Discussion
daddy cool said:
Fun Alien fact - to make the Space Jockey structure appear bigger, they used two children in scaled-down spacesuits walking around it - one was Ridley Scott's son, the other was Charlie Boorman (of "Long Way..." fame)
I seem to remember if you watch closely you can see one of the bored kids giving the set a kick. daddy cool said:
For the ubernerds, this webpage is far more interesting that it has any right to be.
https://typesetinthefuture.com/2014/12/01/alien/
^^^ Brilliant! Thank you.https://typesetinthefuture.com/2014/12/01/alien/
I have been underwhelmed by everything in this franchise since Aliens.
Aliens 3 for me was just rehashing the story in a setting that didn't appeal to me, while Alien 4 was very Hollywood.
What sort of sequel would people like to see to rekindle their interest?. Personally the only way I can see is to raise the stakes. I.E. Aliens was bigger than Alien, so the only way to make a potentially more interesting sequel is to make it bigger again. Go to an established human colony perhaps and actually have a war against these creatures.
Aliens 3 for me was just rehashing the story in a setting that didn't appeal to me, while Alien 4 was very Hollywood.
What sort of sequel would people like to see to rekindle their interest?. Personally the only way I can see is to raise the stakes. I.E. Aliens was bigger than Alien, so the only way to make a potentially more interesting sequel is to make it bigger again. Go to an established human colony perhaps and actually have a war against these creatures.
I used to think alien3 was a bad film, but - given 25 years - I think it is still a great film. On its own it would be good but after the horror of alien and the Vietnam war story of aliens it seems worse. The fact that Charles Dance is in it stays in my mind, whenever you watch his recent stuff you remember the baldie bits as the Dr
I used to have the small alien that was used to identify as the queen in the stomach scan - one of my friends worked in the studio, found it in an old box of stuff, but it was pinched!
I used to have the small alien that was used to identify as the queen in the stomach scan - one of my friends worked in the studio, found it in an old box of stuff, but it was pinched!
Edited by aclivity on Friday 5th March 15:06
JagLover said:
I have been underwhelmed by everything in this franchise since Aliens.
Aliens 3 for me was just rehashing the story in a setting that didn't appeal to me, while Alien 4 was very Hollywood.
What sort of sequel would people like to see to rekindle their interest?. Personally the only way I can see is to raise the stakes. I.E. Aliens was bigger than Alien, so the only way to make a potentially more interesting sequel is to make it bigger again. Go to an established human colony perhaps and actually have a war against these creatures.
It's always seems odd to me, with a character as great and scary as the Alien, it seems you'd have to work really, really hard to make a bad Alien film, and yet there's 2 great ones, a poor one (3) and a so-so one (4) two pretty terrible prequals and the less said about the Predator cross-overs the better. Aliens 3 for me was just rehashing the story in a setting that didn't appeal to me, while Alien 4 was very Hollywood.
What sort of sequel would people like to see to rekindle their interest?. Personally the only way I can see is to raise the stakes. I.E. Aliens was bigger than Alien, so the only way to make a potentially more interesting sequel is to make it bigger again. Go to an established human colony perhaps and actually have a war against these creatures.
I think the series is too hamstrung now, SW has said she'll make another Aliens film, but not if it's set on Earth, but well, her character is dead anyway. Ridley Scott seems to have the 'universe' by the balls and only wants to make the least Alien, Aliens films possible, he seems almost spiteful in the way he did it, or maybe he's just another Lucas, a creative, brilliant young Director who did their best work in adversity with a restrictive budget and cheap effects who given a massive budget and unlimited CGI can't do it.
The dead Neill Blomkamp film looked like it could be good, it ignored everything that came after Aliens and made a straight sequel to them with Ripley, Hicks and Newt. It might have lack scope, more like an Aliens Chapter two, another remote planet, possibly the same one, but then Covenant did badly which hurt the franchise, so did Elysium (which I think is a great film) and Chappie which hurt Blomkamp.
I think the only way is a sequel that stands alone, it's all but a reboot really, but without the "another reboot" tag. As good as Ripley is, the star was always the Alien.
My bit of fan fiction / pitch
Opening shot is the deep, dark empty silence of space. Suddenly we realise half the screen is the shadow cast by a moon / planet and A Mary Celeste of a Space ship appears from behind it.
It auto docks at in space port, many alarms ring, the camera pans to show that the port is part of a huge continuous ring around the earth.
It's obviously damaged, but life support is still operational in pockets on board. It's not responding to communication.
Cut to a high ranking someone, a General or something a days or so later. He's explaining to someone else that it's 300 years old, as far as they can tell it's hyperdrive was damaged when the rest of the ship was nearly destroyed and it's following a pre-determined emergency procedure and very slowly heading back to base at sub-light speed. The lower ranking guys says "Why didn't we see it coming?" The general replies "what's to see? We have made Ships from Earth Minerals in 200 years". "Any survivors?" "No, none Human anyway, none of the pods are functional, but scanners show some lifeforms aboard, faint, but they're there - could be anything, insects, rats, f
king bacteria, but whatever it is, it's had long enough to evolve to be very incompatible with us". What follows is a much or as little or a rip off of Aliens as you want really. Space Marines enter the ship, maybe scientists with them. They find this eggs etc. It allows enough jeopardy that should these things get off the ship and into the ring then millions who live on it will die, or worse they could get on earth, without them every actually reaching Earth. Obvs some corporate shmuck will want to try to keep them, citing the cost of destroying the ship and 'the ring' with it. etc as justification.
SW was right, the Alien works best in creepy dark corridors, it's not so scary when you can see the whole thing, a glimpse here or that works much better.
Found out the other day that The Land that Time Forgot with all the rubber monsters and Iguanas with glued on frills etc was made in 1974!!! Five years later and we have Alien. Not sure what that says about either film but what a contrast.
Would have liked to have seen more of the crew of the Nostromo going about their daily life bickering and doing their thing before the incident.
Would have liked to have seen more of the crew of the Nostromo going about their daily life bickering and doing their thing before the incident.
Gnits said:
Found out the other day that The Land that Time Forgot with all the rubber monsters and Iguanas with glued on frills etc was made in 1974!!! Five years later and we have Alien. Not sure what that says about either film but what a contrast.
Would have liked to have seen more of the crew of the Nostromo going about their daily life bickering and doing their thing before the incident.
One of the things Alien gets right is the scenes where the characters are just blue collar workers bickering. The standard Hollywood film would have them talking about their kids, or the pregnant girlfriend. Standard ‘character’ moments to make you care. Ridley Scott just shows real people. Would have liked to have seen more of the crew of the Nostromo going about their daily life bickering and doing their thing before the incident.
I prefer Aliens to Alien but the latter is still a great film and I think it has aged really well. The computers look clunky and everyone is smoking but apart from that it doesn’t look its age.
I haven’t liked any of the subsequent films that much. In retrospect there were some good bits in Alien 3 but I couldn’t get over that they killed off Hicks and Newt nor that they killed off Ripley at the end.
Prometheus was so bad I have not bothered with Covenant. I’m really puzzled how Alien and Prometheus could be made by the same director as the former has a really good story with some plot holes whilst the latter is just utter garbage from start to finish.
I haven’t liked any of the subsequent films that much. In retrospect there were some good bits in Alien 3 but I couldn’t get over that they killed off Hicks and Newt nor that they killed off Ripley at the end.
Prometheus was so bad I have not bothered with Covenant. I’m really puzzled how Alien and Prometheus could be made by the same director as the former has a really good story with some plot holes whilst the latter is just utter garbage from start to finish.
As good a place as any to show this, a new game coming out later Aliens: Fireteam. Hopefully It doesn't disappoint as alien games tend to. Looks not bad so far as a work in progress.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B63_ljZ91Mc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B63_ljZ91Mc
paolow said:
the quadrilogy blu ray has the special edition = aka assembly cut which is a marked improvement and in fact is hugely different. Definitely recommended if you havent seen it
Thanks for that, wasn't aware of this one - just picked a used copy of this 4-disc bluray set for £8.00 on line :-)
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