Alien Franchise (1979-?)

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colinr0380
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Re: Alien Franchise (1979-?)

#276 Post by colinr0380 » Mon Oct 21, 2019 3:07 am

Thanks Curious Sofa. I was just thinking that it is interesting to compare the detached black humour-tinged callousness to the human behaviour in Alien: Covenant (which makes sense when we think of it as a film that appears to be sharing David's point of view of these silly human beings that actively seem to be wanting to kill themselves by their reckless antics!) to the much nastier tone on display in that Alien vs Predator: Requiem film.

That was an otherwise rather uninteresting film which contains some of the most upsetting scenes in the entire series (I'm thinking of the hunter and his son in the woods first falling prey to the facehuggers, with the 'wake up' scene of the boy watching his dad chest burst and then the same thing happening to him. Or the most sympathetic supporting character getting brutally and offhandedly dispatched by the Predator late on the in film simply for being in the wrong point of a corridor at the wrong time. And of course the particularly nastily toned scene of the alien-facehugger hybrid invading a ward full of heavily pregnant women and impregnating them all over again, with the unborn babies being replaced by the alien offspring instead) presented just as your standard standalone set piece action-horror moments (and if particularly callous, just as a means to the end of getting us to the aliens running about) without there seeming to be any wider point to be made otherwise. Alien vs Predator: Requiem is in all other respects a dreadfully dull film that almost destroyed both franchises it was associated with, but I suppose to its credit those moments have always stuck with me, in a troubling and upsetting way (presumably at least partly unintentional on the part of the filmmakers in portraying moments so aggressively upsettingly anti-entertaining?) that nothing else in the series really has. Though the lingering child autopsy in Alien 3 comes close, we are also there focused on Ripley's reactions and need to remain collected during that situation, which adds the human element to a horrific situation. Not so much when it seems that the filmmakers are on the side of the aliens! (And I suppose Alien: Covenant as a film feeling as if it is from the tonal perspective of the android David represents the halfway identification point between those two poles!)

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Re: Alien Franchise (1979-?)

#277 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Tue Apr 07, 2020 8:35 pm

I found this really measured and intelligently emotional quote from Fincher regarding his aims for the third picture.
"I saw the first film as the beginning of the yuppie ideal. It was getting ahead in the office, sticking to the protocol and being vocal and eventually triumphing through one's own beliefs. Obviously it's more than that, it's a monster movie and it’s Ten Little Indians, but I saw that film as being a real kind of personal empowerment. They gave it a feminist message as well. In 1978 you have the beginning of the whole 'Me' decade and then by the time of the second film in 1986, you had a lot of women coming to grips with wanting a career and also having these incredible maternal instincts and I think ALIENS really taps into that. And when we started this one I thought what could I do with the story that would ride the next yuppie wave? And I thought what are yuppies coming to grips with? Sacrifice, the idea that sacrifice was a noble, capitalist alternative. We’ve come full circle and realized that selflessness is as important as selfishness in order to survive. [...] If we failed to do one thing it was to take people out of their everyday life. Actually my dentist, as he was drilling my teeth, was giving me his thesis on the things wrong with this film and he said, ‘You know, when you go out of this movie you haven't gotten away from AIDS, you haven’t gotten away from the race riots, you haven't gotten away from your fear of other cultures.’ We failed to give people the broad, safe entertainment that, in the United States at least, they seem to want. They want to go to the cinema and get away from it all. We tried to bring it down to right here and now, to make a movie about 1990."
I didn't quite realize he held Aliens in much regard. I just figured he was more attached to the first film, and was cynical towards the more touchy-feely aspects of Cameron's work.

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colinr0380
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Re: Alien Franchise (1979-?)

#278 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Apr 08, 2020 2:49 am

That makes me think of the great Errant Signal quote at the end of his video on the Alien: Isolation video game, where you have to hide and run from the alien for the majority of the time, that continual stress and learning not to overcome but to continue just to survive moment to moment in such an environment is perhaps all that is possible in the current climate.

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Re: Alien Franchise (1979-?)

#279 Post by Rayon Vert » Thu Apr 23, 2020 9:29 pm


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Cash Flagg
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Re: Alien Franchise (1979-?)

#280 Post by Cash Flagg » Thu Apr 23, 2020 9:54 pm

That was one of the funniest things I’ve read in a long time, starting with the headline. Thanks for the laughs, there haven’t been too many of them lately.

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Re: Alien Franchise (1979-?)

#281 Post by domino harvey » Thu Apr 23, 2020 10:00 pm

I bet he and the Belz got along great on the Homicide set

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Re: Alien Franchise (1979-?)

#282 Post by solaris72 » Thu Dec 10, 2020 7:37 pm


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Re: Alien Franchise (1979-?)

#283 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Sat Jan 09, 2021 11:48 am

Watched the first one in 4K last week. The geography of everyone's face stood out. Sometimes it felt like watching a Leone movie, especially the sweat running down Harry Dean Stanton's just before he's killed.

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Re: Alien Franchise (1979-?)

#284 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Wed Feb 10, 2021 7:03 pm

A compendium of David Cronenberg's criticisms of the first film, as well as the accusations from him about it appropriating his style. I've heard some of these before, but this article ends with H.R. Giger's recollection that David Lynch was upset because he felt Giger and Ridley Scott stole the design of the chestburster from Eraserhead which I hadn't known until reading this.

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Re: Alien Franchise (1979-?)

#285 Post by Big Ben » Wed Feb 10, 2021 7:16 pm

Thank you for sharing this article as I had no idea about any of this!

I feel though it was just a coincidence as a lot of what inspired is based on real life things. Dan O'Bannon says he based the reproductive cycle somewhat on the Tarantuala Hawk Wasp which straight up impregnates a living spider.
BBC wrote:Tarantula hawk wasps have to drag the sleeping spider – which can be up to eight times their weight – to a burrow, lay an egg on the tarantula and seal up the tunnel. The young wasp devours the tarantula in order to develop into an adult, eating the non-essential organs first to keep it alive for as long as possible.
Naturally that's not a one to one but I can see where O'Bannon took inspiration from. It's also worth noting that the Xenomorphs were inspired by his Crohn's Disease which as many of already probably know, ended up being what killed him.

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Re: Alien Franchise (1979-?)

#286 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Wed Feb 10, 2021 8:27 pm

Cronenberg citing what John Landis telling him as proof of O'Bannon being inspired by him is something I kind of take with a grain of salt since Landis has been known to stretch the truth.

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Re: Alien Franchise (1979-?)

#287 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Wed Nov 15, 2023 11:16 am

Aliens getting a new 4K release

Image

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Drucker
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Re: Alien Franchise (1979-?)

#288 Post by Drucker » Wed Nov 15, 2023 12:45 pm


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Mr Sausage
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Re: Alien Franchise (1979-?)

#289 Post by Mr Sausage » Wed Nov 15, 2023 1:02 pm

Has The Abyss even had a blu-ray release?

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knives
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Re: Alien Franchise (1979-?)

#290 Post by knives » Wed Nov 15, 2023 1:03 pm

I believe this is a first.

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Re: Alien Franchise (1979-?)

#291 Post by cdnchris » Wed Nov 15, 2023 1:58 pm

Mr Sausage wrote:Has The Abyss even had a blu-ray release?
Nope! Still only have the original (non-anamorphic) DVD!

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Re: Alien Franchise (1979-?)

#292 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Thu Dec 14, 2023 11:48 am

Aliens is astonishing in 4K. For the less wider aspect ratio I’ve always thought this looked stunning for the breadth of originality inside the continuation of the first film.

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Re: Alien Franchise (1979-?)

#293 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Mon Jan 08, 2024 2:11 am

I watched The Abyss on Apple TV the other night. Something that clicked with me which I read in some other reviews, is how similar some of the interiors are to the Nostromo.

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Re: Alien Franchise (1979-?)

#294 Post by ford » Mon Jan 08, 2024 2:28 pm

flyonthewall2983 wrote:
Thu Dec 14, 2023 11:48 am
Aliens is astonishing in 4K. For the less wider aspect ratio I’ve always thought this looked stunning for the breadth of originality inside the continuation of the first film.
Eh, I watched some of the one up on iTunes now and the AI "upscale" looked far too bizarre for me. I guess something about the UHD disc could be different, but I doubt it. Having A.I. draw in new details on a 2k scan always seemed like an insane idea.

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Re: Alien Franchise (1979-?)

#295 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Mar 22, 2024 2:56 pm

Finch in the Trailers for Upcoming Films thread wrote: Alien Romulus teaser
Very exciting, and I note that they seem to be interestingly coy about naming anyone outside of the young main cast at this point. The telling thing will be if Michael Fassbender is back (either as a main antagonist or a cameo) to connect it to the end of Alien: Covenant, or if it will minimise the prequel aspects, or tell an entirely different story. The way that Covenant ended there was a lot of scope for a follow up to that.

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