Comments (Page 711)

You're welcome

I am confused as to why a chest burster is coming out of a cake? It must be a living cake like Alice in the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers video for Don't Come Around Here No More.

Dr. Curt Connors, joylitt, I sure will come back after I see it next week. Not distracted by dislikes but will keep an open mind. Thx!

VIVISECTEDENGINEER - How very incredible! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Thank you so much for being so kind as to share this wonderful treat with us! :)

That's gruesome! haha Fattest chestburster I've ever seen. I would christened it the "Pitbull Chestburster"

That is amazing!

Yay! Happy belated Birthday!!! Looks like super good times. The whole family getting into the Alien groove - epic!

Hey Jonesy, all I can say is I wish I would not have seen it. Those wasted 2 something hours.

Come back with your thoughts after you have seen it :-)

James Franco? )))

Nah, Ridley Scott, even after all the whatever, he needs to tie it up to his own original film.

The industry is starting to learn. Even horror movies are starting to get better when they invest in better writing and give the opportunity to emerging talent. Who would have said Ouija 2 would be good, or Annabelle Creation (no kidding, read early reviews if you don't believe me). If they can make you care about about the story in a movie about a silly doll, then anything is possible.

And before Ati reprimads me (again) I am going to rectify myself. Ridley Scott did write his first short titled "Boy and bycicle", and has " conceived by" writing credits for a couple of promotional shorts for Covenant.

@Capt Torgo   Exactly, couldn't agree more

Yes, of course, the pet theory didn't preclude the possibility of other species who can do space travel or fly. In fact, in the official Alien-verse with the AVP movie, clearly Predators can fly in space.

In reality too, I pointed out that it is very very unlikely that only a handful of species can do space travel given the vast number of stars and planets. There could be a multitude of space-faring civilizations or just a few. Who knows? Of course, there's no hard evidence yet, not unless you want to consider Ufology as a worthwhile course in college. ;-)

It does seem that the Engineers are rather lackadaisical in weaponry and defense mechanisms for their spaceships, so perhaps your suggestion is right that they probably consider it a low enough risk to accept or the "Elders" (another race/faction/group) do not trust their brethren with advanced weaponry.

Bear in mind that space is a VAST place, much bigger than we can even imagine. With our current space technology, it is an extreme achievement to have two space craft in near-Earth orbit do a docking together. They are both speeding around Earth at many times the speed of a bullet and matching their trajectory and speeds is no mean engineering feat. It is literally worse than firing two guns and trying to get both bullets to meet each other.

To get two tiny spaceships to accidentally meet in the vastness of deep space is an even lower probability event. I say "tiny" is relative of course. Even a spaceship the size of planet Earth is still smaller than a tropical storm in Jupiter (i.e. the Big red eye), and Jupiter itself is just one of many specks of dust in the great emptiness.

Considering, they do sacrifice some individuals for seeding planets and some (race/faction/group) of them have no qualms about wiping a planet clean via a black goo "reboot". So, maybe you're right that they intended it that way, or perhaps they have a more cavalier relationship with the concept of Life and Death. This is another jigsaw worth exploring.

I've already alluded to their differing concept of Life and Death in the context of their grand scheme. As for why they seed planets, the "Canon" provides no answer now and I doubt Ridley Scott will answer it...otherwise the franchise will be dead. lol.

My own view, as per point 8), on this is that some questions are probably unanswerable at a lower level. Imagine if a genius chicken was born and was contemplating why these highly intelligent humans species are breeding so many millions of his kind, would it do any good for the chicken to fathom the grand scheme of the human's chicken farm? I mean, it I were the chicken, I'd probably want to murder the farmer and then commit chicken suicide right there and then when I realize the ultimate Truth and is totally helpless to myself or my chicken-kind. Perhaps, that is how David felt too and why he had to do what he did?

Thanks for your critique and I welcome more discussion. I see a few hundred have read the pet theory, but maybe not many seems interested to comment....or maybe they just gave up after reading half-way.

Capt Torgo The fact is Ridley needs a good script to make a good movie. He does not have one single credit as a writer, and that is ok, not every director has to be a writer. The problem is, based on his resume and propensity to discuss the many fascinating aspects of the world building in his movies, some fans have started to make him into this visionary generator of groundbreaking ideas. The truth is he does need a good source of ideas, call it Philip K Dick, Dan O'Bannon, Joseph Conrad, etc. Good sci-fi is still published today; probably Ridley has no time to read much thesedays. But if there were any good writers around they could pitch an idea with him, and then he could do his magic again.

Dr Curt, I'll defend Prometheus because it seemed to play along with the audience. Covenant feels like Ridley intentionally pooped in my sandwich with these space chimps he picked to crew the Covenant. If an Android is NOT in a conversation in AC then there is almost ZERO intelligent banter/dialogue between humans!!!! This proves Ridley has lost his grasp on good storytelling as he ONLY gives a shit about androids in this spin-off alien BladeRunner hybrid. The film bombed because of the bad narrative and poor storytelling unlike the films the OP  mentions. NOBODY can say with a straight face that the believable dialogue forty years ago does not/could not hold up today vs the dumpster fire characters of Covenant.

Scott should stay faaaaaaaarrrrrrr away from storytelling.  He's a great visual director.  That's it.  We need a director with a surreal sensibility that challenges the viewer in compelling ways.  

Its just so uninteresting anymore.  My hands throw up into the air as I say, "Who really cares?!"  The franchise is just so Gawd awful.  

RIDLEY    MUST    RETIRE .

A good story for film takes time to make.  It must be evaluated and re-evaluated while adding interesting aspects over time.  Originality is king!  Take the time to make it excellent, not because it's time to churn one out for the pocket book.  Money kills creativity.  Make time for creativity and the money will follow.

Hello I Moon Girl !

I had an excellent beach vacation, and an excellent Alien themed birthday! I'll post some photos soon!

I think all the info you gave about new ways of detecting people's emotions is very interesting and I would like to learn more about that!

"I don’t believe that since there is this thing that bothers me everyday and I do nothing to change."

I am curious about that and I think I can relate. Still, I believe in situations like that, we must still find the effort needed to change the situation more slightly aversive than the situation itself.

And, while Androids might not have the exact same neurotransmitters as us, I think we can't be sure that there aren't other chemicals and processes which can arrive at the same result. 

Actually, I've realized that this issue of trying to conceptualize the emotions and internal experiences of others is a problem that has been close to my heart from a young age.

Because I'm high functioning Autistic, many things that come naturally to most people have never been intuitive for me. My father and my occupational therapists had to explicitly teach me the right emotional reaction to each situation and how to display that reaction.

It's long left me wondering whether I'm actually feeling the appropriate emotions or just pantomiming them.

I also can't help but stand by my position that emotions are subjective and we can only know for certain what our own feel like. We can know what other's look like, through their behaviors or on an fMRI... but we can only know what our own feel like.

A long time ago I realized that this could lead to a sort of solipsistic view of things which I feared could lead me to sociopathic behavior.

I'm mostly only able reason in simplistic, black and white, rule-based terms. So, seventeen years ago, when I was 14, I made up a value system or rule for myself that was meant to prevent me from ever lapsing into solipsism and sociopathic behavior!

I needed a definition of sentience/self-awareness/emotions/suffering that didn't risk 1)excluding me or 2) excluding everyone but me.

So, I set my definitions of sentience to be extremely broad (broad enough to include animals and insects, instantly leading me to become vegetarian).

And, apparently also broad enough to include Androids.

My position might not be adaptive for everyone, but it's not something I'm likely to change my opinion on, as I'm suddenly realizing that it's pretty integral to my ethical reasoning.

My view on Android emotions might be in error, but I'm not going to examine that possibility too closely because then I may have to throw out my entire model of sentience which would likely lead to even bigger errors. 

And...maybe part of my bias also comes from the fact that... I've always had a sort of soft spot for Androids. I can usually relate to them more than any other characters! :)

(Also, if you are looking for the dismembered Bishop doll, I got mine on Amazon! I think he was like...$15. Lately, I set him on the bathroom counter whenever I'm having morning sickness. He always makes me feel a little better because, as crappy as I might feel, at least I'm not ripped in half by a Xeno queen.) 

Joylitt, I'm with your philosophy of the franchise's existance. Both parts equally almost being Ridley and Cameron. For ridley the negative is he just put it together well on film but creatively it was a perfect storm. Cameron had a foundation but the sheer brilliance of him and his wife(producer) WRITING and directing those amazing characters with a Vietnam War analogy is just balls out galactic badassery! JC's negative is well, I can't think of one. But I really appreciate the original poster showing his love for what Sir Riddles has accomplished but has made peace with the fact that Covenant bombed and the sequel could be on life support with Scott not even having a chance to make it right for the ones that feel let down. He's acknowledging that RS is NOT the be all end all & that there are two directors he feels could be quite capable. I feel the same way but I like 'Get out" director and "It Comes at Night" director.

Can't agree more.  This is totally moot and a boot in the face.  

Ridley should step down and let David Lynch direct.  It's risky, but I'd be willing to bet on other talents at this point.  Ridley sloshing his words in interviews makes me think he needs to retire.  No one wants to see movies repeat themselves over and over with uninteresting stories!  Or do they?!  

Blompcamp is going to suck majorly!  District 9 is the only big film he's done that was excellent.  The rest is utter junk and I haven't seen him redeem himself yet.  That's my take and I'm sticking to it.

LET US MOVE ON TO MORE WEIRD, CRAZY AND TERRIFYING YARNS IN THE ALIEN UNIVERSE PLEASE!!  

I know I'm screaming to a deaf ear at Fox, but I can't help being so disappointed at a the Alien franchise for failing in so many respects.  I'm just very sad.

@Brian51  Glad you agree

:D

Awesome!

Hissing sound whispering: 'Daaaviiiid...' 'Walteerrrrrr...' :)

'Starring: dk and the alien queen'

IRaptus - Is it going to be an adult movie? :D

Lawrence of Arabia Thank you for being sensible, man. We are all on the same boat and I don't want o be at war with anybody :-)

The characters are super dumb in Prometheus and Covenant. And in Covenant they don't even have spacesuits on at least in Prometheus they do before they take them off. Let's go on a planet we know nothing about and could have deadly pathogens in the air with no spacesuits or suits of any kind on. They are dumb characters in dumb movies just like typical horror movies with typical horror movie clichés. These movies are no different than Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street and any straight up horror movie, they just take place in space and on other planets. The first 3 Alien movies are what Alien movies are supposed to be like, whether you like them or not is your decision but at least they tried new things and tried to be different. The prequels are awful and are ruining the first 3 movies.

joylitt --- Man, you had claimed in your previous comment that that was his only idea. That's why I copied the line from my own topic to show that your statement is false, because he had several other ideas as well!

Jay Johns That is an awesome name for your kid! After Ridley, I can see James Wan.

joylitt You have a point. Cameron really helped create the franchise with his popular Aliens and created/cemented a lot of the mythos. Ridley and Cameron were actually working together at one point to create a prequel before AvP happened. Though, Alien is really Ridley's baby. It was his seminal work and without him we wouldn't have the same film from Dan O' Bannon and Ron Shussett. I appreciate you not being antagonistic, I'm not trying to pick a fight either. I really just want to enjoy this universe with like-minded individuals and those who love it as well.

Thank god Ridley Scott focused on making Blade Runner, which for ever will be my favorite movie.

joylitt - Totally relevant because your comments are full of misleading, false and manipulative pieces of information trying to ridicule Ridley Scott. Nothing has changed. That's all!

Ati "The planetoid of the Alien explodes, sending Alien eggs to Earth where a whole flock of the monsters run rampant."

See what I mean? and you posted it yourself. It sounds like a 50's B movie idea to me. Anyway my point is James Cameron (not my favorite director ever) allowed this franchise to flourish.

If this terrible movie is going to happen anybody but Ridley should direct it, the dude has lost it. Hopefully nobody directs Awakening which means the movie won't happen and it will never exist.

Ati Whatever. What Ridley Scott's Alien 2 was going to be about is not relevant to the point I wanted to make. I just remembered it is even worse: the Alien was supposed to be from Mars.

https://alienseries.wordpress.com/2014/01/07/ridley-scotts-alien-ii-or-what-he-wanted-to-happen/

It certainly should explain what the Alien is and where it comes from,” he (Scott) told Omni’s Screen Flights/Screen Fantasies in 1984. “That will be tough because it will require dealing with other planets, worlds, civilisations. Because obviously the Alien did come from some sort of civilisation. The Alien was presented, really, as one of the last survivors of Mars – a planet named after the god of war. The Alien may be one of the last descendants of some long-lost self-destructed group of beings.”

Scott’s ideas:

The Alien, merely stunned by its close encounter with the shuttle engines, manages to survive outside the craft and reaches civilisation along with Ripley.

A second expedition to the planetoid is stranded there and, weathering a storm within the derelict and their own ship, its members deal with a group of Aliens, climaxed by the appearance to whose race the Space Jockey belongs.

A prequel, rather than a sequel, telling the tale of the Space Jockey and ending where Alien begins, with the arrival of the Nostromo crew.

The planetoid of the Alien explodes, sending Alien eggs to Earth where a whole flock of the monsters run rampant.

But despite all of Ridley’s theorising and the commercial and cultural success of the original, the sequel did not appear. The reason for this is perplexing but simple: Twentieth Century Fox did not want it. Alan Ladd Jnr., the head of Fox who had heralded both Star Wars and Alien (and affectionately called ‘Laddy’ by Ridley Scott and co.) left the company in 1979 to found his own production firm, The Ladd Company, whom most will recognise as the producers of another science-fiction classic, Blade Runner. Ladd’s replacement was Norman Levy, who, according to Giler, opposed the very notion of an Alien II.

Jay Johns -- I love Wan's The Conjuring movies, and Insidious 2 is a big favourite, but only Ridley Scott! Only Ridley Scott!

'Ridley Scott actually pitched a second movie which was going to be just about meteorites seeding the Earth with Aliens.'

-- something again which is not true, constantly, without end...

He had three big ideas, one of them was to discover the Alien planet in Alien II.

Lawrence of Arabia Technically, James Cameron created the franchise because when you make 1 single movie you don't know if it is going to be a franchise or not. Ridley Scott actually pitched a second movie which was going to be just about meteorites seeding the Earth with Aliens. On the other hand, Aliens expanded the universe introducing many concepts that Ridley Scott is using today. I still prefer Alien over Aliens, but it cannot be denied the franchise probably would not exist if not for Cameron. And please Lawrence, understand I am not trying to pick a fight lol

JOHNNYMORPH I agree also. They need to back Ridley Scott's vision for at least a third film to tie the prequels to Alien, can't leave it randomly hanging in limbo.

Once the prequels are done, I feel they should move forward quickly with a new direction/vision. Maybe then give someone else a shot at taking the helm.  

Jay Johns upvoted just for naming your son Ridley :)

What a beautiful thread! :)

edit:

What a beautiful thread it was.

It's just another dumb thing in a movie full of dumb things and dumb people made by dumb people, hahahahaha. To quote Christian Bale from Harsh Times, I see dumb people.