New Replies (Page 599)
DK - I watched the original "Gremlin" episode of the Twilight Zone with William Shatner last week! :)
I love those old black and white shows- Twilight Zone and Outer Limits. They used what they could for that day. They probably would have loved CGI back then but it was simply a pipe dream at best back then.
DALIENS - Hahaha! Quite so, my friend. Quite so. Fortune favors the bold! :)
The trick, Something Real, is not minding that it hurts :)
The big chap before he got blasted out into space in Alien! :-) poor fella
DALIENS - I am almost willing to wager I could wear one of those and make it look fashionable. :)
I thought Ridley Scott is doing the old scool practical effects like nobody else is doing nowadays.
And practical effects can be a lot more expensive for a movie of that scale. Unless we go for something like this:
Old scool David and Walter
RED0GUY - Science Fiction - aliens, monsters and exploration amongst the stars - will never die. :)
red0guy@gmail.com the Alien is a love it or hate it thing, there no way in between. It's like the Greshka thing from the short "A song for Lya" by George R.R Martin. It grows on you.
Only look at the passionate debates on this forum.
C.JAM - Quite so! Practical special effects are much more enjoyable! :)
I can agree with the sentiment, but how back to basics should we get? We could go to black and white to get really hard core. I think CGI has its place in the right hands. I love old school but do not think we need to go back to this:
IRAPTUS - Oh, gosh! I would certainly hug the Newborn and tell him it is going to be alright - provided he was not interested in tearing me to little bits. :)
red0guy@gmail.com Shaw, as Peter Weyland believed the engineers created us. If she was a Christian (I presume because of the cross she carried with her) she was a messed up Christian. Did she believe Jesus Christ was an engineer? That's even more messed up faith. Did she ask that last surviving engineer why did they want to destroy Earth? Really? Did you really expect an answer? Did Weyland expect to find immortality?
What would you like to see of Shaw? What more could she have done? Trying to talk with another kind engineer? I doubt she could find one.
The ancient aliens theories are funny and entertaining (talking about the tv shows and von Daniken) but they have not proved anything yet. Just theories about other wordly beings. A new high tech religion.
Wren- There are gaps. And there's some degree of cognitive dissonance.
You got me there. The analogy was wrong.. but that is some major stupidity on behalf of the us navy... they had the idea to ban smoking in submarines after 16 years after regular ships? And it seems that the soviets smoked on the MIR (https://www.quora.com/How-do-astronauts-smoke-in-space ). We as a species are so dumb.
To conclude, I was not looking for flaws I was pointing out that the Aliens series is rather shitty to predict things from the future as a good Sci-fi should and that's why they did not age well.
please tell want creature horror movie was terrifying in the last 5 to 10 years? Did you consider that the genre as such is dying on it's own? and cgi is not the problem?
red0guy@gmail.com US banned smoking on submarines only in 2011, however sailors were still allowed to smoke on deck. And Nostromo was not a military ship.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1343689/US-submarines-smoking-ban-comes-force.html
And until some years ago smoking was permitted in airplanes as well. In 1979 smoking was cool, so if you really want to be picky and look for flaws try something else. If you don't like Alien, fine, but get over it. Same I am trying with Aliens.
No, we cannot blame David for what he became. He is like an orphan child who grew up without love. Disturbed.
And being an AI he is not even responsible for his actions. We cannot sue him, Weyland-Yutani is to blame.
Do you have beers and cigarettes in modern submarines where air supply is limited?
Sorry i see no similarity between the two. The Nostromo was only 4 towers joined together, with a labyrinthine interior.
Weyland was demanding immortality, while Shaw was asking a morality question, how are these similar? She was confused how so?
And in the Alien universe there ancient alien realities not theories ... so sorry this solution it's just lack of creativity.
Homage, come on.
The kids also dress up as Ghostbusters for Halloween. Homage.
The entire show is a throw back to early Amblin and Spielbergian filmmaking.
red0guy@gmail.com Nostromo was a cargo ship and the similarities with today's cargo ships (waterborne) are obvious. You have cans of beers and cigarettes and crew who is doing the job only for the money.
Sometimes I prefer this kind of straight forward approach instead of the pretentious holographic images and black goo.
It's not odd that there were primitive like objects in his living quarters.
Here's a question for you - How'd he make the paper for his drawings?
Paper making is an ancient and time-consuming process, David has rolls of blank sheets, and a room dedicated to storing them.
No one, they all deserve to die.
Maybe I will hug David before he head got chop off.
Perez - And her memories?
(*bump*)
red0guy@gmail.com Shaw had to die because there was no way she could get the answers to her questions, same for Peter Weyland. She was not even a religious person, well not more than Oram was, if she was looking for the engineers to get the answers. She was totally confused and a big fan of ancient aliens theories. Not a viable character in my opinion.
David. He has to go, although he will be sorely missed.
Some background. Coming from a former communist country I first seen all the first 3 movies in the early to mid 90s. The forth one i have seen in the cinema. Then I liked all with exception of the forth, but of course the impact was not that powerful like it must have been in '79 and I clearly don't wear rose tinted glasses. I've re-watched the first two some ten years ago ago and I still liked them. After watching Covenant, and hating it, I've revisited the series and I realized that I don't like either movie as a whole. The first one of course is the best and the second has some good parts.
For me, Alien has not aged that well. First the characters, I don't like none of them (Ripley became likable only in Aliens), and their mannerism so '70s. I sincerely don't understand how such a giant ship should be maintained by a crew of 7. 3 of them (Brett, Kane and Parker) are not that different from the crew of Covenant. Further insult Parker is a living stereotype of an african-american thinking only of money. Dallas is more or less Janek. Why they have a cat on a spaceship? why they smoke and have cans of beer on it?
The Nostromo is completely ridiculous, with completely non functional shape and why is full of pipes. Is it powered by steam? If it transports ore why does not look as an giant silo? And why does the screen displays 0s and 1s, even the binary data would have been edited in hexadecimal and some offset data would have been displayed. Analog video transmission in 2122 will never happen as they predicted.... And why is there gravity on the Nostromo or are their Converse shoe magnetized? And why all the flamethrowers in the series are so unrealistic? After one jet all would have been empty.
The science part was not great that crucial part of the series, and it never aged particularly well. For me only 2001 aged well as a sci-fi, most probably because people thought about the science part.
I like the first hour of the movie or so, until the xenomorph appears. The mood is excellent until then, after that the slasher part is boring and by now is full of cliches. For me as a horror movie Carpenter's The Thing aged much better (with fully workable flamethrowers). I also loved Prometheus because it expanded on parts of the original that I liked and the technology in it was slicker (with new absurdities like the dream helmet, there is no sleep in cryo sleep, or in the Alien there is?).
I think Waterston as Daniels was a mistake, like Bloom in Kingdom of Heaven and Edgerton in Exodus. She was no match for David, not even for Oram. She is a good actress, no doubt about that, but was miscast in Covenant. I mean for whatever Daniels said the only reply she deserved was: "I'll put it in the log. You are dismissed. " She was too fragile and tired, her voice, although very expressive, was too soft and too nostalgic. You only feel that she wants everything to be over to get some sleep and forget about all, and that eventually did happen.
Wren- It's unprecedented.
Gediman- Totally. She's operating at a completely adult capacity.
The way I see it David only obeyed one human, Weyland and once he was dead all of those rules went right out the window.
And it's not hard to see why he disdained humans. Look at the way we treat basic AI characters in video games, we kill them when we aren't belittling or torturing them. Give them the ability for emotions and 'feeling' and it's not hard to imagine.
In the engineers case not only did they spawn David's lifelong tormentors, and creators but their sole representative ripped off his head and killed the only human he ever loved (if he loved any humans).
So genocide is bad obviously but the engineers were/are planning to destroy earth and it's kind of hard to judge a genocidal robot with an axe to grind, he isn't human. It would be like judging sharks that kill people.
(wearily)
Why...? (says Ripley)
New user here and my first post so here goes. I'm a life long franchise fan but I've only begun to start really looking into the story of prometheus and AC, so if anything here is what a layman perceived in regards to the fate of Shaw.
Keep in mind I read the book before watching the movie, not sure if the book is considered canon. But based upon what I saw in the movie it was clear to me that Shaw was in fact murdered by David through experimentation. Yes the book goes into greater detail which colored my perception but it would be the same.
1. Shaw's mutilated and clearly modified corpse is witnessed in one of the scenes, hard to ignore that.
2. David tells 'the new ripley' that he is going to do the exact same thing to her, coupled with the artwork that while seemingly contradictory shows that David took great pleasure in Shaw's fate. Serial killers are known to make drawings such as this and they don't always match up to the actual crimes they committed.
I can understand why people would want to see a different outcome for Shaw, she was a cool character. I felt the same way about Hicks when Alien 3 came out (I was 10 years old at the time and was VERY disapointed). But for me Shaw's fate really isn't much of a mystery in the film, and if I include what I read in the book there is zero doubt at all (again not sure if the book is considered canon).
On the flip side, I find what happened to Shaw to be trully horrifying and the corpse scene at least to me was a very clear nod to Giger.
All in all I like this element of the story which is perhaps part of the reason why I have no issue with seeing it this way. Even if it is disgusting and terrible it's certainly a more interesting way to go than being impaled by a safety apparatus in a crash landing...seriously, they couldn't have thought of any better way for Hicks to go? Anyway that's an entirely different movie but I thought I would reference it since it seems people have the same disappointment that I did when Alien 3 came out.
I double you on that but I find even more insulting is the fact that I can't find the reason why she had to die. Because you had to mutilate her corpse to make it like a Giger painting? Or you didn't know what to do with the character? Lack of imagination is never something to admire.
Yo Parkinson's I got Parkinson's, that's what I hear every time I hear that song lmao
Wren- No! No! I'm all right!
(Welcome aboard I Moon Girl!)
You two guys are even greater together.
Thank you.
Homage. They explicitly said it is homage and they are doing a full series of posters paying homage to other 80s horror/sci-fi films.
http://www.slashfilm.com/stranger-things-posters-throwback-thursday/
