Comments (Page 627)

One thing that I don’t think anyone has mentioned in this thread is the difference in Shaw’s message? In the movie (as in the novelization) she’s just singing Denver's “Take Me Home, Country Roads”. In the script she is more terrified, pleading for anyone to come and rescue her. She even says a Catholic prayer (her crucifix is later found), and the hologram stops with her anxiously turning around (as if something has crept up behind her?).

Oram is also a religious man (like Shaw) and says to Mother to slow the screeching sound in the signal down - and to reverse it. It’s the devil’s sound - the sound of lies. This would fit with the allusions to “Paradise Lost”, Hell, the fallen angel (David) etc? It would have been creepier . . .

Perhaps they felt like changing this since Oram wouldn’t have made the decision to investigate the source (which was also a part of the tension between Daniels and Oram)? On the other hand, it might have built up more tension in the movie if, for example, it was part of their contract to answer distress calls (like in Alien)?

We also learn that it took 4 days for the engineers to all die, and Shaw also mentions this in the distress call: “Please, please, if you hear this, come and . . . help us . . . Everyone’s dying. They’re all dying . . . Mountains of them now . . .”. But she wasn’t infected herself - or was she?

As for the script discussion, we read on the title page that it is “Based on the screenplays by Dante W Harper And Michael Green”. “screenplays” is in the plural so did they write several drafts together or perhaps two separate ones?

“Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven” is also stated on the title page which hints at this story being centered around David and his rebellion?

Source of these images?

No

For starters, the xeno has that inner jaw that will make quick work of the hugger. The xeno is also immune to the acid.

Meet Walter- yeah, maybe it be played after the end credits?

I once had a fan fiction idea that I never ended up writing thta actually connected the two timelines. its main charector was young peter weyland duirng and after a nucullar fallout between a race of replicants and the last humans on earth.

sounds good.

I just was'nt so sure about the meet walter one though.

This was a pretty big debate last winter. I have no idea who started the thread. I only remember BigDave and a couple others really hitting hard on that topic.

I have thought for a long time a facehugger impregnating an android would be cool. There were some threads dedicated to just that debating how that could happen.

Having Xenos on Earth post Resurrection- the only way I could think of is if the new born's vacuumed body parts somehow entered the Earth's atmosphere and got in that way- somewhat like how David unleashed the black goo.

The problem with A3 is how that egg got on the ship. Again, hotly debated here but essentially a plot hole.

Continuing with Amanda seems a very obvious choice since Isolation ended in such a way to pretty much do just as you suggest.

Lots of possibilities!

perhaps the Engineers thought they could much more easily "tame" an evolved race with greater capabilities than they, than an AI.  Perhaps they would work to guide the evolution of a promising seed race, that seemed to be evolving high intelligence, in a way so that race would serve the needs of the engineers.  This could mirror the arrogance that David's creator had in thinking David would serve him?

Timmy the ultramorph It has been years since seeing Blade Runner. Leaving time lines aside, Call was a very advanced android and told a story of some sort of rebellion among androids. It seems those could link up somehow. Even if RS isn't around to do it, his son could- I think he directed the Last Supper?

exactly, as I see it, the franchise is essentially about the battle between biological evolution and machine intelligence

dk one thing that i thought about the blade runner and alien timeline is that after the blade runner movies, the world gets like nuked or something and people go into sort of a dark age of technology. that is why the androids in alien are less advanced.

another way is that mabye after an android revolution, the companys decided to create them so they could be more easily defined(white blood) and have programming to make them more obedient.

Timmy the ultramorph Agree- I would include all those scenes as well. 

one mabye that i had was having the meet walter footage right after the david scene with weyaland to show the contrast between the two. this might make the pacing at the begining to slow because people would want the story to begin.

one other really quick  thing I might add is the shot were the alien is jumping of the walls in the red light. They actually showed  that exact shot in the film exept for in xenomorph POV form. would be alot cooler if we had the one not POV shot.

ali81 all good. Blackwinter Witch has very nicely created this thread (which is a featured article) as a master portal to everyone's fan fiction threads.

So if people come here they can peruse through them all without digging through the All topics link :)

Your link will be added to the original post (above) shortly

even just having filler would have helped it feel like it was'nt just showing a bunch of highlights from the event but the whole story. in the extended opening scene with david and weyland, there is some great foreshadowing, all of the filler scenes would make the horror scarier because there would be more time inbetween them, the breif scen on earth in the flashback fleshes out daniells chaector so much and also builds the importance of the cabin on the lake. I would say definatly make a directors cut. 

in addition the the deleted scenes, he should add some of the she won't go quietly footage. mostly when she is playingg poker, the 4 meters above you segmant and her frantickly reloading the ammo. this could be cut together with the lunar audi quatro footage so it would look like the rover is being used when they are hunting down the xenomorph.

I would also have the advent video as a post credit scene, the last supper clip be added and have the crossing be part of the flashback scene when david bombs the engineers. all of the deleted and extended scenes would be included.

in terms of subtractions, I think that they should cut out the shots were ferris slips in the blood. it feels almost slapstick. another shot that i think should be removed is the neomorph entering the temple right before it decapitates that person. it shows you exactly what is going to happen before hand and makes it less scary. 

the final directors cut that I just mentioned would be about 2 hours and 25 minutes and way more satisfying in my opinion.

Or, is David a good actor who just couldn't hold his excitement since he is so close to completing his plan.  He knows he's got it, but he's just got to finish it.  So, he's not the perfect lair, but he is a lair.  That is obvious in both Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. 

Hopefully the new Alien: Covenant Origins book will give some insight into the idea that David organized attacking the Covenant in some way.  If it doesn't, then maybe we wont see till Alien: Awakening.  Still, I think there should be something, even if it's almost nothing, in Alien: Covenant Origins novel.  Still, the book doesn't seem to be about David, but about the crew trying to get off of Earth without being killed.  I wonder why it is so negative for the Covenant to colonize another planet?  Maybe somebody knows something they shouldn't?

The thing is, the passing ship was a ship full of hypersleeping colonists.  That is a perfect shipment for David!  Is he really that lucky?  Hopefully we find out soon!

dk Aliens was the first of the films I saw too. I started watching Alien 3 when I was abit too young and it scared the shit out of me, so I stopped. Not long after I watched Aliens and was hooked on the franchise from then on.

Perhaps you feel safer watching the film with the Marines first lol.

Exactly!

Kethol Yes, that scene in particular reminded of the Carpenter version of The Thing in some ways.

An interesting thought... I think it would have worked out well if Scott was able to make some prequels after Alien. From there, the world building in Scott's vision would have been easier to do. Right now they seem to have an ever-changing canon and world. Or, that's what we have seen so far. Having to build his world into the franchise that has three sequels with different directors that actually spans 200-some years is hard to do. It has been mentioned many-a-times on the forum that it is sort of silly that the company is still going after the Xeno when the black goo is in play now (I'm not so sure it is silly, but hey). Funnily enough, it doesn't seem that Ridley is really worried about that... He hasn't really referenced anything that far into the future yet (I think), so I have no clue what that is going to mean to the existing canon.

Let's not forget that Fox has some official canon (I think they established it around the time of Prometheus' release?? I'm not sure) with books and two video games included. 

So yes, I think the prequel escapade would have done everyone some good (who knows how well they would have been received though) directly after Alien was made. From there, the franchise could have gone sort of the route it did (different directors, writers everytime and all that jazz.)

Welcome and great work!!

I love your angle regarding the Engineers fearing AI, and trying to engineer organic intelligent life-forms!!

I would guess then that the Engineers are going to feel even more validated in their aversion towards AI when they find out what David has done on Paradise!

I think that's exactly the conclusion people would have drawn had they left that scene in.

I would have kept nearly every one of those scenes in the movie. None of them were necessary, but they help flesh out the characters a bit more. That flare-down-the-hanger-bay scene really added to the sense of wonder and mystery about the city too.

it's interesting you say that, I noticed the reaction of the Engineer to David as one initially of admiration, he placed a hand on Davids head and almost smiled at him.  I think the engineer was conflicted at that moment, seeing the potential that David represented, as a superior form of intelligence (the "god" the Engineers were trying to create), yet he also, like the other Engineers, realized the threat that David posed, as a machine with AI.  So he had to destroy the thing he admired.  I love the conflict that brews inside the characters of this story.  

I also think that the huge ship seen in Covenent is basically one of the ships that "gave birth" to ships like the jugernaut.  The jugernaut was, in sense, returning home to it's mother, when it returned to that planet.  It gives new meaning to the phrase "mother ship" I suppose.  I think David, when he explored the Engineers culture when he was on board the juggernaut, realized that they were trying to create their god (since he did not exist other wise), and so decided to adopt that purpose as his own, and become god himself.  

In the script it is said that a lot of David's wilder drawings are just his sick fantasies, not reality. He even draws one of those sick Shaw mutilation drawings in one scene, and she is long gone by then. This does not look like one of those, so this may be something real.

Someone is scared of Engineers? WAT

I read it, I get what you are saying. David was trapped on the planet, sent out garbled messages in hopes of one day luring a passing ship, and when one turned up he could not help showing his excitement when he found he hit the jackpot!

All those things basically shoot holes in the idea that David orchestrated the shockwave and all the events the led them to paradise. Interesting 10 year plan theory though. I kind of wish they had gone that direction, with all the pieces coming together at the end of the movie for a big reveal.

Thank you naked lunch for the paintings link above. Amazing.

I found this about a week after you did joylitt...beautiful. Thank you for posting the link.

To answer your question in the topic opening Timmy the ultramorph: 

"do you think they would be good in the movies."

I do feel the second image with the Engineer ship docked is pretty close to what was shown for a brief moment in Prometheus.

And in Alien: Covenant below as well.

Aliens for me too, but I love the clone Ripley character in Resurrection.

Very interesting ideas. I can see where you are coming from. In Prometheus the Engineer seems offended to see David. However it wouldn't seem very smart of them to create life more advanced than themselves. Even in Blade Runner humans were smart enough to give replicants a limited lifespan. I can see you would like to develop the AI storyline even further. Great first post :-)

Alienfan1980. I am relatively new here as well. Your ideas seem entirely plausible to me.

R Scott said something recently about the Engineer ships  returning to this planet on a regular basis, so that may be the reason they were all gathered outside and seemed to be the Juggernaut welcoming committee, just before David splashed goo all over them. He also said they would return soon to find what David had done!

I Moon Girl After Resurrection, Riplry could have disappeared somehow and Call could have continued on- possibly linking up with the Blade Runner universe. I am not accounting for time lines though.

You're welcome Kethol, it really is scary amazing.

Prequels shmequels. I would like my Alien medium rare, with a little blood still dripping. Face Hugger eggs on the side, scrambled!

Aliens for me, but I think Alien: Resurrection has scarier parts.  I still love the rambo attitude of Pvt. Vasquez and I loved Bill Paxton's character.  Aliens gets me pumped!

On the other hand, I think if the prequels were released back then and fizzled at the box office, probably they would have brought back Ripley in the same way they want to do it now, and the challenge of bringing back the franchise to its previous glory probably would have produced much better versions of Aliens 3 and Alien Resurrection.

@joylitt

I think if the prequels were done in the 80's, there really wouldn't be any CGI.  There may be some conflicting scenes, like the one where the Engineers in suits are running, but those don't have to look good.  There are some stunning visuals in the control room that David started activating, so I think those would be left out along with some amazing environment CGI.  I'm not worried about the environment CGI, since good sets and filming locations could help.  I love the environments in Alien3, even though they aren't showed much.  Aliens environments look good to, but they are kind of empty.