ALIEN Franchise

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  • ShardlakeShardlake Leeds, West Yorkshire, England
    Posts: 4,043
    Shardlake wrote: »
    Bishop put them there, this I think is what Alien 3 implies, no Cameron's film isn't saying this but having the human Bishop a high up in WY and wanting Ripley for the Bio Weapons department, doesn't it speak sense his creation would do his bidding.

    You could say that Burke was definitely there to do that in Aliens but surely have a plan B if he fails hence Bishop puts them there, it's much more plausible than the Alien Queen who by this time has no egg sack.

    The Aliens are the villains I guess but they purely act on instinct, the humans in the story are the real monsters.

  • DaltonCraig007DaltonCraig007 They say, "Evil prevails when good men fail to act." What they ought to say is, "Evil prevails."
    Posts: 15,716
    I'll be seeing Alien: Covenant tomorrow afternoon. Really excited!
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,968
  • talos7talos7 New Orleans
    Posts: 8,208
    Well, Scott's in no position to be "burning-daylight" as they say.
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,968
    I still don't care for it being a prequel to the sequel of a prequel. Not sure why he didn't shoot the next one first, then Covenant.
  • Posts: 1,970
    Wait so the next Movie is gonna be a prequel to the sequel of the prequel? Lol and people said audiences would get confused had ‪Niel Blomkamp made a sequel to Aliens by completely erasing Alien 3 and 4
  • edited May 2017 Posts: 6,844
    Well we obviously differ on what constitutes good ideas and good dialogue—I find Alien 3 to feature plenty of each—but as for the eggs, three different theories have been suggested earlier in this thread: a) the Queen (and who's to say precisely how her egg-laying works and whether she would need that attachment except to deposit the eggs cleanly on the ground); b) Burke (a long shot, but not impossible); c) Bishop (the likeliest and most frequently cited probability).

    I think the likeliest scenario is that the makers needed something to happen to Ripley's ship (Couldn't make the film otherwise!) to make it jettison the escape pod, and came up with 'a facehugger mysteriously got on board' with no explanation as to how it got there. Treating the audience and Cameron's film with utter contempt.

    The Bishop theory is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I bet producer's love all these 'theories' because it basically does the job for them in explaining away plot contrivances and the lack of logic in their movies.

    You've certainly made your mind! Little more I can say than to reinforce Shardlake's point about Lance Henriksen appearing as yet another evil Company man. Clearly some thought went into how the eggs were placed aboard the Sulaco. Not clearly and indisputably filling every blank for the audience doesn't equate to treating the audience with contempt.
    Well we obviously differ on what constitutes good ideas and good dialogue—I find Alien 3 to feature plenty of each—but as for the eggs, three different theories have been suggested earlier in this thread: a) the Queen (and who's to say precisely how her egg-laying works and whether she would need that attachment except to deposit the eggs cleanly on the ground); b) Burke (a long shot, but not impossible); c) Bishop (the likeliest and most frequently cited probability).

    And the Alien films were never meant to be a 'trilogy'.

    Well no, not while either Alien or Aliens were being made. I highly doubt a sequel was in mind while Alien was being made either. They were originally going to kill Ripley off!

    But my earlier point was that at the time they were making Alien 3, they were definitely thinking about concluding it as a trilogy. I don't think that point is disputable. The ending is very closed-ended and they even tie things back to the original Alien with Ripley's "signing off" recording.
  • edited May 2017 Posts: 5,767
    Well we obviously differ on what constitutes good ideas and good dialogue—I find Alien 3 to feature plenty of each—but as for the eggs, three different theories have been suggested earlier in this thread: a) the Queen (and who's to say precisely how her egg-laying works and whether she would need that attachment except to deposit the eggs cleanly on the ground); b) Burke (a long shot, but not impossible); c) Bishop (the likeliest and most frequently cited probability).

    I think the likeliest scenario is that the makers needed something to happen to Ripley's ship (Couldn't make the film otherwise!) to make it jettison the escape pod, and came up with 'a facehugger mysteriously got on board' with no explanation as to how it got there. Treating the audience and Cameron's film with utter contempt.
    You´d have to say something similar then about Cameron himself. Alien isn´t Ripley´s story, each character is equally focussed on. The film is much more abstract, it´s about fear, alien, and a bit about rape. Ripley surviving could easily be interpreted as humanity instead of the xenomorph surviving.
    The aliens in Aliens differ quite a lot from the one in Alien. There is no stringency that a queen has to have laid all the eggs in Alien, especially since they clearly are arranged in an order on board the alien spaceship. They are not even real eggs in the terrestrial sense, the only thing they have in common with terrestrial eggs is the shape, all the rest is totally different.


    And the Alien films were never meant to be a 'trilogy'.
    No, someone wanted them to be an open franchise. Ridley Scott pitched an ending where the alien kills Ripley and heads for earth. The powers in control didn´t like it at all.

  • suavejmfsuavejmf Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England
    Posts: 5,131
    Well we obviously differ on what constitutes good ideas and good dialogue—I find Alien 3 to feature plenty of each—but as for the eggs, three different theories have been suggested earlier in this thread: a) the Queen (and who's to say precisely how her egg-laying works and whether she would need that attachment except to deposit the eggs cleanly on the ground); b) Burke (a long shot, but not impossible); c) Bishop (the likeliest and most frequently cited probability).

    I think the likeliest scenario is that the makers needed something to happen to Ripley's ship (Couldn't make the film otherwise!) to make it jettison the escape pod, and came up with 'a facehugger mysteriously got on board' with no explanation as to how it got there. Treating the audience and Cameron's film with utter contempt.

    The Bishop theory is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I bet producer's love all these 'theories' because it basically does the job for them in explaining away plot contrivances and the lack of logic in their movies.

    And the Alien films were never meant to be a 'trilogy'.

    Agreed. The facehugger is never revealed as a 'Bishop plant'.
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,968
    fjdinardo wrote: »
    Wait so the next Movie is gonna be a prequel to the sequel of the prequel? Lol and people said audiences would get confused had ‪Niel Blomkamp made a sequel to Aliens by completely erasing Alien 3 and 4

    Literally the exact same statement I made several days ago; it's why I don't remotely buy into that reasoning for the cancelation of Blomkamp's Alien film. Not one bit.
  • bondjamesbondjames You were expecting someone else?
    Posts: 23,883
    fjdinardo wrote: »
    Wait so the next Movie is gonna be a prequel to the sequel of the prequel? Lol and people said audiences would get confused had ‪Niel Blomkamp made a sequel to Aliens by completely erasing Alien 3 and 4
    This is beginning to sound like the Terminator series. My head's spinning just reading it. Alternate retcon realities everywhere!
    I'll be seeing Alien: Covenant tomorrow afternoon. Really excited!
    @DaltonCraig007, lucky you! I've got 10 long days to wait. Can't wait to read how it went.
  • Posts: 5,767
    All that recent discussion made me look at least the first 20min of Alien3 again after a long time. I noticed a jarring dichotomy, on the one hand, Fincher´s direction makes the acting in Aliens look pathetic in comparison (I know it´s not, it´s just deliberately a different direction), on the other hand there´s garbage like all the acid traces, which obviously are put in solely for superficial effect and not at all thought through.
  • What are acid traces? Never heard the term as related to film before. Are you referring to the wind debris that appears to have been painted over the film?
  • bondjamesbondjames You were expecting someone else?
    edited May 2017 Posts: 23,883
    I've only seen Alien3 once years ago, but I can imagine it must be reference to blood drippings from the Alien itself. The acid burns on surrounding items which are its trademark as it moves about after being hit.
  • bondjames wrote: »
    I've only seen Alien3 once years ago, but I can imagine it must be reference to blood drippings from the Alien itself. The acid burns on surrounding items which are its trademark as it moves about after being hit.

    Ah, that makes more sense. Thought it was some stylistic film technique. I never noticed a surplus of acid burns throughout the early part of the film, but now that it's mentioned a few scenes do come to mind. With Alien 3 they introduced the idea of the Alien being able to spit acid—an idea that was carried over into Resurrection. I personally don't have a problem with the Alien sometimes using acid saliva. True, we don't see this deployed in Alien or Aliens, but that doesn't mean they can't still have the capacity. As for the purposefulness of the burns in Alien 3, you may be right, that they're just there for style. It's never pulled my attention though.
  • suavejmfsuavejmf Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England
    Posts: 5,131
    I think all the Alien films are good. The original, sequel and Prometheus are excellent, 3 and 4 are disappointing but by now means terrible. I'm looking forward to Covenant.
  • edited May 2017 Posts: 3,327
    Just come back from the cinema after seeing the new Alien film. Not bad, some fairly decent scenes, Fassbender steals the show, but there are no huge shocks or surprises with this one. It leaves you feeling you've seen it all before, no matter how good the scenes or CGI effects are.

    And still not a patch on the first 2 films in the franchise.
  • edited May 2017 Posts: 6,432
    Working my way through my Alien quadrilogy special edition boxset, will watch Covenant on Sunday.
  • Posts: 1,165
    It's a shame that Scott, who hasn't many movies left in his incredible career, is wasting his time churning out Alien prequels that only really serve to chip away at the simplistic, mysterious power of the original movie.
    I'd much rather see him do more original content.
  • TR007 wrote: »
    It's a shame that Scott, who hasn't many movies left in his incredible career, is wasting his time churning out Alien prequels that only really serve to chip away at the simplistic, mysterious power of the original movie.
    I'd much rather see him do more original content.

    I've had similar thoughts lately, and it is a bit ironic, as you say, that he's spending his twilight hours "chipping away at" the dark and mysterious brilliance of his original Alien. He may well be doing the same thing to Blade Runner in producing that film's upcoming sequel. But even though I didn't care for Prometheus and have low hopes for Covenant, I'm inclined to say, hey, at the age of 80, more power to ya for making the movies you want to make.
  • Posts: 3,333
    I know I've discussed the topic of practical effects vs CGI on another thread, but I've decided to continue that discussion here rather than clutter the other thread with my gripes about fans/critics having a dig at Scott for not solely using practical effects in Covenant.

    I think this video does something for setting the record straight, which I've posted below. It shows how much Scott is involved in the visual look of his films, plus it confirms that Alien Covenant uses both practical effects alongside CGI. There's men in rubberized monster suits plus the use of animatronics, which certainly squashes the rumour that Scott just used CGI in this latest movie. Take a look, it's impressive just how much Scott is dedicated to realizing his vision.

    For those that haven't seen the film and don't wish to see things that they feel might spoil the movie experience for them, maybe watch it after you've seen the movie. Otherwise, enjoy...

    avpgalaxy.net/files/movie_alien_covenant/hbopreview.mp4?_=3

  • CraigMooreOHMSSCraigMooreOHMSS Dublin, Ireland
    Posts: 8,216
    I saw Alien: Covenant on Thursday.

    I really enjoyed it. I'm not buying the criticisms about chipping away at the mysticism and I'm not massively worried about the fact that it doesn't tie directly in to Alien in any way.

    Xenomorphs, to me, are absolutely the perfect organism that the films are describing and their origin is not set in stone to me. Scott's approach is just one way of many that they could come into existence and Covenant is a pretty tense and bloody way of bringing them about.

    I didn't like the OTT final confrontation but I did really like the final scenes, even though the twist was signposted far too early.


  • Posts: 3,333
    Thank you for your post, @CraigMooreOHMSS. I haven't seen it yet, but I think I know what twist you're referring to when you say it was signposted far too early. From what I've read elsewhere test audiences were originally a little confused by the ending. Hence why they did a bit of tinkering and decided to signpost it and make it more obvious.
  • CraigMooreOHMSSCraigMooreOHMSS Dublin, Ireland
    Posts: 8,216
    bondsum wrote: »
    Thank you for your post, @CraigMooreOHMSS. I haven't seen it yet, but I think I know what twist you're referring to when you say it was signposted far too early. From what I've read elsewhere test audiences were originally a little confused by the ending. Hence why they did a bit of tinkering and decided to signpost it and make it more obvious.

    Indeed. A shame, really. It would have been a real knockout if it had been handled with a bit more subtlety. I also wanted to point that that the film is actually surprisingly humorous at times, and unlike many reviews suggest, I think this was intentional. The interactions between Walter and David were very darkly comic and Fassbender absolutely knocks it out of the park.
  • Posts: 4,615
    I was thinking about the Alien series last night. Is it unique in that its a series of movies where, by definition, its about the bad guys (they are in the title and what we are familiar with) and its the good guys who are new? Its something very different to the usual template where we know (and love) the good guys and we see them pitted against different sets of bad guys. It's a little like Star Trek being focussed on the Klingons coming back every time to face a new set of good guys.

    I'm not sure if this actually works (and explains my real loss of interest in this new movie). Dont we need to love the good guys who keep appearing to save the World ? (Bond, MI, Star Trek, Star Wars, etc etc).

    PS I know the exception is Aliens where Cameron was clever in spotting that Ripley ;lacked "character arc" so added it by the bucket load to create a hero that the audience cared about in a way that was totally lacking in Alien (plus created some very lovable supporting characters), IMHO, this makes Aliens something that stands above the other movies in the series.
  • bondjamesbondjames You were expecting someone else?
    Posts: 23,883
    Well we did root for Ripley in the original series. At least I did. She was a formidable female character in a time when they were in short supply in Hollywood blockbusters.

    Since her departure it has lacked something, I'll admit. I believe Noomi Rapace's character was supposed to fill that void in Prometheus, but she fell quite flat for me. Presumably Katherine Waterston's Daniels is the new Ripley (not sure because I've yet to see the film).
  • CraigMooreOHMSSCraigMooreOHMSS Dublin, Ireland
    Posts: 8,216
    bondjames wrote: »
    Well we did root for Ripley in the original series. At least I did. She was a formidable female character in a time when they were in short supply in Hollywood blockbusters.

    Since her departure it has lacked something, I'll admit. I believe Noomi Rapace's character was supposed to fill that void in Prometheus, but she fell quite flat for me. Presumably Katherine Waterston's Daniels is the new Ripley (not sure because I've yet to see the film).

    They do enough to differentiate the two characters, to their credit. She wasn't a Ripley clone. She's actually much more of a natural soldier than Ripley, who basically grew into one from when we first met her.
  • bondjamesbondjames You were expecting someone else?
    Posts: 23,883
    bondjames wrote: »
    Well we did root for Ripley in the original series. At least I did. She was a formidable female character in a time when they were in short supply in Hollywood blockbusters.

    Since her departure it has lacked something, I'll admit. I believe Noomi Rapace's character was supposed to fill that void in Prometheus, but she fell quite flat for me. Presumably Katherine Waterston's Daniels is the new Ripley (not sure because I've yet to see the film).

    They do enough to differentiate the two characters, to their credit. She wasn't a Ripley clone. She's actually much more of a natural soldier than Ripley, who basically grew into one from when we first met her.
    That's reassuring. Waterston is a pretty good actress, so I'm excited to see what she brings to the film when I check it out this upcoming Friday.
  • edited May 2017 Posts: 5,767
    bondsum wrote: »
    I know I've discussed the topic of practical effects vs CGI on another thread, but I've decided to continue that discussion here rather than clutter the other thread with my gripes about fans/critics having a dig at Scott for not solely using practical effects in Covenant.

    I think this video does something for setting the record straight, which I've posted below. It shows how much Scott is involved in the visual look of his films, plus it confirms that Alien Covenant uses both practical effects alongside CGI. There's men in rubberized monster suits plus the use of animatronics, which certainly squashes the rumour that Scott just used CGI in this latest movie. Take a look, it's impressive just how much Scott is dedicated to realizing his vision.

    For those that haven't seen the film and don't wish to see things that they feel might spoil the movie experience for them, maybe watch it after you've seen the movie. Otherwise, enjoy...

    avpgalaxy.net/files/movie_alien_covenant/hbopreview.mp4?_=3
    I´m only interested in whether it looks good or not, I don´t care if it´s done practical or CG. Although I must admit that for creature effects done with CG, it´s much harder to age well than for practical effects. Usually, these days, CG animated living creatures look odd after a few years already.


    patb wrote: »
    I was thinking about the Alien series last night. Is it unique in that its a series of movies where, by definition, its about the bad guys (they are in the title and what we are familiar with) and its the good guys who are new? Its something very different to the usual template where we know (and love) the good guys and we see them pitted against different sets of bad guys. It's a little like Star Trek being focussed on the Klingons coming back every time to face a new set of good guys.

    I'm not sure if this actually works (and explains my real loss of interest in this new movie). Dont we need to love the good guys who keep appearing to save the World ? (Bond, MI, Star Trek, Star Wars, etc etc).
    So you don´t love Darth Vader?
    patb wrote: »
    PS I know the exception is Aliens where Cameron was clever in spotting that Ripley ;lacked "character arc" so added it by the bucket load to create a hero that the audience cared about in a way that was totally lacking in Alien (plus created some very lovable supporting characters), IMHO, this makes Aliens something that stands above the other movies in the series.
    It wasn´t much there in Alien, but it certainly was not lacking. I acknowledge Cameron´s right to put Ripley more in the focus, but it kind of confused everything thereafter. Alien wasn´t a film about Ripley. After Aliens, everybody thought it was. Hence the confusion about how to go about further sequels. Sigourney Weaver was a star of Alien films by then, so it would have taken great balls to make another one without her. But creatively, it was a dead end already then.



    Anyhow, I´m happy to read positive feedback about Alien Covenant, it makes me want to see the film after all :-).

  • Posts: 2,107
    Seeing Alien Covenant in 30+ minutes. Not getting my hopes up.
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