamination. Don't delay my friends: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkDje147gwk The sick soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxDGSHiJ90s
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Jul 10, 2015 16:44
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Stare-Out posted:James Cameron said the point of horror films is to frighten, not disgust, While I wouldn't commit to the reverse either, what a narrow and untrue thing to say.
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Jul 10, 2015 17:03
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:While I wouldn't commit to the reverse either, what a narrow and untrue thing to say.
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Jul 10, 2015 17:21
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Neo Rasa posted:There's a horrible Italian ripoff of Alien called Alien 2: ON EARTH that came out before Aliens. Anyways, it's hilariously bad in all ways except the awesome soundtrack but what I love about it is that, in predating Aliens, what is rips off is the eggs and chestbursting, that's it. An alien doesn't burst out of you, rather, an egg hatches and gets you and then in the near future you just explode. The eggs are coming from an alien queen and a mad scientist that chill out in a warehouse on earth and just ship eggs wherever. Don't worry, warehouse basements look like a warehouse basement someone spent ten minutes trying to make like the Nostromo and the derelict ship at the same time, so it looks like a basement with a grated floor and big "ribs" on the sides. The alien itself is a stationary gigantic nose with an eyeball on top of it. It was released outside of Italy under the name Contamination and Alien Contamination. Don't delay my friends: Hey man contamination rules!
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Jul 10, 2015 17:37
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