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feelix posted:Aliens is a really bad movie, OP. Alien was a wonderful, unique, rich film with interesting characters, while Aliens is a lovely action movie full of cardboard cutout cliches. It's loving rear end. Before I joined the Marines I thought the grunts in Aliens were ridiculous caricatures. After a few years in the Marines I wondered why they had made the grunts so bland and washed out. Edit: You can tell I was a Marine because I misspelled "caricatures" and had to go back and fix it. Cessna fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Mar 6, 2019 |
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Mar 6, 2019 20:40
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Durzel posted:What about Hicks eh? What does Hicks do??? Hicks gets out of the Corps and goes back to school on the Space GI Bill. He majors in business, but his GPA is pretty crappy because he doesn't study and doesn't go to class much. He has ideas about starting a veteran-owned T-shirt business selling shirts with pictures of Xenomorphs on them with the saying "Game over, man, Game over!" printed on the back, but never manages to scrape up enough money to launch the website.
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Mar 6, 2019 20:58
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SilvergunSuperman posted:It's a neat little gun alright. I loved the movies - Alien, Aliens, hell, I even liked Alien 3. That machinegun bugs me. The whole thing with a machinegun is that when you're getting shot at you drop prone, then return fire. You don't just stand there and shoot from the hip, and that whole rig looks like it would be really hard to use lying down. One way I can rationalize this is to think that these Marines haven't been in a real war in decades, they've only been in "bug hunts" where they didn't have to deal with someone who shoots back.
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Mar 6, 2019 21:35
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FogHelmut posted:goofy looking Why would you say that? 
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Mar 6, 2019 21:51
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Pennywise the Frown posted:This is the answer to the gently caress up. I bet they really were highly trained and they already mentioned at least one other deployment they've been on. Hell, Hicks falls asleep in the absolutely horrifying dropship drop because he's so experienced that it's all just routine for him. Agreed on all counts. Marines are just staggeringly arrogant about what they can do. They all think they're God's own gift to war. As a result, sometimes they get caught flat-footed and get hurt badly as a result. But even then, they will never - NEVER - give up, and will gut it out with sheer bull-headed stubborn arrogance and salvage a bloody victory out of a certain defeat. Beet Wagon posted:In regards to the whole "overconfident but then they got their asses kicked" thing, the entire movie is basically a big story for how loving dumb we were in Vietnam, so yeah. The movie is an excellent re-telling of a Vietnam war movie in Sci-Fi terms and I love it for even trying to do this. To continue from above, I am not saying the USMC won the war in Vietnam - we're talking individual battles here. The pattern shows up that level too - Marines go in arrogant, get hurt badly, then tough it out enough to call it a "win" even if it was a bloody pyrrhic victory at best. All in all the movie is a good portrayal of the USMC. We quoted it constantly when I was in. quote:Jarhead: Game over, man. Game over! What the gently caress are we gonna do now? WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO?" Cessna fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Mar 7, 2019 |
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Mar 7, 2019 20:19
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Pennywise the Frown posted:A goon made this one. I always laugh when I see it. Ash at the end lol. Holy poo poo that is perfect.
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Mar 8, 2019 19:50
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Julius CSAR posted:I know we're talking (mostly) about Aliens here, but there's been some other chat about 80's action movies in general, so I'm gonna talk about why "The Hunt For Red October" is one my favorite movies. We watched that movie on the flight over to Saudi Arabia for the first Gulf War.
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Mar 11, 2019 16:46
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quote:Just like they'll know that you were responsible for the deaths of 157 colonists! Imagine a large corporation getting worked up about 157 deaths in 2019.
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Mar 19, 2019 15:48
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Tree Bucket posted:Is "in the pipe, five by five" some kind of actual pilot jargon, or is it just techno-gibberish? Not exactly, but it's easy to figure out what it means. As has already been pointed out, "five by five" refers to a signal strength. As far as the "pipe," big planes usually land using what it called "ILS," Instrument Landing System. In VERY brief terms there's a transmitter at the airport that broadcasts a signal to your plane. You have instruments on your panel that show you which directions to steer in to follow it down to the runway.  So, "In the pipe" - we're on the correct path down to where we're landing. "five by five" - we're getting a good signal to follow down.
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Mar 19, 2019 15:55
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Owlbear Camus posted:In the directors commentary Cameron literally apologizes to the USMC and said if he had it to do over again he would have made the characters regular army and potentially conscripts, not Marines and he regretted the slight against the noble Marine Corps. Why? It's a surprisingly accurate portrayal. Not the "getting killed by acid-blooded monsters part, but the general vibe of the USMC.
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Mar 20, 2019 18:13
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Mister Speaker posted:The kid that showed me Aliens also ended up joining the USMC right out of highschool too (and we're Canadian). But I couldn't say for sure that it was just the depiction of the USCM in the movie; he was into a lot of other war stuff and also not very mentally stable as a teenager. I joined the Marines (delayed entry), then saw Aliens, then went to boot camp. The movie didn't exactly make me thrilled about my decision, but I went through with it, figuring it was a way out of a failing factory town in New Jersey.
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Sep 30, 2019 21:32
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Glistening Jones posted:I'm just a sucker for all games Aliens, I even played Colonial Marines one and a half times. I just bought the tabletop rpg, it looks good.
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Jun 21, 2023 17:38
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BattleMaster posted:Anyway, I recommend it for people who are Thinking About Aliens, especially after it has time for some patching. Sold, I'll get it. Thanks for the review!
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Jun 23, 2023 16:14
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Greggster posted:It's terrific and it perfectly captures the feel of Alien, my group haven't done anything akin to Aliens (yet) but it handles combat really well and I think the core mechanics of the game makes it incredibly easy to make it feel cinematic since you're not getting bogged down by rolling dies forever. I also just picked up a copy of Another Glorious Day in the Corps, the miniatures game based on Aliens. The models are pretty good, and I'll supplement them with some 3d printed stuff. I don't know if I'll play the game much, but I'll definitely use the models for the rpg. :strip_icc()/pic4560972.png)
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Jun 26, 2023 15:54
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Outland Blade Runner 2049
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Jul 12, 2023 20:54
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Pennywise the Frown posted:Wow, those screenshots are super Alienesque. Yeah, it really is in the same universe. I thought I was the only one who remembered that one, it's good to see it hasn't been completely forgotten. Xenomrph posted:The Alien RPG has some cute easter-egg references to Outland. No kidding? Can I ask what/where?
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Jul 14, 2023 15:36
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That's amazing, thanks for passing that along.
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Jul 14, 2023 18:14
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edogawa rando posted:At the end of the day, Gorman's biggest failings were that he was lacking in experience which made him overcompensate by being such a stickler for formality and rules, and that he lacked the ability to think flexibly on his feet, e.g., him overcomplicating instructions to Apone over the radio, and freezing under pressure when poo poo was really hitting the fan at an even greater rate than it was a few minutes ago. It doesn't make him a bad person, it just made him a bad leader that had potential to grow into the role. One thing that stands out to me is that Gorman does make the right call in a stressful situation. When the platoon gets bounced he orders, "Fall back, lay down covering fire with incinerators," in a clear, calm voice. Don't get me wrong, he made a lot of mistakes too. His communication with his platoon was poor - he should have explained why they had to give up their rounds - but he wasn't completely inept. I also think putting the command back in an APC where they can only see what's going on through TV cameras is a terrible idea. But, well, the movies IS a metaphor for Vietnam, and this is representing what happened when commanding officers tried to direct firefights from helicopters far above the jungle. redshirt posted:Agreed. There's nothing malicious about Gorman. Just incompetence. He just wasn't the right man for the job. As has been said, that's just how officers work. And, for that matter, this was exactly what Weyland-Yutani wanted, a new Lt fresh out of Space ROTC who they could push around, who wouldn't get in the way of what the company wanted to do - bring back a Xenomorph. MrMojok posted:But it could also be that the USCMC doesn’t promote as quickly, and even more likely, the writers weren’t familiar with how it all worked IRL and thought Hicks should be an NCO and everyone else privates, except for Apone. I thought he was an NCO, don't they call him "Corporal?" (I.e., E-4)
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Jul 20, 2023 18:40
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Icon Of Sin posted:Right call, but he still micromanaged it and forced Apone to take a pause in the unfolding chaos to try and listen in…which led directly to him getting picked up and carted off to be an incubator, and then the true chaos unfolded directly after Oh, absolutely. He was not good at communication, didn't follow basic leadership principles - all in all, he was pretty much a typical new lieutenant. I'm just pointing out that he wasn't completely inept.
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Jul 20, 2023 19:07
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Sydney Bottocks posted:However, as I understand it, for a soldier to progress to corporal in the US Army these days does indicate that they are leadership material to the higher-ups. Which in turn means they'd likely be given preference for things like promotions, training schools, etc. Whereas a SP4 will likely remain in their pay grade a lot longer because they're not as well-rounded as a corporal might be, being an expert in their particular field (hence the term "specialist") but not as skilled in other areas as a corporal. Even though they only have Spec-4 now, back in the Vietnam era they went all the way up to E-9.  It is strange to think of an E-9 with no NCO rank. MrMojok posted:Yeah, he is an NCO, as a corporal. Yeah. I only asked because the time we hear someone say his rank was from Ripley and Burke: quote:Ripley: I believe Corporal Hicks has the authority here... And he could have been a LCpl; most civilians don't really care about the difference. The whole USCMC TO&E (from the Colonial Marines Technical Manual) is weird. I like the fact that it can be rationalized - units are generally getting smaller, historically speaking, so ideas like a two-person fireteam/four person squad isn't impossible. But in some ways it just doesn't make sense either. Cessna fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Jul 20, 2023 |
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Jul 20, 2023 20:45
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Yeah, I don't know that they wanted them to get wiped out per se. I think they didn't take the potential threat seriously. Sure, some crazy lady told a story about monsters on that planet, but she's obviously insane. Maybe just send in a few jarheads to make sure that the colonists didn't get eaten by feral boars, or maybe they just forgot to turn their phone on, who knows?
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Jul 20, 2023 21:00
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Sydney Bottocks posted:That actually happened in one of the recent Marvel Alien comics, it was at the end of the first story arc I think I can only assume the cat threw up the chestburster onto a rug like a hairball.
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Aug 9, 2023 15:17
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The film is a masterpiece. I can understand why people don't like it, but it gets better each time I see it.
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Aug 11, 2023 21:02
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Dial A For Awesome posted:Am enjoying Dark Descent. Currently my medic has developed a fear of blood, another marine has paranoia and becomes stressed when deployed with other marines (i.e. every mission) and my sergeant becomes very upset when he sees aliens. I also chuckled on the very first mission when I saw the negative traits my marines started with, including cowardice, bad luck and being clumsy. Clearly the marine corps is not sending their best. I have bad news for you about the real Marine Corps.
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Aug 14, 2023 15:38
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redshirt posted:I can honestly say I've never thought of a Xeno as "sexy". The whole point of HR Giger art is that it's just wall-to-wall sex organs. This is from Necronomicon, the art that got him the job designing the Xeno: 
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Aug 29, 2023 22:06
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Morton Haynice posted:Alien3 never gets enough respect. I understand the hate for killing Newt & Hicks, or the bad puppet compositing, but it still has easily half a dozen truly iconic moments. Yes. Also his funeral speech.
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Aug 31, 2023 17:54
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redshirt posted:Another phrase I use from Aliens still. During a situation that has turned difficult: When I was in the USMC this was quoted constantly. Leaving a restaurant? Might as well say it.
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Sep 18, 2023 15:58
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redshirt posted:I mean sure, you could train a dog or other animal to do a ton of things. Maybe they were just trashing everything on their way in and happened to smash a break er box?
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Sep 19, 2023 16:25
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Icon Of Sin posted:I know we’ve had this conversation before in this thread, but William Hope played an incompetent/in-over-his-head LT to absolute perfection. Probably in part to Al Matthews’ Vietnam experience with the exact same, but he did real good. Gotta agree here, they were perfect.
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Oct 19, 2023 17:14
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Me years ago: A marine apc driver, I get killed when an alien crawls in through an open hatch and slaughters me. Me now: I'm sitting at a computer terminal goofing off at work; an alien drops from the ceiling and kills me.
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Nov 6, 2023 16:06
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Hell yes.
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Nov 27, 2023 20:03
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WHY BONER NOW posted:Do we know when the series is set? The article linked to says: quote:the new Alien series is set in a time period before Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley and is the first story in the franchise that takes place on Earth, roughly 70 years in the future.
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Nov 28, 2023 16:07
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Oh, great. Wonderful. poo poo.
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Nov 29, 2023 17:17
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Pennywise the Frown posted:These new developments in this Aliens show however... well they're just We're all gonna die, the only question is when.
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Nov 29, 2023 20:37
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I finally broke down and watched Prometheus and Covenant. I can't believe I'm writing this, but I didn't hate them. They weren't great, and I wish they weren't in the Alien universe, but once I accepted that - well, they weren't as bad as I thought they would be based on what I'd heard about them. If nothing else they might give me ideas for the Alien rpg.
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Dec 20, 2023 17:16
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Xenomrph posted:The RPG as it stands cribs from them pretty heavily. A lot of what is in the rpg makes more sense after watching the movies. I figured that was the origin for a lot I didn't recognize. ("What's a neomorph? Or a hammerpede?") I'll admit up front that I don't like a lot of the Alien EU that I've seen in comics or books. They go in a lot of directions that I really don't like; this is why I was very hesitant to watch Prometheus/Covenant. I was determined to stick with the first three movies, no more. And there were a LOT of things I didn't like about Prometheus/Covenant, but not enough to make me reject them entirely. I suppose if I can skim some ideas and get a good game out of what was added I'm happy.
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Dec 20, 2023 17:39
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So let me check my work here so I can nail down some background. As I understand it, and this has spoilers and questions: The galaxy is a cruel and uncaring place. Thousands of years ago an advanced species of giants whose technology included advanced genetic engineering pushed humanity to sapience. Notably, one sacrifices himself to further this process; there's an ongoing theme of bringing creation out of destruction throughout the movies. After a while the giant Engineers became disappointed, so they sent out horseshoe-shaped spaceships loaded with a biological weapons (aliens/xenomorphs affected by the "black liquid") to wipe out their creation. This didn't work and the ships didn't make it, so humanity survived. Did I miss why this failed? The "black liquid" is either related to or is the same substance that jump-started humanity. It's effects are unpredictable, but it generally makes whatever is exposed to it smarter or meaner or stronger or a combination of those by altering it's DNA at a base level. It kills engineers if it's dropped on them, it makes worms grow into bigger, nastier worms, and makes people give birth to squids - you name it, it's nasty genetic chaos given form. Seemingly every creature created or affected by this stuff falls into the xenomorph's reproductive cycle or forcibly implanting eggs which kill their host like a Glyptapanteles wasp. Is this just a trait of being affected by the black liquid? Also, the black liquid doesn't seem to do anything to synthetic androids directly - it doesn't morph them - but David decided to tinker with it anyway and ended up reverse-engineering the xenomorph alien, almost. Right? And at some point in the future a bunch of space truckers find the abandoned remains of one of the Engineer ships loaded with biological weapons and wakes one up, thus starting a new cycle. There's also still cans of black liquid and potentially surviving engineers out there waiting for people to trip over them. Corporations and governments especially want the black liquid to drop on to their enemies; of course, this will utterly wreck humanity, but they don't care. Correct? What killed the Engineer who was decapitated by the door - what was he running from? Do we get any hints? What is the "Deacon" thing at the end? Just another xenomorph variant, "Black Liquid * (Engineer + Squid) = Deacon?" The "neomorphs" - the pale almost-xenomorphs - are they just an early stage of the classic xenomorph? Is it a matter of "add black liquid to the neomorphs to get xenomorphs?" Does anything stand out as wrong? I just want to fill in some gaps in my understanding and make sure I have it right before I start the rpg.
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Dec 20, 2023 23:17
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The Last Call posted:It was a comic that had Vasquez's screw up sister in it. Mistaken for a man?
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Jan 5, 2024 16:56
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The rpg is soooo good.
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Jan 15, 2024 18:04
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MrMojok posted:Just realized how badly I need a Starship Troopers Mobile Infantry crossover with aliens/predator. GW had you covered: 
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Feb 8, 2024 16:37
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