Alien 1 was lo-tech

jonesy the cat
MemberOvomorphApril 26, 20121418 Views25 RepliesOne of the interesting things in Alien was the fact that the ship was kinda lo-tech. Very real. This looks very hight-tech. I know this is a research vessel and the nostromo was a commercial ship. Just a thought. Still excited.
April 26, 2012
yeah, unfortunately, movies genres are usually victims of the era in which they were filmed. Alien was filmed in '78 and released in '79, so the computers and technology look dated by today's standards. but, if you view it as a 'Truckers In Space' film then it makes sense because they're on a refinery
April 26, 2012
There really is no way to reconcile the lowly-looking tech seen in Alien and the high-tech-holographic-display in the "it's-not-prequel" PREQUEL. Think of it maybe like Mad Max. Maybe something apocalyptic happened after Prometheus and we had to resort back to low-tech.
Interestingly, the tech presented in Alien (at the time) was fairly high-tech such that some of those monitor readouts were cartoon animations as were done in Dark Star. The technology didn't exist even then (in the realworld) to have produced what we saw (thus the animation substitutions). Similiarly, in this movie, they're using CGI animation to create futuristic tech (holographic displays) that we as a civilization are on the cusp of being able to create in reality.
April 26, 2012
You are right. It's just that everything is so clean full of holograms and very ipad. Very apple. It didn't work for star wars
April 26, 2012
I was just about to say that. Star Wars suffered the same anomaly where we saw lots of high tech displays (holographic battlefield maps) in Ep 1-3, but in the Ep 4-6, we see displays much like in Alien with an attempt to show us R2 replaying a holographic recording of Leia asking Obi-Wan for help, but other than that it's all fairly low-tech (and they too probably substituted cartoon animations for screen displays that would have then been impossible to have gotten from any computer made at that time; at least not one affordable).
April 26, 2012
And since the nostromo is a refinery they had to do the technology more durable. More real keyboards and no flatscreens so when they change the crew the equipment would last a few missions. Like elevators nowadays when they try to put touchscreen controls someone just seems to screw them up in no time
April 26, 2012
Star Wars suffered because George Lucas had a load of yes men agreeing that everything he did was brilliant and that his 3 year old kids idea to have a character called Jar Jar Binks was also brilliant. No one was brave enough to say 'hey George that idea 'kinda sucks' (as the yanks would say).
April 26, 2012
Ah ya. Sorry man. Jaja. Ok. ALIEN. just wanted to make it clear i was talking about the righ movie. Because ALIENS looks very hight-tech
April 26, 2012
Ah ya. Sorry man. Jaja. Ok. ALIEN. just wanted to make it clear i was talking about the righ movie. Because ALIENS looks very hight-tech
April 26, 2012
This topic has been discussed before. The Nostromo was a refinery/towing ship, while Prometheus is a science vessel. Different tools for the job, and probably from different companies with different budgets/designs. Besides, Ridley stated that he'd done the Alien look before and wanted to do something new.
April 26, 2012
Yep facehead. Also the fact that the best star wars film was the empire strikes back which wasn't made by lucas
April 26, 2012
Too true, so well directed and that ending....... Sooo freaking good I look forward to watching Empire because of the uncertain ending its genius!!
April 26, 2012
Ok darthmongo. I missed it. But sometimes bringing an old topic back can start new thoughts. Lets move on
April 26, 2012
@jonesythecat: true, ALIEN compared to PROMETHEUS is very
low-tech. at the same time, there are a few things that Scott has used
from the concept artwork done by Ron Cobb for ALIEN
a good example: the display screen / blister bridge console was
done [url=http://www.portlandmercury.com/binary/8650/1295288474-nostromobridge.jpg]here[/url], and fits right in with how this new
PROMETHEUS ship looks. pretty cool i think
April 27, 2012
Ridley is very good at saving money, so when he made Blade Runner when the car is landing the screen says "Purge" its a graphic stolen from his previous movie Alien
Any this thread is kinda crazy, Nostromo looks shit, because it old, are you saying if Ridley made the movie today it wouldnt look better ? Yes the FUCK IT WOULD LOOK BETTER TODAY!!!!...his only other option is to make his new movie look like shit graphics...he cant win people complain no matter what