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Still Prometheus was made good $$$ and was generally liked enough to warrant a sequel. But now there's also that Alien 3 Redux or whatever that Neill Blomkamp is doing also that looks like the ultimate pandering fan service. Still I like Blomkamp's movies so far so I'm down, though they don't have the staying power of Aline 1/2/3. I was an Alien 3 hater but the assembly cut is like night and day. I know some effects shot weren't finished and stuff but I can't believe of all that footage that was made the edit we got in theaters was what they came up with. The assembly cut is a great movie.  The premise of course is real stupid because the egg is like, RIGHT THERE, but I can deal. A more confident/less constrained Fincher may have had one of those decadent shots we see in his later films to show the egg in a more hidden place in the ship's machinery or something, whatever, creepy, harrowing intro just the same (especially when taken right after Aliens). I never minded Hicks/Newt dying so much as that Dance and Glover get killed in rapid succession very early on. That combined with Charles S. Dutton disappearing for a bit later in the movie doesn't give Weaver a lot to work with (or against). Newt/Hicks would definitely be missed less if these guys were around more. Though fortunately the cast in general is outstanding.
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Jun 28, 2015 13:58
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Yeah on the first Quadrilogy DVD release at least it even has the subs for it no matter what. Fortunately most of it is garbled sound effects with only some very minor dialogue being messed up. But again if you get any of the blu-ray releases it's all taken care of.
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Jun 28, 2015 16:14
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I sort of liked how the gore early in the movie implies the Alien being slightly calculating, but then during the climax the gore portrays an Alien that operates primarily by running into people so hard they explode.
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Jun 28, 2015 18:04
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Baronjutter posted:The map maker got lost. The space jockey's are just large humans. It is garbo. I liked that the jockeys are Norse and Greek mythology simultaneously Also that the movie is explicit in all of human existence being a stupid mistake.
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Jun 29, 2015 16:58
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:Prometheus looks like a modern corporate toy (plus holograms), the Nostromo looks like a modern piece of industrial equipment. Cutting-edge machinery that prioritizes being built to last over looking cool looks a lot more 1970s than it does Apple product. I guess if they really wanted to be weird obsessive film nerds they'd go back and carefully composite LCD screens over the Nostromo's CRT monitors so it'd be 100% Hard Sci-Fi. Offtopic, but to Creative Assembly's credit when they made Alien: Isolation, they actually copied all of the transmission and interface stuff onto VHS tapes, then recorded then off a tv so everything looks super "authentic" in that respect. They did an incredible job making everything in the movie look and sound like it was in between Alien and Aliens. Cassette tapes, huge clunky ID card thing you use to save your game, it's genius. I was pretty happy with the technological level of humanity's stuff in Prometheus, like others said the disparity between it and the Nostromo isn't particularly unrealistic. Like I can go to work, put my Galaxy phone back in my pocket, and then use inventory software from the early 90s, it's not unusual. Also I know it's pedantic, but it doesn't have an abortion scene but rather an emergency caesarian she has to direct it though. Also impressive as it's arguably the best 3D alien c-section in any film. I mean at least in the top five. The 3D in general was really nice in this movie. I love the effect of the dream reading machine combined with the Daft Punk helmet and gloves and stuff. I was a bit saddened to hear that supposedly David will get a new body in Prometheus' sequel, as him literally becoming Mimir was another reference to the creation myths and legends the movie is full of. The cast in Prometheus isn't any dumber or less competent than the cast of Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, or Alien Resurrection, they're just not likable people. Cold arrogant folk that think the world owes them something riding the iPhone 6 of spaceships expecting answers to be handed to them. Of course they all fall apart and immediately become erratic. Elizabeth Shaw being named after an early Dr. Who companion isn't a coincidence, the movie in general is a great breakdown of how we glamorize exploitation and theft and colonization as "exploring" or "adventuring" in other sci-fi movies. It's like watching a conversation about Alien knockoffs in film form and is really impressive for functioning on that level while still being a good movie. It's notable that the film's plot is very very close to that of the Roger Corman Alien knockoff Galaxy of Terror, to the point where without context it's almost more a remake of that movie than it is a reboot of the Alien franchise. That Scott was able to make the movie so dense in general is pretty awesome.
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Jun 30, 2015 05:12
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blackguy32 posted:Because Ripley has her arms out in a cross at the end (Actually, I have no idea). I could have sworn that the whole Bishop is human thing is in both cuts. In the theatrical version it's not confirmed one way or the other, Bishop just says it but no one buys it. In the assembly cut he is definitely human and he has an extra bit where you can see blood and his messed up ear. After holding his head in pain he slams his bloody hand on the fence holding them back and screams "I'M NOT A DROID" In a great mix of both pain, desperation and almost surprise. Lance Henrisken.  Hakkesshu posted:The only thing I'm worried about re: Blomkamp is if he tries to pander too hard to the Aliens fandom. I've always thought people losing their poo poo over Hicks/Newt dying was unbelievably infantile, but hey I can understand not liking the overall direction that 3 went in. If this new Alien movie literally ends with everyone getting definitely obliterated and aliens overrunning earth it would be amazing, but they'll never let anything end without sequel potential. Hell if they reboot I'd want Charlize Theron in it BECAUSE she was in Prometheus. Like how From Beyond and Re-Animator have the same cast. Like just get as many returning cast members as possible in any Alien or Prometheus related movie but in totally different roles every time. duz posted:I liked the intro Cameron gave for that cut, "I got what I wanted in to theaters, but marketing wanted new scenes, so here's some poo poo I cut cause I didn't like it." He's generally right in that Aliens' theatrical release is tighter, but at the same time the special edition was on laser disk, VHS, etc. long before he recorded that clip for the Quadrilogy. I do prefer the special edition though just for the brief bits of the derelict and the colony itself. There was so much great minature and set trickery done to realize the movie it feels like a waste to excise any of it. I do also like the colony scene because it plays well with the later part where Ripley confronts Burke about him sending the colonists out to investigate the derelict. Otherwise you spend most of the movie with the notion that a huge alien outbreak just happened to happen a week after Ripley wakes up until that scene. It makes the characters seem less competent for not questioning that. I notice people are huge fans of the auto-turret sequence, I mean it's cool but that's a scene I can totally understand cutting. It's like how every sci-fi thing has to be made about jerking it to military porn by its fans at some point, despite the point of Aliens being that that's idiotic. In that respect Niell Blomkamp is ahead of the game. Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 17:51 on Jun 30, 2015 |
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Jun 30, 2015 17:40
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porfiria posted:Alien is cool because the alien is cool and Ripley has a flamethrower. This is like film school 101 people. Alien = fire is effective, Alien is cool = Cool movie Aliens = fire is effective, Alien is cool = Cool movie Alien 3 theatrical = fire is ineffective = Alien is cool = bad movie Alien 3 assemly = fire is effective = Alien is cool = good movie Alien Resurrection = fire is effective = Alien is not cool = bad movie Prometheus = alien zombie map guy gets flame throwered bludgeoned and run over multiple times = 
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Jun 30, 2015 18:58
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InfiniteZero posted:Also don't forget it has Harry Dean Stanton in it, which is a strong measure of what defines a film as 'good'. I still can't believe he had a cameo in The Avengers but didn't reenact the scene where he screams "AVENGE ME!" like ten times in Red Dawn.
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Jun 30, 2015 18:59
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That game owns. It's flawed but ambitious, and when it works it's easily the best game based on the franchise that will ever happen. There are some really interesting tricks to how the Alien works in it even if it doesn't always pan out. The best is how it will often "dramatically" kill someone if you lure it to an area with other humans. Like you'll be hiding safely and a mauled body will slam down right in front of you as the Alien walks by. Also I mentioned earlier but they really did do an incredible job at duplicating that notion in Alien of the game's humans being expendable compared to the importance of corporate profits. You get a great look at that not just through the design and bleakness of the game's locations but also in the cold way the game's synthetics behave and in the files you find in these bulky seventies style terminals. They did something really brilliant both in setting and as a game design thing, which is sort of how the entire game was made. Basically the synthetics you encounter are from a different company, and their gimmick is that they don't try to make them physically human so that there's no trust issue. In the game's space station with all the power out though it makes them creepy. They have slightly glowy eyes like in some scenes in Blade Runner, talk in a low static drawl, and are always calm, plus they look like and are made of hardened future plastic or whatever. So like they'll be strangling you but very slowly and calmly talking to you about how you don't have access for the area you're in or whatever. It's a brilliant way to work a what would be generically forced horror tropes into the game in a way that serves both the game and the story at the same time. Also in a nod to the subtle pharaonic imagery Scott uses at points in both Blade Runner and in Alien, the droids are stored in these vertical sarcophagus things for recharging. That said, I found the default difficulty to be fine. It's only super challenging in the medical area where the Alien is straight up after YOU and you haven't found a lot of items/distraction things to play around with yet in the game. Also the Alien finds you more easily when you're crouching/moving slowly. I think they were trying to have it have a sense of "smell" portrayed in game form maybe? The logic for how your movement/noise/light effects stuff in the game in general is really cool. More importantly for Alien fans though there's a DLC where you can be on a 1:1 of the Nostromo and walk all around it trying to flush the Alien out of the airlock. It's structured like the deleted scene in Alien where Parker tries to flush it out first but fails (they only filmed Parker's VO and Ripley/Lambert monitoring though, it's on the special edition DVDs as an extra) before Dallas goes in. So you can play as Ripley, Dallas or Parker and they even got everyone back to do voice over work. And to their credit while the main game has a motion sensor, stun prod, and a flame thrower, they duplicated how those same things look and work in Alien itself instead of recycling those models. 
Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Jun 30, 2015 |
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Jun 30, 2015 20:12
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Tenzarin posted:I could only play Alien: Isolation by cheating and making myself invisible from the alien. Instakills still killed me though. I was really happy that all of that was coalesced into Dillon and Golic, with Dillon's spirituality and Golic's psychosis and seeing it as a dragon. There's that brief but great shot in the assembly cut of Golic venturing towards the darkness to free the Alien that's real low angle and super bright on just one side like an early baroque painting, I love it. The assembly cut is definitely the best thing that could have possibly been made given the circumstances of the movie's production. It sucks that Fincher wasn't given more control and freedom with it but that he pulled out something so good is great. I know the assembly cut isn't his cut technically (to paraphrase him the only way to really get his cut would be to let him film it again from scratch) but he gave it his approval at least compared to the original. Here's Empire's really thorough tale of the wooden planet version, more importantly a lot of the concept art from the DVD/blu-ray is here too: http://www.empireonline.com/features/alien-3-tale-of-the-wooden-planet/ It's crazy, but still better than the William Gibson script, aliens exploding out of people because it's a virus, Ripley is literally Snow White in a forest planet with horse aliens, etc. versions. It's also interesting since you can see some of the more iconic things in the final movie like the Alien approaching Ripley and then not killing her, were a thing even at this stage of production. It does make me wish Vincent Ward could have directed like a Space Hulk or Warhammer 40K movie or something though. Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 20:43 on Jun 30, 2015 |
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Jun 30, 2015 20:34
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blackguy32 posted:As for the Blomkamp Alien film, it just feels cheap to me. I don't think Ripley and Hicks story is a story that needs to be retread. Especially Hicks, who is a pretty boring character overall. But maybe Blomkamp will just kill them off within the first 30 minutes of the movie. If he kills them off like ten minutes in it will be the greatest movie ever made.
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Jun 30, 2015 21:10
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Tenzarin posted:I wish I was living in an alternate universe where the William Gibson version was produced instead of Prometheus being made. Either way alien was just reduced to a virus. Yeah but the mythological and spiritual context in Prometheus made it more than just a virus. The opening scene is the Norse creation myth and Greek mythology simultaneously. Ymir the first frost giant/living thing bleeds ether into a river from which life springs) while also being evocative of a titan (huge ash covered dude) and of Prometheus' guts getting spilled out but that violent process being intertwined with the creation and prosperity of humanity. The script was like an episode of Genocyber. blackguy32 posted:I think it is going to align with Prometheus a little bit and apparently the title is supposed to be pretty bold. But I think that really is all we know. I am just curious as to where they are going to take Ripley and Hicks since I thought the particular plot strand from Aliens was over. The ultimate would be if it's Lance Henriksen AS Bishop and the connection to Prometheus is him and David sharing screen time/information in some way. The ultimate and most meta expression of the series' trademark theme of corporations/capitalism making humans expendable. In this fan wank what if movie Ripley/Hicks are killed off in five minutes and the main characters are two androids. Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Jun 30, 2015 |
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Jun 30, 2015 21:34
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I also recommend, if you want a super sleezy b-movie version of Alien, to check out Galaxy of Terror by Roger Corman. Prometheus is almost a remake of it. Also notable because James Cameron did a lot of work on the effects, so it stands out for the time. Here's the extremely NSFW trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJO07ylhTu4
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Jun 30, 2015 23:21
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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..." Agreed, an entitled feeling white dude deciding to do a mass shooting is pretty out there stuff.
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Jul 1, 2015 17:30
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Gaz2k21 posted:Hey man contamination rules! I love it, but it really, really doesn't rule to me.
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Jul 10, 2015 18:37
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Stare-Out posted:But I think what Cameron means has to do more with how a lot of horror movies tend to be gratuitous with the violence and gore (funnily enough, much like Aliens is), I think it's a testament to his skill at that time that you feel this way. Aliens is an extremely visceral film, but I'd almost compare it to Mad Max in that way more stuff happens off screen than people remember. Alien is of course way more suggestive though in general like you say. The Alien's existence reducing us to another bug in a vast food chain is one of the most terrifying things about it and is what really taps into the cosmic horror. EDIT: As far as violence in Aliens goes I was thinking of just violence inflicted on humans too. I mean who cares about a glorified toaster or an ant amirite?  blackguy32 posted:For me, the most interesting and unsettling part of Alien didn't even make it into the movie at all. The part where Brett is turning into an egg. You can sort of see what resembles a human figure, but it's mostly just a mess, and while it's not gory, it is disgusting. I was glad Dead Space ripped this off, it made for one of the few sections of the game after the pretty strong opening where it was almost a straight horror game again. I'm really glad the scene was added back in even if Scott was fine what was in theaters.
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Jul 11, 2015 00:46
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At the same time, one could just say that's what it looks like when it emerges from an Engineer. When you say "original design" though do you mean the one he derived from the Visitor painting with the really clear shades/eyes? I like the eyeless a lot more. The head actually being a weird helmet over a human skull is awesome too, and would have been fitting. At the same time, I like how primordial and less robotic the stuff is in Prometheus vs. the biomechanical suit built into/around the engineer. Either way I hope Prometheus 2 (is it still going to be called Paradise?) is even more out there if they actually follow through with having Shaw/David explore space more.
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Jul 11, 2015 03:15
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second-hand smegma posted:edit; Also, I was going to mention that the only thing I actively dislike about Alien 3 (either version) is the weird hard-rock gangrape music in that one scene that completely kills all dramatic tension and sounds at odds with everything else on the otherwise excellent soundtrack. It's like this weird super 90s presentation moment that I can't ever seem come to grips with. The same track is used again very briefly while Dillon/Ripley/the Alien are struggling in the lead vat. It is weirdly different from like every other track as presented in the movie. At the same time, the movie was made in the 90s and released in 1992. That the scene is so 90s in general says a lot about how influential Alien 3 was with stuff like that and its dutch angles and stuff. It's also interesting in that if one were to listen to just the score itself, it actually does fit in really well.
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Jul 25, 2015 05:35
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One thing I do wish was carried over from Alien 3 into other Alien products is these sick helmets the the enforcer guys rolling around with Weyland and his doctors are rocking: 
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Jul 25, 2015 05:44
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The coolest thing about them is that they make it impossible to be face hugged as long as they only come from the right.
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Jul 25, 2015 07:06
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Gaz2k21 posted:Yeah contamination had the subtitle of "Alien on earth" I believe. Totally and I mix them up often for that reason. My favorite alternate titles for Contamination are from Brazil and Japan, Alien: The Murderous Monster and Aliendrome respectively.
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Jul 26, 2015 14:09
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Baronjutter posted:Sometimes the people defending very bad alien movies remind me of this interview with Randy Pitchford who made a very very bad alien game but absolutely can't admit it's bad because like nothing is bad it's all like subjective, man, who's really to say. This guy literally spent five years talking about how GEARBOX is made of REAL fans of Aliens so the lighting and the models and everything are going to look EXACTLY like they do in Aliens because GEARBOX is an awesome developer and GEARBOX is going to make the definitive Aliens video game experience right up until the game shipped. Then like a week later he was all well actually this wasn't really Gearbox's baby it was all TimeGate Studio's fault they were such a bad developer and had a bunch of mini social media meltdowns from people oddly politely asking him to clarify this even though TimeGate was basically the only reason the game, horrible as it is, even reached a completed state and was shipped. It worked with Duke Nukem Forever even though that was a Gearbox game too but people seemed to not fall for it a second time. Oh also because of how much Pitchford is a lying hyper-sleaze who oversold what Gearbox could do Sega went with Colonial Marines and canned an 80% complete Aliens RPG by Obisidian that had perma-death for characters who got facehugged that could be held off by putting them into cryo-sleep and only awakening them if you really needed their abilities for a specific thing but eventually they were done. Also the money Sega was giving Gearbox to develop Colonial Marines was instead used to fund the creation of Borderlands 2 and Gearbox got sued over it. Have a nice day. Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 05:53 on Jul 28, 2015 |
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Jul 28, 2015 05:41
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When you think about it, with Bishop, Ripley, the alien in Ripley AND the facehugger that got the dog/ox surviving such a brutal crash is a pretty good survival rate. As for Blomkamp's Alien 3, he would become my favorite director in all of history if he kills off Ripley/Hicks/Newt like ten minutes in. Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 03:39 on Jul 31, 2015 |
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Jul 31, 2015 03:36
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blackguy32 posted:For me, one of the worst things about the theatrical cut is that Golic just loving vanishes. In the assembly cut, I believe they actually show him dying. But in the theatrical cut, I don't think we see him again after Clemmons dies. He's on the commentary and he talks about what it was like at the premiere to see that his character ended up having like thirty seconds of screen time despite all that was filmed of him. Understandably same feeling among him and his colleagues as Terry Crews in Terminator: Salvation. Oh man Terminator: Salvation. Like, on paper, a Terminator movie that chronicles the future war and has great CG along with great practical effects coming in 2009 that stars Christian Bale, Bryce Dallas Howard, Terry Crews, Anton Yelchin, Common, Helena Bonham Carter and Michael Ironside that is written by the guys that did the script for The Game and touched up by the guy who did the scripts for The Prestige and The Dark Knight. Such a massive waste of talent. Dammit McG and Christian Bale's ego. One thing I do miss from the theatrical version of Alien 3 is this cool shot of the EEV behind lifted and brought into the compound by a massive crane. It's a cool minature with little figures of the prisoners standing on top of it. But I can understand why it was cut since it's a pretty short shot before it goes to the dog that no longer exists getting attacked by the facehugger and, even when seen on the DVDs (let alone the blu-ray) the shot isn't quite as convincing because the fakeness of the prisoner silhouettes is very clear. Still it was pretty cool. Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 05:35 on Aug 7, 2015 |
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Aug 7, 2015 05:30
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It would be unlikely but hilarious. If Blomkamp kills them in the most aburdly graphic ways possible in like the first ten minutes he will become my favorite director of all time.
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Sep 24, 2015 23:39
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I don't think they're flaws. I don't think a character being all bark and no bite or being blinded by arrogance doesn't mean the film's creators screwed up and mistakenly made the characters dumbasses. Both characters are grating but I don't think changing either of those things would change what I think of them.
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Sep 26, 2015 04:24
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ruddiger posted:It should've ended with Charlize Theron smugly taking a huge step to the side yet still getting crushed by the MASSIVE loving NO WAY TO EVEN POSSIBLY RUN AWAY FROM OUTER SPACE SHIP. People complaining about this was the dumbest thing ever because you literally see Noomi Rapace run to the side and get crushed anyway because the ship is massive, surviving only through dumb luck.
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Sep 26, 2015 15:39
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Maybe WE, are the REAL black goo.
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Sep 27, 2015 20:17
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I love that in David humanity created an idealized concept of God but even better. An all knowing, resiliant being that is happy to help humanity, and takes the form and presentation of an approachable and helpful human. And yet through a combination of arrogance and fear everyone assumes him inferior. I loved that so much about the movie, that Weyland created a being of that caliber but still considers him just a tool. And how we see David explicitly figure out and know everything that's going on along with the engineer's language relatively early on. Yet no one thinks to just ask him about it because they're too busy putting god's head in a microwave because they were expecting to find an ultimate validation of humanity having a purpose in the universe but instead all pretty much lose it because they realize humanity has none. Also David reading people's dreams is great too. He already knows the crew better than they know themselves and even calls Shaw out on this at one point.
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Sep 28, 2015 06:17
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NarkyBark posted:I'm not so sure that's the case. In his hologram opening he refers to David as his son, and it seemed pretty implied to me that he puts David above Vickers in his favorite-child category. He also trusts David to do the real work of finding his "cure", and has meetings with him without telling Vickers what's going on. He says in the same hologram chat that David is not human and has no soul and is not real, as David is shown visibly dismayed by this.
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Sep 29, 2015 01:58
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Snowman_McK posted:Which is revisiting the themes of Blade Runner. Androids are man without original sin. I liked this in Prometheus too because in that brief briefing from Weyland we learn a lot about how misguided he is as the movie goes on. You realize his gradual rejection of all aspects of legacy over his life. He makes this huge super successful company but isn't happy with it, he's not happy with his hyper-competent daughter accomplishing all that she has, so he creates his own legacy in David. Yet even in effectively becoming God in the most literal sense in straight up sentient life, it's not good enough for him. He wants to be there personally, he wants the power and adoration of godhood without the distance and obliviousness that would come with it. Weyland himself is like a dying god flailing for relevance, but not realizing the incredible impact of what he's accomplished. I found that really interesting because of how Shaw/Vickers/Weyland form this sort of twisted parody of a holy trinity, with Shaw wanting to be effectively omniscient by knowing the secrets of the creation of life, Vickers wanting to be omnipotent in her constant drive to take over her dad's company, and Weyland wants to be omnipresent via never dying. And anyone who ever went to Sunday school or has interacted with overly zealous Christians knows that if one is asked to describe God the answer is word for word "Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent" in that order, the same order in which we are introduced to these characters, each one seeking those things in their opening scene. Each one is driven by their ego to become their own personal definition of God. Also I LOOOOOOVE that Weyland speaks to them via hologram, as someone "already dead." The characters are, very literally, sent on a quest for the holy grail of everlasting life by a ghost. Only to realize that that was a sham. He appears for real to the rest of the crew out of desperation, but I love that he like, doesn't want to be seen as anything less than his personal definition of immortal, we learn from that hologram conversation that he'd literally rather die than have to suffer the humiliation of that. The movie's general cynicism about religious faith is incredible for such a high profile, big budget movie. That it does this while containing so many parallels to the development of Christianity via Greek and Norse influence is a huge achievement to me. We see the Engineer in the intro, simultaneously evocative of both a frost giant as well as a titan (the word itself possibly interpreted as a being like the sun, a person of great power or capability) interact the Norse creation myth of Ymir, the frost giant and one of the first living beings, created by poison and foisted upon a "grassless world," who eventually gave birth to beings we then worshipped as gods. The black goo is even given the same same as this poison in the mythology, eitr, on the film's website and other promotional materials. The eiter is produced by the giant snake Jörmungandr along with many other serpents, which we see something of a cycle of in the movie itself before Halloway and Fifeld get attacked. Also the obvious Mimir parallel, with the film ending with Shaw cruising the universe with a severed head that is this film's equivalent of all knowing. :O Also I love this snippet of an interview Scott did for Esquire: quote:ES: Humanity's creators in Prometheus aren't much better. The "Engineers," as they're called, are really prickish and hostile. Are they a metaphor for your feelings about God? Both because he's so brazen about his views, but also because of how he lets production of what would be come Exodus slip. He seems excited about it but we can see from the final product that he just basically dumped out whatever could be dumped out. Scott's brother Tony committed suicide shortly after Prometheus' release while Exodus' production was underway which I'm sure effected how that movie came out. Scott himself is an atheist, and you can kind of sort of see where Exodus was "meant" to be going, but it isn't nearly as interesting or layered as Prometheus. Despite the content in his two historical epics I think Blade Runner and Prometheus are the two most spiritual movies he will ever have been involved in (until maybe Prometheus' sequel comes out). Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Sep 29, 2015 |
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Sep 29, 2015 05:01
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LoveisOver posted:Always felt like Clemens was wasted as a character so early on. Oh well. My only real criticism of the movie has always been that Andrews AND Clemens are both killed so early in rapid succession. I think it would have been very effective with Ripley's leadership and knowledge of the Alien pitted against Andrews' authoritarian desire for order and not making waves with Clemens' constant curiosity about things. But at the same time, I mean it's Alien 3, so there's no real mystery to how the Alien is going to operate. Just both actors are particularly excellent among an already excellent cast so it was a shame to see them both go. You can tell how the history and conflict between Clements/Andrews is one of the things held over from the whater version of the script was around for the monk wooden planet concept. Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 07:16 on Sep 30, 2015 |
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Sep 30, 2015 07:14
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