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

this movie has two different scenes of someone getting offed by an alien when they think it's all over and go to take a shower. i mean come ON.

and I haven't even gotten into the garbage last sequence on the spaceship, or the mean-spirited twist, which you see coming for so long that it's only surprising because it's been obvious for SO long that you finally go "huh, well, i guess they're NOT going to.. oh no wait, they are, there it is." so i guess david's going to commit more heinous atrocities but after seeing him murder possibly an entire civilization (or maybe a backwards antique branch with no security or defense systems, who knows really, film doesn't care) what's a couple thousand colonists?

They should have a movie where a lone Alien lands on what it thinks is a deserted planet only to learn that it is overrun with Davids.

The farther we get from Alien and into these, the more it becomes a signpost for anti-auteurists, since everything good in the movie came more from O'Bannon, Shusset, Giler, Hill, Giger and Cobb than it did Scott.

Also, wtf is with the aliens now emerging as little homunculi instead of the snakelike chestbursters we're used to? When that one popped out of Crudup and raised its arms in response to David everyone in my theater laughed.

Scott is after all the guy who did "Hannibal." I think that movie remains the template for current Alien batshitery.

The farther we get from Alien and into these, the more it becomes a signpost for anti-auteurists, since everything good in the movie came more from O'Bannon, Shusset, Giler, Hill, Giger and Cobb than it did Scott.

i mean, script-wise, sure, but imo at least 70 percent of why alien is good is the way it's shot

(and design-wise)

i'm treading lightly itt since i still haven't seen this and i want the lols to be fresh

but really the problem with this whole series since aliens is that the aliens aren't interesting antagonists in themselves since all they want to do is feed and procreate and spread drool around

no-one has been able to put them in any context which might make them interesting again - it's always 'corporate shenanigans lead to human-munching' and really who gives a fuck when we're almost ten movies in (if you count the aliens vs predator movies)

The planet of the Davids, where half are good and half are secretly evil! Whom do you trust?

Yeah, for sure, but a large percentage of that is down to Giger's and Cobb's designs for the derelict and the Nostromo. (Film is collaborative etc etc.) I don't want to discount what Scott can do, but without a good writer, strong producer and good production design he turns out turds.

scott's best work relies heavily on production design - he clearly sees the value of it and i think he's a lot more involved with the direction of it than you're giving him credit for (and his obsessively detailed alien storyboards shows how blurred the lines were)

beyond the fact that it was always purely a narrative device and hence had neither in the earlier films, i don't really understand the utter terror fear of further exploring the private and/or potential social* life of the xenomorph: instead we're stuck with completely underwritten ensembles of unconvincing humans who no one gives a fuck about, completely underwritten ensembles of unconvincing engineers (aka big grey rubbery humans) who no one gives a fuck about, and genocidal robots

*yes OK as BG they were (acc.backstory) bred as a weapons experiment or whatever so didn't initially have an ecological niche -- they're kind of anti-ecology by design, survival of the bred-to-be-worst-fit -- BUT WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THEY'RE UNLEASHED HAVE TO ADAPT TO ONE ANOTHER? or *learn* to live on a world that can't just support them in hunter-gatherer mode (as in this mode they will quickly strip it of everything then die themselves)**
**i mean obviously this would be dealt with even worse by ridley, who can't wait to jesus everything up

s/b as BG sez

self-xp eg

http://37.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ljs6i0y7FD1qinfuro1_1280.jpg

The planet of the Davids, where half are good and half are secretly evil! Whom do you trust?

One David always lies. One David always tells the truth. One David just combs his hair in the mirror all the time. Can you determine who is who in only three questions (and a mirror)?

i think the last time there was even the suggestion of doing something different were the various competing scripts for alien 3, none of which were even particularly good ideas in themselves, so it's been at least a quarter-decade of grunting out tedious variations on aspects of movies from 1979 and 1986

About the gay characters
http://bookviewcafe.com/blog/2017/05/17/why-i-wont-see-alien-covenant/

Is the escape from the lab in Alien: Resurrection the high point of the idea that Aliens actually think and co-operate?

or *learn* to live on a world that can't just support them in hunter-gatherer mode (as in this mode they will quickly strip it of everything then die themselves)**

I think that's part of the point - both of them as bio-weapons and of them as crashingly unsubtle (and thus great) capitalist metaphors.

Is the escape from the lab in Alien: Resurrection the high point of the idea that Aliens actually think and co-operate?

yeah, this is never addressed again as far as i can remember, which seems like a missed opportunity

we only ever see a single generation of aliens in any of these movies - what happens if they're captured by someone competent for a change and there's a breeding programme which lasts for hundreds or thousands of alien generations? what happens if you breed them with a broad range of 'sacrifice' species, since we've only really seen human and canine aliens? what if it turns out that it's worth breeding aliens despite the risk since something about their genetic makeup can cure cancer or extend life or facilitate human exploration of space?

i'm already losing interest in this as i write it tbh but god i wish they'd turn the series over to someone who might do something batshit with the most tired premise in cinema

Not sure what potential people see in continuing this series. What would you want?

At one point Jeunet said he was doing another but I doubt that's still on the cards. Shinya Tsukamoto said he'd like to do one, but that's just too good to be true.

the only two modes this series has ever worked in is squelchy-squelchy psychosexual nightmare and shooty-shooty action-survival

make a fucking romcom or a musical next, honestly - just anything to get it out of the rut it's been in for my entire adult life

Classic meet cute

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/aliens/images/9/94/Alien_facehugger.jpg

It is a romcom! (And a musical if you count McBride singing along to hologram Noomi)

classic cute meat

http://cdn.images.dailystar.co.uk/dynamic/33/photos/342000/alien-egg-371342.jpg

Michael Bay could do wonders for this franchise

let's just go full aliens vs tranformers then nuke both franchises from orbit

actually a hybrid alien/transformer would be the freshest idea either series has seen in a long, long time

way xp to DC:

Shaw singing John Denver songs wasn't an intentional message, it was either the ship's hologram replay just fucking up post-crash or some sort of lure set by David. The "message" was just footage of her singing to herself piloting the ship.

giant ancient city

hey, for all we know, the giant public amphitheater thing never went out of style in engineer architecture and the city was built eleven years ago

that probably goes on the list of things I am glad were unexplained: whether this is actually the home planet of the engineer people, or if that was all of them on the planet that were destroyed, or if those were even the ship-building engineers or another child race

I like to think in a time dilation plot twist, it was a Trump rally

I just remembered the alien-cam effect that Scott used in this, which wasn't even as interesting as what Fincher did in Alien3.

i hope it was the snapchat dog filter

for some reason the alien cam is the part of the movie I'm trying the hardest to forget

I just kept wondering: why?

I mean obviously it can't be ALL of the engineers because the xenomorph still has to burst out of one of them on the derelict

Gotta say if David wants to lure people to a spooky planet full of blackened corpses and endless storms, he probably could do better than John Denver. Surely Shaw said or did SOMETHING else more like a message back to Earth? Or David could just stand in front of a camera saying, "this is David, last survivor of the Prometheus, if anyone is out there I have critical information and samples to bring back to Weyland headquarters" etc. In general his plan, such as it is, seems badly worked out - what if everybody got killed by the black spores or the marshmallow Peep aliens before he could link up with them? Why fake a crash-landed ship and then keep himself so far away? Or did Shaw crash the ship to strand David after realizing what he'd done? I guess he was assuming any visitors would make a beeline for the huge mysterious city, but when the ship of fools fails to even notice it he sighs, gathers his Obi-Wan Kenobi spooky cloak and noisemakers and starts hiking?

Really wonder what this movie would play like to anyone who didn't see Prometheus. Or who hasn't seen an Alien movie for that matter, since if it weren't Scott directing I think it would be much more apparent that this is essentially a generic 2010s Hollywood franchise reboot, just with better visuals than most. Might as well have been marketed as "Alien (2017)."

Or "The Secret Of The Story Of The Stranger" which seems like a more accurate description (thanks, neural network thread)

who has read all the comics? do any of them take the story in the correct direction (ie one i wd like) (bearing in mind i like alien3 and 4)

Alien: The Illustrated Story (1979) not part of Dark Horse's Aliens series
Aliens (Series 1) (July 1988-July 1989) aka Aliens: Book I, aka Aliens: Outbreak
Aliens: Theory of Alien Propagation (Nov. 1988)
Aliens (Series 2) (Aug. 1989-May 1990) aka Aliens: Book II, aka Aliens: Nightmare Asylum
Aliens: Earth War (June-Oct. 1990) aka Aliens: Female War
Aliens: Advent/Terminus (July-Aug. 1990)
Aliens: Countdown (Sept. 1990-Dec. 1991)
Aliens: Reapers (April 1991)
Aliens: The Alien (Nov. 1991)
Aliens: Genocide (Nov. 1991-February 1992)
Aliens: Hive (February-May 1992)
Aliens: Tribes (April 1992)
Dark Horse Presents: Aliens Platinum Edition (April 1992)
Aliens: Newt's Tale (June-July 1992)
Alien³ (June-July 1992)
Aliens: Renegade (Aug.-Sept. 1992) aka "Renegade"
Aliens: Horror Show (Oct.-Dec. 1992)
Aliens: Colonial Marines (Jan. 1993-July 1994)
Aliens: Countdown (March-April 1993) UK mini-comic reprint
Aliens: Rogue (April-July 1993)
Aliens: Sacrifice (May 1993)
Aliens: Taste (July 1993)
Aliens: Crusade (July 1993-March 1994) incomplete
Aliens: Backsplash (Aug.-Sept. 1993)
Aliens: Labyrinth (Sept. 1993-Jan. 1994)
Aliens: Salvation (Nov. 1993)
Aliens: Cargo (Nov.-Dec. 1993)
Aliens: Alien (Jan.-Feb. 1994)
Aliens: Music of the Spears (Jan.-April 1994)
Aliens: Matrix (May 1994) never released
Aliens: Stronghold (May-Sept. 1994)
Aliens: Mondo Pest (June-Aug. 1994) original serialization
Aliens: Earth Angel (Aug. 1994)
Aliens: Berserker (Jan.-April 1995) aka Aliens: Frenzy
Aliens: Mondo Pest (April 1995) collected version
Aliens: Incubation (Sept.-Oct. 1995)
Aliens: Mondo Heat (Feb. 1996)
Aliens: Lucky (Sept. 1996)
Aliens: Lovesick (Dec. 1996)
Aliens: Headhunters (Jan. 1997)
Aliens: Pig (March 1997)
Aliens: Border Lines (May 1997)
Aliens: Special (June 1997)
Aliens: 45 Seconds
Aliens: Elder Gods
Aliens: Havoc (June-July 1997)
Aliens: Purge (Aug. 1997)
Aliens: Alchemy (Sept.-Dec. 1997)
Alien Resurrection (Oct.-Nov. 1997)
Aliens: Kidnapped (Dec. 1997-Feb. 1998)
Aliens: Tourist Season (Feb. 1998)
Aliens: Survival (Feb.-April 1998)
Aliens: Glass Corridor (June 1998)
Aliens: Stalker (June 1998)
Aliens: Wraith (July 1998)
Aliens: Apocalypse - The Destroying Angels (Jan.-May 1999)
Aliens: Once in a Lifetime (Feb. 1999)
Aliens: Xenogenesis (Aug.-Nov. 1999)
Aliens: (Series 3) - More Than Human (May-Dec. 2009)
Aliens: Fast Track to Heaven (Aug. 2010)
Aliens: Inhuman Condition (Apr. 2013)
Alien: Fire and Stone (2014)

best titles:
Aliens: The Alien
Aliens: Alien
Aliens: Mondo Pest
Aliens: Mondo Heat
Aliens: Lovesick
Aliens: Pig

From aliens:stronghold
http://www.idoc.co/files/4ba77aecdfbb7c4583-66.jpg

disappointed the extensible inner mandibles aren't used as a cigar cutter tbh

pete baran formerly of this board is reliably enraged that *all* monsters since alien have extensible inner mandibles now (most egregiously the sea serpent in voyage of the dawn treader)

Stephen R Bissette wrote a novelette called Aliens: Tribes, which won a Stoker award. Seems to be the only text fiction he's ever written.

There's probably lots of novels too.

there are a handful of good comics, but I'll be damned if I remember any of the series/arc titles

i remember kinda enjoying earth war (which extends the story of ripley, newt and hicks iirc) when I read it like 20 years ago but i'd def be hesitant to recommend it now

iirc they retconned it after the next movie came out and changed the character names in reprintings

I own a single Dark Horse Aliens novel, simply because it features "Reapers". This was a short story where Simon Bisley drew the art and it's fantastic.

Other stories include:
"Theory of Alien Propogation"
"Advent"
"Terminus"
"The Alien"

He also did the cover for this one,
http://www.simonbisleyart.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/dsc_0426.jpg

iirc they retconned it after the next movie came out and changed the character names in reprintings

oh yeah that's right

it helped that the artist couldn't draw recognisable versions of the characters so new readers likely wouldn't notice

the simon bisley pic is very judge death

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?1277

The books, including Jeff Vandermeer, Robert Sheckley and John Shirley.

Sheckley!

doctor casino you are otm but i watched this tonight and...... kinda loved it? that said i was rooting for the aliens the whole time so that might have changed my evaluation of things. no i'm exaggerating i did want daniels and tennessee (where's "jack"?) to survive. kinda. but oh god it was sweet to see the official worst captain ever get lured over to that alien egg. he was the WORST. i was shocked by the selfishness of the crew doctor, dilfer or whatever she was called. she just ran around wildly with tainted blood all over her. no thought for quarantining herself (even tennessee knows there's protocols for that). when she came back into the med bay with a gun and immediately slipped on the blood i laughed out loud in the theatre, what a moment. like man, you guys do not stand a CHANCE.

all the stuff about "i gotta go shower" or "i gotta take a leak" - which comprises the bulk of a lot of people's complaints that i've read - maybe it's just me but i eat that stuff up. it's a genre staple. i know what's coming and it's delicious. like watching the letters of the title of the movie slowly get constructed at the beginning of the movie. you know what it's going to spell but it's cool watching it come in anyway. (though in this one it all comes in much too quickly. in the orig. those titles come in agonizingly, achingly, decadently slow)

yes agree it was insane that they didn't even bother writing a 20-second scene to explain why they weren't taking precautions against contamination. just say the suits caught fire in the solar flare. anything would do! so weird!

i guess there was a little invisible ledge under the airlock door that daniels hopped onto, at the end? i guess?? pretty lame. but god i loved danny mcbride then. the big lunk.

parts of this felt very KONG.

dr c i didn't understand this: "weird that he doesn't just take his space jockey spaceship to earth or something, but anyway." what ship is that? the crashed, mossy one?