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I can't believe this thread passed under my radar. I'm a big fan of the Alien3 Assembly Cut, and I almost universally prefer it to the theatrical cut. There's a few alternate scenes I prefer in the theatrical cut, most notably at the beginning and end. Ripley getting ejected from the EEV and having to be rescued on the beach by Clemens always struck me as goofy, and I always felt the characters finding Ripley in the EEV and realizing she was alive was more visually interesting than finding her on the beach. We also don't really get an indication of how she got out of the EEV. Was she ejected? If so, how? The Assembly Cut version also introduces a bit of a continuity error, because for whatever reason, the EEV is switched in its position - in the theatrical cut, one side is submerged in the water, and in the Assembly Cut it's the other. This is important because of where the characters are located in the EEV - from left to right, it's Bishop, Hicks, Ripley, and then Newt. In the theatrical cut, the right side of the EEV is underwater, so it makes sense when you find out Newt drowned in her cryotube but the other characters didn't. In the Assembly Cut, it's switched so the left side is underwater. I also much prefer the ending in the theatrical cut showing the Queen Chestburster popping out of Ripley, and a large part of that is the music. Here's the theatrical version of the scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyZ4nwg7GgE Here's the Assembly Cut: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3vbfkRB6gQ The Assembly Cut really truncates the (awesome) soundtrack, and once you know what to listen for in the theatrical cut, it's really jarring in the Assembly Cut (the music edit happens at about the 1:58 mark).
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# ¿ Jul 25, 2015 03:32 |
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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 06:04 |
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second-hand smegma posted:I agree with all this. The assembly cut is better but I'm so used to watching the theatrical cut that there are a few standout scenes that feel like missed opportunities. I have "ideal versions" in my head for all four of the Alien movies, where I'd mix-and-match alternate/deleted scenes from the different versions of each movie. For Alien 3 I'd keep the theatrical version's crash and salvage (it's more visually interesting, keeps with the continuity of the character's deaths, and establishes the dog), keep the theatrical version's Ripley death, and then keep everything else from the Assembly Cut. Fun fact: the Alien was always intended to be born from an ox. They filmed all the adult Alien scenes first, under the assumption that they could make the "ox-burster" scenes work later. When they couldn't get the effects for the baby Alien to work right, they said "oh poo poo, now what do we do?", and then they remembered that they'd established the dog in the EEV salvage scene and in the dialogue during the fan attack so they changed it to be a dog Alien. It's just funny seeing people say "the adult Alien acts dog-like, because it was born from a dog", because that was never the intention when filming. Also for people who like movie merchandise and stuff, NECA's figure of the Dog Alien is fantastic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THNiZyObkxo Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Jul 25, 2015 |
# ¿ Jul 25, 2015 04:12 |
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Immortan posted:I like the Assembly Cut version of her falling because it places an emphasis on why Ripley is sacrificing herself more without shoehorning in the chest burster to make sure a retarded audience knows why she's doing it. It's smarter. They could have gone with the scene as originally scripted, I guess. The Queen pops out of Ripley as she's standing on the ledge, it tries to crawl away, and Ripley falls down, grabs it, and then tumbles backward with it off the ledge before the other characters can stop her. That version of her death is present in the comic book adaptation, I can't remember if that's how it plays out in the movie novelization.
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# ¿ Jul 25, 2015 04:26 |
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david_a posted:It doesn't look like he had anything to do with the released AvP movie. They had been working on that concept ever since people went crazy for the alien skull gag in Predator 2 so this was a way earlier draft. I read something that claimed to be an AvP draft a long time ago but I have no idea if it was real or not - I vaguely remember something about a colony outpost and a woman fighting side by side with a predator. Also the skull in Predator 2 was a nod to that comic series (put there by Stan Winston himself, as a matter of fact), which was in publication and very popular while 'Predator 2' was being made. You can find the Peter Briggs AvP draft online here. The AvP movie we ended up getting has some things in common (Predators breeding Aliens for sport, female protagonist, Predator team-up for a bit, Predator ship shows up at the end and honors the protagonist) but a whole lot of it is different. And he's not wrong that an AvP movie *could* be done well, it just hasn't yet. Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 05:17 on Jul 25, 2015 |
# ¿ Jul 25, 2015 05:14 |
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Neo Rasa posted: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 06:03 |
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The Predator in AvPR is hilarious because he straight up doesn't give a gently caress. He's there to do a job, and gently caress these petty humans getting in his way. I got Ian Whyte, the actor who portrayed the Predators in both AvP movies, to record an audio intro for one of my AvP Lets Play videos several years ago. Really cool, funny guy. He also played the main Engineer in 'Prometheus'.
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# ¿ Jul 25, 2015 08:57 |
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sticklefifer posted:So this is weird as poo poo for me because I have remembered this wrong for years; I thought for a long time that the theatrical cut implied Weyland was an android but the Assembly cut changed him to human, and I remember really disliking that change. I still prefer to think of it that way anyway because dude just stands up with his ear hanging off like it's no biggie. The theatrical version is somewhat more vague about it. *The movie's trading cards identify him as Michael Bishop, and then the Colonial Marines game retcons it slightly so that he's actually Michael Bishop Weyland, head of Weyland-Yutani.
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# ¿ Jul 25, 2015 10:18 |
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The problem with this interpretation is that this part:SuperMechagodzilla posted:The town sherrif - who knows full well that the kid is dead - lies to the boy's mother and lets her go on believing. ...isn't true.
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# ¿ Jul 26, 2015 02:00 |
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Yes it is. He didn't literally find the bodies Eh, I'm unconvinced.
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# ¿ Jul 26, 2015 04:00 |
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Baronjutter posted:I sat through Salo because it's an amazingly made movie but I turned off AvP2 because it was just gross and made me feel disturbed/uncomfortable. I've gotten more and more timid in my entertainment tastes these days, I really don't like movies where lots of innocent people and kids get graphically killed for shock value. Hell I find it hard to even kill in video games any more. If there's a way to do a no-death run I'll do it. Serious answer: 'Alien: Isolation'. It's entirely possible to do a no-killing playthrough.
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# ¿ Jul 27, 2015 23:03 |
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:It's neither. It's just a bad transfer by the studio. The same thing happened to Godzilla 2014. Like, at all. And this is coming from someone who was entertained by AvPR (but recognized its flaws). Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 04:24 on Jul 28, 2015 |
# ¿ Jul 28, 2015 04:21 |
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:People, generally, do not know why they like or dislike things. I do not expect you to be different.
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# ¿ Jul 28, 2015 06:33 |
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LORD OF BUTT posted:The darkness thing is actually the most common complaint I see about AVPR, and SMG is totally right (the cinematography is fine, the home transfer just got hosed up). Then again this is the studio that drastically hosed up the bluray release for 'Predator' where all the characters look like wax people because they half-assed the restoration for bluray. I wish they'd put the sort of care into the Predator bluray as was given the 'Aliens' one, but I think a large part of why the Aliens bluray turned out as good as it did is because the restoration had Cameron himself at the helm.
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# ¿ Jul 28, 2015 10:49 |
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Silent as in totally silent? Or does the movie provide as "isolated score" viewing option? And if not, do you feel such an option would help a "silent" viewing of the movie? I do need to rewatch Prometheus, because I honestly cannot remember a single thing about the film's score.
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# ¿ Jul 28, 2015 11:32 |
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Chairman Capone posted:Actually, on the subject of Prometheus, one of the things that most surprised me about it tying into the Alien universe was that it actually continued the alphabetical android naming where Alien Resurrection left off (Ash, Bishop, Call, then David).
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# ¿ Jul 31, 2015 04:07 |
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LORD OF BUTT posted:Ignore the first name and it doesn't, which works since her being an android was a minor twist. If anything that means Prometheus is the one that breaks the pattern. Unless David is his first name, and he has a last name that keeps with the pattern I guess.
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# ¿ Jul 31, 2015 06:29 |
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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.
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# ¿ Aug 7, 2015 04:00 |
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zVxTeflon posted:Im sick of Ripley too at this point. Alien 3 was a perfect ending to her story. How many times do we need to resurect and torture this poor woman.
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# ¿ Sep 24, 2015 21:53 |
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Incredibly graphic powerloader mishap where Ripley ends up somehow yanking Hicks in half, Bishop-style. Out of grief, Ripley commits suicide with Hicks' pump-action. The camera does not cut away at any point during any of it.
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# ¿ Sep 24, 2015 23:52 |
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Basebf555 posted:I still have complaints about Prometheus, but they all are related to the marketing of the film, so in the end they are pretty meaningless complaints. I do feel that the marketing campaign for the film was deceptive though. I still think Prometheus has some crippling flaws, and I genuinely wish it weren't connected to Alien. Not for the usual fanboy "RAPED MY CHILDHOOD" nonsense, but because I think Prometheus could have gone in much more interesting (and weirder, scarier) directions without being saddled with Alien's baggage, and I ultimately don't think the connections to Alien do either movie any favors.
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# ¿ Sep 25, 2015 17:31 |
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MrMojok posted:Can you explain a little? I think what you're talking about is the stupidity of the scientists, who do very un-scientist type things, right? How was this the point of the plot? I'm not being sarcastic, I honestly feel the same way about the movie, and never understood half the things these people do and why it was written this way. It's especially incongruous when the space truckers of 'Alien' don't do anything near as dumb as the Prometheus scientists. People latched onto it in Prometheus because their actions aren't just stupid, they're unrealistically stupid. Like, profoundly stupid even for horror movie redshirt cannon fodder.
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# ¿ Sep 25, 2015 18:14 |
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Basebf555 posted:Weyland funded the project because of his fantasy of immortality, but by the time the everything was reaching the final stage where people needed to be hired for the crew he was already in stasis. Vickers, his daughter, is the one puts the crew together and she is simply going through the motions because she doesn't believe in the project. She just wants to fulfill her father's final wish so that he can just die already and she can move on with her life as the head of the company. The film makes a point of telling you that she personally hired the majority the crew, and that's the reason. I think my problem with it is that the characters were TOO stupid; I get that they were careless because maybe they were lazy, but the poo poo they do in Prometheus is beyond the pale by even "average human" standards, let alone "alleged doctoral candidates". as demonstrated in the very same series, space truckers show more caution than they do. If the filmmakers were trying to display hubris by having the characters do irresponsible things that get them killed by a foreign environment, they took it to a hamfisted extreme. What those characters do would have gotten them killed *on earth*, never mind a crazy alien planet.
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# ¿ Sep 25, 2015 18:29 |
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I do t have a problem with 2 or 4 so much as 1 and 3. Being a pothead doesn't really excuse getting lost in a tunnel that you personally mapped, and taunting a snake creature is dumb no matter what planet you're on. Popping off the helmet is above and beyond stupid; even Alien makes a very specific plot point about not breaking quarantine. The fact that the other characters don't immediately flip out a and go "are you retarded???? Put your helmet back on, Jesus Christ" just compounds the issue. Again, the space truckers act more believably than the Prometheus crew. Like I said, it's not that they do dumb poo poo, even in Alien you've got people doing dumb poo poo (Kane sticking his face in the egg, Brett hunting for the cat and totally forgetting about the Alien), but the Prometheus characters go above and beyond to the point that it calls attention to itself.
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# ¿ Sep 25, 2015 18:57 |
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Darko posted:re: Alien - "Looking in the egg" isn't stupid because he doesn't know he's in a horror movie, either, really. But, yeah, you can't compare the actions of a tired crew forced to work overtime working with company regulations and a ragtag, put together group of widely varying personalities on a private journey that just happen to luck into making first contact. Yes, the deleted worm scene makes things slightly more palatable, but sticking your face in a really obviously hostile snake creature's space is still profoundly stupid, and he certainly isn't acting like he's incoherently stoned when he does it. Like I said, yeah you can kinda handwave the stupidity by jumping through hoops, but it's still a really ham-fisted way of showing "the hubris of man in the face of the unknown" because it really calls attention to itself to the point that it distracts from that message. 'Alien' more deftly shows the same exact message, without the audience getting distracted by the idiocy of the character's actions. Bingo. When a comedy/parody movie shows more believable actions, you done hosed up. A major component of horror (and being able to empathize with characters in any situation, really) is being able to place yourself in the character's shoes and say "yeah, I'd act similarly, which means I'd be in danger too and that's scary". When the characters act unbelievably, it takes the audience out of the narrative. Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Sep 25, 2015 |
# ¿ Sep 25, 2015 19:20 |
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computer parts posted:Probably the most common stereotype for film right now is yelling at horror movie characters that they're "acting stupid". It has nothing to do with the characters "not knowing they're in a horror movie". Prometheus could have been a slapstick comedy and audiences would have recognized that Milburn harassing the space snake was profoundly stupid, and with predictable results. But with horror movies you're supposed to feel for the characters and that's where a lot of the tension comes from, so when they start doing unrealistically stupid poo poo, the audience stops empathizing with the characters and it stops being scary.
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# ¿ Sep 25, 2015 23:27 |
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Yaws posted:People don't always act 100 per cent rationally. This criticism of yours is such low hanging fruit. Boring. I'm glad you took the time to talk about a topic you don't care about, though. The problem isn't that the characters did dumb poo poo, it's that the movie executed it so poorly that it undermined an otherwise interesting theme ("the hubris of man").
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# ¿ Sep 25, 2015 23:46 |
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Yaws posted:I didn't feel any of the characters in Prometheus acted in a way that made the audience not care about them. They're human. Humans are fallible. Humans act irrationally. Especially when they're thrown in extreme circumstances like in Prometheus. Your tolerance for dumb stuff must be higher than mine if you think the Prometheus characters acted realistically. If you think I've just been repeating the same thing over and over, you haven't been paying attention.
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# ¿ Sep 25, 2015 23:58 |
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Lasher posted:It's all down the the awful script. We could have had the relevant plot beats WITH the characters acting in a manner that wasn't frustratingly idiotic but the whole thing feels very mish-mashed and cobbled together. Prometheus could have examined that theme on a grander scale, and in my opinion it flubbed it.
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# ¿ Sep 26, 2015 00:00 |
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Yaws posted:Well I've been reading your posts, so yeah Ah yes, resorting to insults. Now who's childish? Edit-- Basebff, I saw your post and I have some thoughts on it, but I'm posting from the Awful app so I'll post them when I get home.
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# ¿ Sep 26, 2015 00:02 |
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Y Kant Ozma Diet posted:If the characters in most movies acted in a %100 rational and believable way movies would be far shorter and more boring. Christ, the people in Alien and Aliens also acted like idiots. Who cares. ruddiger posted:If anything, xenomrph not getting Prometheus just proves it's the superior alien movie. And I "got" Prometheus just fine. Why cookie Rocket posted:I dunno man I love Prometheus (saw it three times in the theater; bought a blu-ray player for it) but the characters definitely act in a....heightened manner. I can roll with it because I understand we're just watching a big metaphor and the characters are tropes, but it's definitely not naturalistic. - Edit down the amount of time Milburn spends prodding the snake before it strikes, or edit down its hostile body-language to something somewhat more neutral. For a good example, there's always Kane and the Alien egg. Alternately, have Milburn not see the snake become hostile, perhaps he looks away to talk to Fifeld and that's when it gets aggressive and strikes. - Have someone at least speak up when someone pops their helmet on an alien planet, even if the helmet has already been popped and it's too late to do anything about it now. For an example, check the scene from Galaxy Quest. - Not have the guy who literally mapped the cave with his cool flying toys be the guy who gets lost and forgets that he mapped the cave. Have the characters get lost, but have it be literally any other character who did the mapping, or make it so the map is inaccessible to them, or doesn't work, or is incomplete. Any of those things still maintain the narrative beats, still maintain the characters' failures, even preserve the characters acting irrationally, without doing it in what I feel is a ham-fisted way. Basebf555 posted:We agree that its an interesting theme, so lets discuss the execution of it. I disagree that the characters in 'Alien' aren't exhibiting hubris, they're just doing it in a different way. The people in Prometheus are on the cutting edge of discovery, while the people in Alien are just doing blue-collar jobs. With Prometheus, the idea is "we can tame the unknown", and that's an arrogant stance to take. With Alien, the idea is "we have tamed the unknown", and as far as the characters are concerned, they have - everything is documented, there's procedures for everything, they just go out and punch a clock and it's all commonplace even though they're literally working in space and visiting other worlds, something that would be mind-blowing to us. The arrogance is in the notion that they've tamed the unknown and that they've seen it all, and that there are no dangers lurking in the dark, and that The Book has a procedure for everything. I agree that the characters wanting to bring Kane back onboard isn't hubris, but what makes the scene "work" is that Ripley at least acknowledges that there are risks involved, even if it makes her look like an insensitive bitch. The narrative is at least acknowledging the danger. I do disagree on Kane, I feel that Kane poking his head into the egg is a fair degree of hubris. Like yeah he's overwhelmed with curiosity, but even he is hesitant and careful when he's exploring the egg chamber, and even reacts with apprehension when the egg merely opens. But he thinks it's safe, even when he really doesn't have any reason to believe it's safe. But the reason Kane's scene works while Milburn's scene doesn't is that Kane's scene happens so quickly. The egg opens, which is fairly ambiguous from a threat standpoint, and Kane puts his face in and gets zapped seconds later. Milburn's scene is drawn out, with Milburn seemingly oblivious to obvious visual cues from the space snake. Like I mentioned earlier, if the thing had acted more neutrally, and/or the attack had been quicker, it wouldn't have stood out as much. I really feel it comes down to the scene's editing less so than the content. The scientists in Prometheus didn't need to do everything by the book (because as you mentioned earlier, there is no book yet). But I feel it's possible to express the awe and wonder of discovery and exploration without having the characters be reckless. poo poo, 'Alien' did it. Kane is the embodiment of it, from the moment they detect the Derelict's signal until the moment he gets facehugged. Even when they're marching towards the Derelict, he's saying "We have to go on, we must go on!" Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Sep 26, 2015 |
# ¿ Sep 26, 2015 01:55 |
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Tenzarin posted:No billion dollar project would ever not create plans and procedures in place for when stuff happens. People do not just wing it in those situations well except really lovely movies.
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# ¿ Sep 26, 2015 02:14 |
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Basebf555 posted:The recklessness of the characters is exactly the point of those scenes, not the awe and wonder of discovery. You want the scenes to be about something different than what Ridley Scott wanted. Now you're saying it's about their recklessness, and I'd still say there's better ways to show that (and I listed a bunch). But beyond that, there's a pretty wide gap between being arrogant, and being reckless. You can show arrogance without being reckless. Why cookie Rocket posted:Xeno's suggestions, for instance, we're so minor that I'm surprised those flaws ruined the movie for him. If anything, the part that drags the movie down even more are the ties with Alien. I don't feel Prometheus benefits from it, and I'd have loved to have seen what they could have come up with if the filmmakers were really let off the leash. I was excited that Prometheus 2 was going to distance itself even further from Alien, but apparently now they've done a complete 180 and are going to make it even closer to Alien.
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# ¿ Sep 26, 2015 04:19 |
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If he was going to use a not-Alien, I wish he'd used one of the other ideas that had concept art done up: the Deacon is this graceful albino creature with no mouth, and after birthing from the Engineer, it goes outside the shuttle and stares at the sunrise.
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# ¿ Sep 26, 2015 04:49 |
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If it makes you feel any better about the Space Jockey/Engineer thing, I'm a big fan of the interpretation that they're not the same thing. It adds another layer to the "creators/creations" theme (and Shaw even hints at it in-dialogue), and preserves the mystery of the Space Jockey to boot.
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# ¿ Sep 26, 2015 05:30 |
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SirDrone posted:I still don't know why they even bothered with two versions of the same scene, still this design seems better then bigfoot zambie man.
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# ¿ Sep 26, 2015 13:49 |
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Fair enough, I like looking at scenes and considering how they could have been done differently in order to be more effective, and deconstruct it to see what "works" and what doesn't, and why. I find that sort of stuff interesting, but to each their own.
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# ¿ Sep 26, 2015 15:34 |
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Actually, it isn't. You are not engaged in deconstruction. Yeah, well that's just, like, your opinion, man. Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Sep 26, 2015 |
# ¿ Sep 26, 2015 15:52 |
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Actually, it isn't. You are not engaged in deconstruction. If you don't think honest to god real life filmmakers don't look at movies that way (their own or otherwise), then you're awfully naive. Recognizing what makes a scene effective is important, and so is recognizing what a scene lacks. It's kind of a cornerstone of critical thinking about movies, and recognizing what makes a movie "good" or "effective". Here's a super cool youtube channel about it, for those interested in that sort of stuff. A google search like "what makes a good movie scene" brings up a couple thousand results, too. And yes it is deconstruction, even if it's not the kind you like. In short: Xenomrph posted:Yeah, well that's just, like, your opinion, man. Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 16:34 on Sep 26, 2015 |
# ¿ Sep 26, 2015 16:30 |
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ruddiger posted:Writing your own "what if..." Because you can't accept the story being presented to you is the exact opposite of deconstructing the narrative being presented to you. It's ignoring it and positing your own fan fiction as fact, or in this case "canon" as fact goes out the window when dealing with a fictional story. Yaws posted:All this is true. Unfortunately you aren't intellectually equipped to do any of it. But thanks for agreeing with me all the same, I appreciate it. SuperMechagodzilla posted:Well I mean, for example, the scene where the soldiers go surfing in the warzone. It would be more effective if they had a reason to be surfing, like it is part of their mission objectives. Maybe they are trying to reach the enemy base covertly, and they can't use outboard motors: "why not use surfboards!" What are your thoughts on director's cuts, or "fan edits" (The Phantom Edit, the Hobbit trilogy edited down to one movie, etc)? Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Sep 26, 2015 |
# ¿ Sep 26, 2015 18:41 |
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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 06:04 |
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:"Dismissive" implies that I've rejected your 'way of looking' without first evaluating it. computer parts posted:Fan edits frequently miss the point. It's funny when they end up reinforcing the complaints people had about the films, though. Hell, Ridley Scott has had plenty of his movies get screwed with in the editing room - Blade Runner, Kingdom of Heaven. Even Prometheus, there have been plenty of instances where people said "yeah, this deleted scene would have made this characters' actions make more sense", or "this alternate take is scarier/more interesting/more visually compelling". Off topic but regarding your specific Phantom Menace example, could you clarify what you mean?, Wouldn't dubbing them in a nonsense language address the alleged racial stereotyping, though? Or are you saying that them "fixing" the Asian stereotype misses the point, and that the Asian stereotype is important and should be in the movie? IM_DA_DECIDER posted:I'd argue that Prometheus has the one most realistic depiction of a bunch of poo poo tier PhDs in all of movie history. People who complain about their behaviour haven't spend enough time in academia. The_Rob posted:Isn't one of the major ideas behind Alien and Prometheus to take the genre conventions, and cliche's of old sci fi and horror B Movies and present them in different ways? I feel like that right there should explain some of the sillier stuff of the films. It's not like these movies don't realize when they are being funny. Prometheus is actually really funny, I didn't really get that vibe with Prometheus, though, aside from perhaps the juxtaposition of 1950s "clean" sci-fi aesthetics (the designs of the space suits, the ship, even smaller things like David's hair) with the gritty and unsettling "reality" of 'Alien'. I vaguely remember seeing someone say in the old Prometheus thread that the movie is a 1950s "optimistic" sci-fi movie where things go horribly, disastrously wrong. Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Sep 26, 2015 |
# ¿ Sep 26, 2015 23:03 |