They're Remaking 'Alien' -- the 'Prometheus' thread

Seitz is about one notch above Peter Travers; the motherfucker likes everything.

The warning signs are too blatant (not least its red-flag predecessor) and the criticisms too specific and consistent for me to buy that this movie is secretly good.

it's such an awesome secret that you won't actually no how awesome it was until the NEXT sequel comes out and you go see that too

Has there ever been a backwards series of sequels where each movie takes place before the last one?

Indiana Jones, if you don't count the fourth one

oh, damn the third one wasn't set first. nevermind

Has there ever been a backwards series of sequels where each movie takes place before the last one?

The Conjouring series does this, doesn't it? Also didn't Paranormal Activity go this route for a while?

Hmm, I know the second takes place before the first, but the third follows the second. So second is just a standard prequel.

Technically each Back to the Future installment takes place before the last one. But they also take place after.

Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho): “What I’m worried about is, in the early 1970s, politicians like me were standing around saying, ‘Nixon’s okay, he didn’t do anything,’ and look what it led to,” he said. “And every day there is something that adds on to it.”

Genuinely shocked at level of reflectiveness here tbh

Was Nixon an alien host?

lol whoops

“What I’m worried about is, in the late 1970s, people like me were standing around saying, ‘Scott’s okay, he didn’t do anything bad with Alien,’ and look what it led to,” he said. “And every day there is something that adds on to it.”

hahaha

Lol bump accidental set spike

Left the house intending to see Colossal, was too late, couldn't bear the thought of going back out in the heat so I saw this instead. Whoof. Oddly I think it managed to be better than Prometheus in a great variety of ways while still having most of the same flaws, in many cases having them much worse (especially w/r/t the characters all being morons). It basically kind of pissed me off but I can't say I didn't deserve it - fool me once, etc. etc. I will say I was not expecting callbacks to Alien3, so that at least was some kind of surprise.

I don't think this deserves its own spoiler thread, but I don't want to spoil anything here. How much longer do we normally give these things?

It's inconceivable that the characters in this can be dumber than those in Prometheus, with its map makers getting long and that idiot petting the space parasite like it's a puppy.

it's more diffuse - only one or two actions are quite as dumb as that, but everybody is operating with a generalized dumbness from the word go. the entire reason they are in the situation at all is dumb and the situation chiefly escalates because of further dumb decisions. and, this is as spoiley as i'll go, one character goes full Lambert within the first four seconds of anything remotely stressful happening and it all goes to shit from there and it's like, man, where do they keep finding these crackerjack crews for critical space missions?

a coupla white robots sitting around playing the flute. is what they should have called it.

"It's inconceivable that the characters in this can be dumber than those in Prometheus..."

you wrong!

it's pretty quick though. and some great visuals.

Do ppl get ate

it's mostly ate.

it's mostly blood and fassbender. which also would have been a good title. you gotta be down with the fassbender. could have been a one man show on broadway. with flutes.

on the plus side, you don't have to care about anyone if caring isn't your thing. they are all stock horror movie characters with the exception of aryan robot boy.

Fassbender hams it up like a goddamn champion in this. He OWNS.

It's basically an evil episode of Star Trek or a wacky mad scientist flick stuffed inside a conventional alien movie. It moves way too fast but I liked it.

all the pretty planet and ship stuff really made me wish he could just make a 3 hour pretty planet and ship movie. that stuff was lovingly done and i wish i could have lingered with it longer. it was worth seeing just for that.

there is one part, the apex of the part where they're climbing the pretty planet (again trying not to spoil anything specific) that is gooorrrgeous and yeah it was like, if these images were married to a really great story and about half as many characters who actually were characters, there would be the potential there for a really spectacular latter-day sci-fi triumph from scott. in practice it's more like pandorumetheus but so it goes.

These characters would be colonists rather than scientists, right? So I'd expect a certain level of dumb.

Not this dumb. You land on a previously unknown planet with a rich ecosystem, take no biological or quarantine precautions, and aren't concerned when someone starts to look really sick really quickly? These are Golgofrinchans.

"guys they're only colonists, doesn't matter if we just choose the first couple of dozen idiots that apply"

This is the type of movie where an evil robot sings opera to himself in the mirror while cutting his hair.

It's not wrong to say that the characters frequently act like idiots in this but it feels kinda beside the point maybe?

Also like, have y'all been watching the news lately at all or

a coupla white robots sitting around playing the flute. is what they should have called it

waiting for podot *awaits erudite applause*

Is it possible... Weaver is the most interesting thing about the movies, the irreplaceable thing that holds them together - not Scott, Cameron, Fincher, or even the alien - and that's why the last two movies are so dire?

I guess that doesn't explain why 3&4 were bad - unless you say they're both deconstructions so we're not getting the "real" Ripley as the first two movies.

Haven't seen the new one. Sounds fucking idiotic, like Prometheus with added torture porn. Also, the first two are FUN!

I guess that doesn't explain why 3&4 were bad

Exactly. She's the best thing about them (well, Winona is good, iirc), but she can't save them. I think her character is great, but the irreplaceable thing about the first two, imo, is the ensemble. Every character is a real character. By three (despite some good characters, tbf) it's mostly fodder, and the ensemble camaraderie of 4 is forced and artificial.

i like the grumbly jobsworth britishness of 3 but mileage evidently varies: still wish vincent ward had directed it tho (his concept was that entire planet was built of wood, clearly >>>> than any ridley s idea for 30-odd years)

the soundtrack/score/clanking noises of 3 was my favorite thing about it. so much so that i saw it a second time at the movies and taped it with my tape recorder! but if that's your favorite part of an alien movie...

here's an interesting thing about Alien(s) i did not know

http://lwlies.com/articles/alien-gender-politics-ellen-ripley-joan-lambert/

JiC is right about ensemble. The casts have grown bigger and bigger and less and less real. Cameron thins his down quickly, Fincher just accepts having a bunch of lookalike background guys, Jeunet aims for a cartoonish vividness for each person (but ends up instead with the first issue of an Image Comics team book), and then Scott's new entries, like Anderson's AvP, become just huge groups of basically faceless young actors who die before you know their names, no matter how long they stick around. The deaths are therefore not very interesting or memorable. (We also learn at one point about some really horrifying atrocities that happened in the past, which if taken seriously kind of dwarf anything the Xenomorphs will accomplish in the other films, but the film doesn't really incorporate this knowledge or treat it with the gravity it deserves, imho.)

The dumbness matters imho - it's distracting when it's clearly just plot mechanics being squeezed through the character's mouths, but it just generally reflects a failure to write them as people who do things for reasons that come out of who they are, how they relate to each other, how they handle situations and conflict. Alien had that in spades - here, though, half the dialogue comes out as "ooh, this looks like a good spot to get separated!" or "listen pal, I am ORDERING you to lead me into that spooky old house!" How many script pages are wasted on people trying to see if they can get a transmission through? Zzzzzzzzz.

it felt quick though. so i didn't get bored. but yeah the amount of cliches...you couldn't count them all. "i have to go take a leak..." i mean that is right out of friday the 13th part 400.

still think it was worth it for stuff like the solar sail. which really did belong in a better and grander film.

Good point re: ensembles. Is it fair to say that none of the Alien movies since Alien3 are... better than Event Horizon? (Even that iirc had a distinct, if B-list, ensemble.)

i read an article that said that every alien movie has made less money than the one before it. there were like a bunch of guys my age at the movies last night and a smattering of comic book guys but about 3/4 empty basically.

Weaver was great, but the real difference is the screenplays. The first two were outstanding: quotable dialogue, well-drawn characters, narrative tension, meaningful plot twists, etc.

The new movies are on par visually, and they feature talented actors, but the scripts stink.

i can almost hear billy crudup saying "what if we made him a man of faith...?" and everyone else saying sure whatever dude. get into your spacesuit.

hahaha otm

his speeches were such wooden non sequiturs that i didn't really register his man-of-faith character trait until reading reviews afterwards. it doesn't inform the way he deals with people or the decisions he makes afaict. even when people are trying to get him to do things they don't appeal to scripture or anything. like he was just, the nominal leader who's in over his head? but trying his best? but people think he's an asshole? but only sometimes? and this is the second or third most clearly-drawn character in the movie!

Just seen this at the BFI IMAX. Agree with Skot and DC for the most part, but I'd set my expectations very low after Prometheus, and so they were comfortably exceeded. Impressive visually. Bit surprised by the abrupt way the writers decided to, erm, deal with the problem that this movie had been teed up to be set on the planet of the Engineers.

"blood and fassbender" otm

I've decided I'm going to see this- mostly because I haven't yet seen any Alien film in the theater, whether first run or revival- and I can't find out whether the various "prologues" they've released are a part of the film or whether they're like that ridiculous Guy Pearce TED Talk filmed for Prometheus. Can anyone confirm or deny?

The crew based prologue that came out isn't in the film I can confirm that, haven't seen any others.