THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => ENJOY => Topic started by: Faker on 28 May 2009, 05:19
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So Alien is 30 this year, and what better way to mark said anniversary than remaking it (http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/16328l)!!!
Hard to imagine this being a good thing, although the involvement of Ridley Scott as a producer gives me some faint hope.
The only way I think this might work is that rather than being a straight remake, maybe a prequel? As in showing how the Aliens came to land on LV-426, along with that massive ship and the space jockey with the giant hole punched in his sternum?
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So Alien is 30 this year, and what better way to mark said anniversary than remaking it (http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/16328)!!!
Hard to imagine this being a good thing, although the involvement of Ridley Scott as a producer gives me some faint hope.
The only way I think this might work is that rather than being a straight remake, maybe a prequel? As in showing how the Aliens came to land on LV-426, along with that massive ship and the space jockey with the giant hole punched in his sternum?
That won't happen and it will be terrible.
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After ALIEN 3, which was passable at least and actually quite interesting, everything ALIEN-related has turned to shit (with exceptions concerning games).
I can't see this remake being much good, especially since the limitations of technology at the time helped create the atmosphere and horror.
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And, of course, Sigourney Weaver in her underwear was at that time quite interesting indeed.
Remakes are the pits, though. I'd rather that they take a stab at a new story than try to fix something that isn't broken.
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FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
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So Alien is 30 this year, and what better way to mark said anniversary than remaking it (http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/16328l)!!!
Oh, I know this one! Not remaking it!
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Oh thank god, I hate watching movies that are more than five years old. Now if only they'd get around to remaking Citizen Kane I could finally see it!
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So Alien is 30 this year, and what better way to mark said anniversary than remaking it (http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/16328l)!!!
Oh, I know this one! Not remaking it!
But then how can they take every last dollar from us while simulataneously ruining the memories of every film we previously enjoyed?
Its like you don't understand the movie business at all!!! :lol:
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I think the thing behind remakes is that a lot of people in the movie buisness have a start in theatre, where the same plays are put on over and over again by different theatre groups which means that actors can play their favourite chracters and directors can put their own spin on a story. Then they change mediums because there's no money in theatre and they take the attitude that doing something that people have done before you is perfectly normal. Speaking as someone who has done a bit of amature theatre I completely understand this and honestly get a little pissy with all the people complaining about remakes - you don't have to see it.
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But then how can they take every last dollar from us while simulataneously ruining the memories of every film we previously enjoyed?
Its like you don't understand the movie business at all!!! :lol:
Oh my god you're right! This is why I've been unable to break into the glamorous world of Hollywood film and film-related employment.
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This can impossibly be better than the original. Pass.
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It can?
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I think the thing behind remakes is that a lot of people in the movie buisness have a start in theatre, where the same plays are put on over and over again by different theatre groups which means that actors can play their favourite chracters and directors can put their own spin on a story. Then they change mediums because there's no money in theatre and they take the attitude that doing something that people have done before you is perfectly normal. Speaking as someone who has done a bit of amature theatre I completely understand this and honestly get a little pissy with all the people complaining about remakes - you don't have to see it.
That makes a lot of sense, and is the best explanation I have ever heard for why movie-making people keep doing it.
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I also find it irritating that people somehow think the original movie becomes less enjoyable due to the remake. I mean, I've seen plenty of remakes that I thought were not needed or were just outright terrible, but fucking hell people.
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The problem here is that it also goes a long way towards explaining why I'm not really a huge fan of theater despite just how many productions take place in the twin cities in a given year.
But that said, yeah, I agree with Ackblom. I understand the concept of played out, but I think there's a real limit to how much you should hold that against the original concept or work. I don't really want to hear anyone say "I'm Rick James, bitch!" ever again, but that doesn't mean I'm still nursing a grudge against Dave Chapelle nor do I go out of my way to crap on whatever album Rolling Stone is furiously masturbating over this week.
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I think the thing behind remakes is that a lot of people in the movie buisness have a start in theatre, where the same plays are put on over and over again by different theatre groups which means that actors can play their favourite chracters and directors can put their own spin on a story. Then they change mediums because there's no money in theatre and they take the attitude that doing something that people have done before you is perfectly normal. Speaking as someone who has done a bit of amature theatre I completely understand this and honestly get a little pissy with all the people complaining about remakes - you don't have to see it.
Do you have any data to back this up?
It sounds reasonable enough on the surface. But for it to be true, you'll at least need some figures showing that remakes are significantly more likely to be make by people with theater backgrounds than those without.
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Even if it's not true, it's a reasonable point.
Not everything is a fucking holy grail that should never be touched or messed with lest the universe screams and dies int he agony of a shitty Alien remake oh fucking no.
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Most cultures, perhaps all, have a tradition of storytelling. The same stories are told over and over, passed down through the generations, yadda yadda yadda. In the beginning it was done verbally around the campfire, then in books (how many hundreds of versions of Mother Goose stories or Grimm's Fairy Tales have you seen?) then in theaters (every high school and every community theater has done West Side Story countless times), and now in cinemas. It's all the same thing. Someone thinks it's a good idea to tell an old story a new way, they do it, in whatever medium they work in.
I think there are some movies that just don't need to be redone, and will probably be worse, but whatever. They don't get my money. Heck, there are movies I've seen that are remakes of older movies, and I didn't even know they were remakes.
But it seems like every time they remake a movie, there's a group out there screaming "Oh no, they're raping my childhood!" Those people need to chill. Or, you know, just don't go see it.
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A lot of people from theatre also go on to write...but why should they write something original? There are some books I can not stomach. I just don't want to read them..too many pages.
I am suggesting that they rewrite them. A few to consider...
LotR
HHGttG
Paddington Bear
Mein Kampf
The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants
the Bible
The instructions for my dyson
Every post Johnny C has ever made on this forum
I think the argument about theatre doesn't hold up because those guys usually follow the scripts to a tee. Who in theatre rewrites Shakespeare? They change the cast each time the show is done because it's always in a new location, the orignals have aged, they may not be available...
When it comes to theatre and the stage, the play transcends the cast and crew. It is the job of the cast and crew to perform the play. That's what they do. None of these remakes have exactly been even remotely faithful to the original movie. The only time movies were remade in a 'theatre' like fashion were with Psycho and NotLD, and everybody who saw those thought 'what was the point'. They would be right to.
Theatre changes because the nature of theatre is that it is the temporary spontaneous thing. The live performance is gone forever once the curtains draw. Film as an artform is totally unlike that, it's a permanent thing. Each movie spends months, or years being refined to the product that is finally delivered in order to stand there forever.
The movies from 50 years ago are still exactly the same today as they were then. Just like the books people still love to read.
The only things coming into play with remakes such as this one are egos and money. If movies degraded with time, I would buy into the argument. But they don't. A remake is not a homage. Not if you package it up and market it to millions of people. A fan could recreate a movie shot for shot with his friends in his basement, that would be cool. I'd buy into that. This however is disrespectful to the original people involved. Just as it would be disrepectful to rewrite Douglas Adams or Johnny C's forum posts.
Movies are not theatre. Not even remotely similar. Surel, both use actors. Car tires use rubber, but that don't make them pencil erasers.
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Most cultures, perhaps all, have a tradition of storytelling. The same stories are told over and over, passed down through the generations, yadda yadda yadda. In the beginning it was done verbally around the campfire, then in books (how many hundreds of versions of Mother Goose stories or Grimm's Fairy Tales have you seen?) then in theaters (every high school and every community theater has done West Side Story countless times), and now in cinemas. It's all the same thing. Someone thinks it's a good idea to tell an old story a new way, they do it, in whatever medium they work in.
That being said, most of those traditional stories were told and re-told because there was no storage medium. They were told and re-told because there was no "record" that could be referenced at will. Or, to put it another way, if those stories weren't retold, they would've been lost.
Theater is somewhat similar in that the actual performance is a live act that occurs at one place. The script is permanent, but that's just a part of the entire show. The show itself must be re-acted every time.
Contrast that to films which are, by definition, a recorded medium. The story exists in a way that is (essentially) easily and permanently accessible. Like Sox points out, a film will be the same 50 years after it was made as it was the day it comes out.
I think that permanence goes hand-in-hand with higher standards for cinema re-tellings because previous films are always accessible (whereas, say, you can't go to a theater and see the original performance of Les Mis).
Now, I don't necessarily agree with Sox that "the only things coming into play with remakes such as this one are egos and money." There are cases where film remakes or reinterpretations have added or altered the story or tone enough that they can stand as separate works in their own right. But I think that a simply desire to recreate a film without significantly altering or improving on the original isn't enough justification.
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I don't buy the whole theatre argument. I really don't think there are very many directors or producers at all who cross over from theatre to film. Sam Mendes is the only one in recent times I can name off the top of my head (and he's only ever made original films). Sure, there are loads of actors who regularly flit back and forth between cinema and theatre, but there are relatively few actors with the clout to decide what films get made. Most directors these days seem to have a screen background - either T.V. or advertising or short films.
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Yeah, the crossover between theater and film, where it relates to mainstream film, only ever really applies to actors. With television and film schools being around as long as they have there doesn't need to be any crossover. Darryl's right about it being about money. Is anybody going to remake The Passion of Joan of Arc? Is anybody going to remake Wild Strawberries, or Eraserhead? Fuck no they won't, because remakes come about because of 2 things, in general -
1. Reduced risk - Same principle as infinite sequel syndrome. You don't have to go out on a limb with investors or the public with a new venture. You're going to get free press and people will come into the movie expecting something. If it's something like Raiders of the Lost Ark, then everybody remembers the source material, most people have fond memories of it, and most of those people are not terribly discriminating. Free money!
2. Vanity projects - This happens less often, and it's the only reason why obscure movies get remade (aside from, say, the occasional oscar baiting). In some cases, like Soderbergh's rather boring remake of Solaris, it's an actual homage. In some cases, like Spielberg upcoming Old Boy remake with Will Smith, they think they can put a "different spin" on the material. In other cases, like the Bad Lieutenant remake, nobody cared about the original and an indifferent director and a big star decided to take the material without much input from the original creative team (although that movie looks fucking awesome)
Quality of the material is incidental.
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" The story exists in a way that is (essentially) easily and permanently accessible. Like Sox points out, a film will be the same 50 years after it was made as it was the day it comes out."
Guys you've got to see "Papá o 36 mil juicios de un mismo suceso" it's a chilean movie developed for the dvd medium, it "remakes" itself everytime it is played, since every scene was shoot several times, and they play at random every time the movie is reproduced, so you get 36 thousand different movies :-)
So that makes the fact that movies are a recorded medium (and because of that, static) argument relative.
I mean, it's not like it is impossible to create a procedural movie out of the metric ton of data that google spits every second and using Ms. Dewey to act it out (http://www.therawfeed.com/2006/10/ms-dewey-search-engine-answers-with.html). It would only take a little programming in Processing.
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I think they should remake Wall-E. That movie was just a little behind its time.
Seriously, how does anyone think this is a good fucking idea? Hollywood makes me sick.
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First off - I'm not saying that it's a good thing that directors have the theatre mentality towards remakes, all I was trying to do was suggest a possible rational behind it.
I agree that form an audience point of veiw there is a massive difference between stage and screen simply because one is fleeting and ther other permernant. I'm also far far too aware of Hollywood's seceptablity to the alure of an easy and safe dollar. What I'm saying is that from a cast and crew point of veiw, remakes aren't nessisarily bad things. Why should it be perfectly possible for an actor to aspire to play Hamlet, but completley unrealistic to want to put their own spin on Arthur Dent.
One interesting thing I've noticed is the middle ground - where stage plays are adapted to screen, how many times has The Imporatance of Being Ernest been made into a movie, yet no one complains about it.
I think the argument about theatre doesn't hold up because those guys usually follow the scripts to a tee. Who in theatre rewrites Shakespeare?
Shakespear scripts are always cut down otherwise you'd end up with 5 hour plays - even when they were first put on in The Globe Theatre they were reduced in length - the choice of what should stay and what should go changes the final production imensly. Even then all you've got are the dialogue, the actions that go with what's being said and the way it's being said are all up to the actors and director and that can have huge effects on the outcome - an actor could say something sarcastically where it had been writen straight and change the entire scene, or even the entire play.
I really don't think there are very many directors or producers at all who cross over from theatre to film. Sam Mendes is the only one in recent times I can name off the top of my head (and he's only ever made original films). Sure, there are loads of actors who regularly flit back and forth between cinema and theatre, but there are relatively few actors with the clout to decide what films get made. Most directors these days seem to have a screen background - either T.V. or advertising or short films.
I'm not talking about people crossing over from one to another, I'm talking about where people get their first start and really get their passion for drama and chances are they got it from a school production or drama classes or similar. How many people do you think would decide "you know what I'm going to go to film school" without ever having done something of the kind.
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Guys you've got to see "Papá o 36 mil juicios de un mismo suceso" it's a chilean movie developed for the dvd medium, it "remakes" itself everytime it is played, since every scene was shoot several times, and they play at random every time the movie is reproduced, so you get 36 thousand different movies :-)
That? That is fucking cool right there.
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The Chilean self editing movie sounds as though it could be the greatest idea ever, or the most pretentious piece of old wank.
It's still a really original and innovative idea, so i'll definitely have to check it out, but this raises a question, how many times/versions do you need to watch before you can make a considered decision on its merits?
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How does it even fit on a DVD though?
Also Alien really does not need a remake.
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BREAKING NEWS
http://www.collider.com/2009/05/29/exclusive-tony-scott-confirms-carl-rinsch-is-directing-alien-and-its-a-prequel/
"Alien" prequel confirmed.
Not as bad as a remake.
I'm still crying a little inside.
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I am less annoyed with this now that it's a remake, but I'm still worried it will be a pile of poo.
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Thank God it's only a prequel, I was ready to release the motherfucking fury!
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Getting angry about a movie being made is fuckin' hardcore. That is what awesome people do. Gotta get the outrage going over meaningless pieces of pop culture.
At any rate, I ain't see a purpose to a prequel. Not really much to the story before Alien that warrants it. Could probably take whatever story they're planning and call it a sequel and it'd effectively be the same.
I just wanna see some fucks get ate.
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Zack Efron as the new John Hurt? If something alien and virulently carnivorous burst out of his chest, I'd be delighted.
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Thank God it's only a prequel, I was ready to release the motherfucking fury!
You have impressed me in ways you cannot possibly comprehend.
8-)
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I hope this is good.
Aliens vs. Predator was a horrible disservice to not only cinema at large, but the Alien timeline.
I can see the Aliens working as an awesome glue for a sci-fi corp-thriller based on Weyland-Yutani, rather than using horror elements to bring tension like the rest of the series. See, the Alien in the film of the same name is significant in that it was the first observation of how deadly such a creature actually was.
So I guess the issue with an Alien prequel is that is can only deal with the Aliens second-hand. They just cannot be a major presence until the next movie.
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Not necessarily. If the idea is to give us the background of the Alien species, obviously they're going to be in the movie a lot.
If the idea is to show us the background of the Space Jockey and the eggs on his derelict ship, there seem to be at least two possibilities. (1) The Space Jockey was piloting a ship transporting Alien eggs somewhere. This is supported by the fact that the eggs are all in a chamber below decks, still protected by a force field of some kind. (2) The Chestburster which killed the Space Jockey was a queen, who laid all those eggs, and later died. Her body was never found by the away team from the Nostromo because once Kane got Face-hugged, they had other things to worry about. There are probably other somewhat plausible stories, but I'm leaning toward (1) above. (2) doesn't make as much sense. Mainly, if the eggs were laid by a queen, they wouldn't have that nice force field over them, and the chamber didn't show the same kind of "modifications" as the one in Aliens.
I think the biggest problem, and IMO the biggest failing of both AVP movies, was that the creators seemed to think that humans were necessary to the story at all. Why are humans required? To make it "more interesting" for the audience? Give them someone to related to? I didn't see why that was necessary. But if they do choose to include the AVP movies as canon as well, they did introduce the idea that "we knew" about the Alien species prior to the events of the first movie. They could take that idea and run with it. Weyland-Yutani (or its parent companies) has known about them since the events of AVP and AVPR, and The Nostromo stumbled across something horrible, but which was not previously unknown to us. Okay, that could be interesting, actually.
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In AvP's defense, a human perspective generally is a requirement for a mass marketable movie. If not human, at least something resembling human. A two hour action flick with subtitles to explain the motivation of the aliens and predators probably would've been even more of a disaster than the actual product.
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But "resembling human" can lead to prblems with the uncanny valley.
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i think he was referring more to human-like nonhumans (Hobbits, etc.) and anthropomorphization (Finding Nemo, for example) whereas the uncanny valley refers to things made to look exactly like humans, to the point where it becomes very creepy because, despite the accuracy of the human imitation, it still doesn't "look quite right."
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Yeah, now that I think about it, it wouldn't have worked without "the human element".
Can I complain instead that it was stupid that they were set on Earth present-day? Basically it reduced two of the most fearsome creatures ever created in the sci-fi world into cheesy monsters in a cheesy monster movie. It also created many potential problems resolving continuity with existing canon, though as I mentioned, resolving them could be quite interesting (but I'm not exactly optimistic).
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That's entirely fair. The concept was utter shit and I don't see what would've been wrong with just going the extremely successful AvP video game route of throwing the Colonial Marines in the middle of everything.
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I think the biggest problem, and IMO the biggest failing of both AVP movies, was that the creators seemed to think that humans were necessary to the story at all. Why are humans required? To make it "more interesting" for the audience? Give them someone to related to? I didn't see why that was necessary. But if they do choose to include the AVP movies as canon as well, they did introduce the idea that "we knew" about the Alien species prior to the events of the first movie. They could take that idea and run with it. Weyland-Yutani (or its parent companies) has known about them since the events of AVP and AVPR, and The Nostromo stumbled across something horrible, but which was not previously unknown to us. Okay, that could be interesting, actually.
Humans are needed. They just have to be written well.
Has anyone here played the AvP2 game? That's what either of the movies should've been.
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And this is why the 00s are known as the nostalgia decade. I just hope this dren is worth my momentary attention.
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Zack Efron as the new John Hurt? If something alien and virulently carnivorous burst out of his chest, I'd be delighted.
Where did you get this information? I really hope you're making a joke and I just don't get it. I wasn't very angry about this new Alien movie business, but if Zack Efron is going to be in it, I might have to scream.
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Haha, no that was a little quip of my very own. Of course, the Inverse Rule of Efron applies; if you imagine it, it shall be so.
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Haha, no that was a little quip of my very own. Of course, the Inverse Rule of Efron applies; if you imagine it, it shall be so.
Oh good. I won't be seeing the movie anyway, but I will sleep better at night knowing that they have not gone completely out of their minds regarding this franchise.
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Things that Zack Effron has been in haven't been any worse for his presence. He's been in mostly crap, but it wasn't crap because of him.
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He does, however, act as a powerful representation of modern pop culture.
Alien is pretty far distanced from that kind of thing.
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Things that Zack Effron has been in haven't been any worse for his presence. He's been in mostly crap, but it wasn't crap because of him.
I wasn't saying he's a horrible actor or anything. I wouldn't know, because I've never watched a movie he's been in. I'm not all that concerned with whether or not the new movie will be a good one; however, I am very concerned about the hordes of teenage fangirls that would suddenly become very interested in all things Alien. I stay the fuck away from things that teenage girls like, and I expect them to stay the fuck away from the things that I like. It usually works out fine, until someone decides they might make more money if they re-make something that doesn't need re-making, and they aim it towards teenagers.
For me, when I walk into some public place and I can hear them squeeing over something I once took seriously, it makes it a lot harder for me to continue to take it seriously.
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When they realise what the essence of Alien is, I think they shall vacate quickly.
Remember, we're essentially talking about a life form that looks suspiciously like a bio-weapon that breeds by face-raping the host and destroying its innards during birth. The sheer sheer Freuditude of the situation is staggering.
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But look at the anger, the fire in his eyes! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL37snqMJx8)
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I don't see what would've been wrong with just going the extremely successful AvP video game route of throwing the Colonial Marines in the middle of everything.
This. I could never fucking understand why they did not do this. If we're going to have humans, give them smartguns and pulse rifles and flamethrowers and power armour and mini nukes and sawn-off shotguns and sharp sticks and at least let them kick a little fucking arse whilst they spout one liners and get picked off like flies. Sticking to the spirit of Alien would be impossible, so it might as well stick to the spirit of Aliens, and that's to TAKE OFF and NUKE THE ENTIRE SITE FROM ORBIT because THAT'S THE ONLY WAY TO BE SURE.
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The AvP Ps2 video game RTS sucked balls. I wandered around half the map every level, and then there would be 2 seconds of shooting aliens and then I died. LAME.
/waiting for good AVP game
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AvP2 on the PC (and maybe other systems) was awesome.
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I wasn't much a fan of AvP2, truth be told. They fucked up the Marine portion of the game by making alien spawn points fixed and turning on music cues well before you would otherwise be aware that a new wave of enemies was coming at you. In AvP1 the alien attacks spawned in random places on the level and were more or less unannounced. It was a much more satisfying game experience.
Also I watched Alien again last night and man, much as I'm afraid they'll fuck things up, the Aliens franchise has such a high shit-to-hit ratio (due more to its marriage to the third-rate monster flicks that were Predator than anything else, I wager) that I'm hopeful this new one and maybe some of the things Sega is doing with the game license will return at least a bit of luster to it. But if Obsidian Ent doesn't keep the RPG rights I'm doubtful that will really happen, as good as Colonial Marines might be as a shooter.
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I have pissed the utter fuck out of many Predator fans by saying this, but I can't be the only one who thinks this way:
What real narrative purpose can the Predators really serve in a situation involving the Xenomorphs, besides making it less interesting? I guess the Predators are pretty cool if you're a young boy with action fantasies, but they're not very interesting. Their rites are essentially appropriated from human ones, their behaviour is pretty much human, their senses are human (although distorted) and they use weaponry that follows human design logic.
They're essentially beefy people. Badasses of the nth degree. There is basically nothing interesting about them.
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I guess what you say is uninteresting about the Predator is pretty much what I found interesting. In the second movie anyway.
In the original Predator, it was just some creature killing Marines in the jungle. We gradually learned that he was an alien with a personal cloaking device and lots of other very cool tech. In the second movie, we learned that he wasn't just some killer, but a hunter and a sportsman, travelling the galaxy in search of the ultimate species to hunt. In its own way, an honorable and cool thing (provided you're not the prey of course). They even had the scene where he scanned a potential target, determined that it was a pregnant female, and left it alone. And as with the movie Aliens, it expanded upon the basic premise and kept things consistent with the original flick, even reframed various things. There are actually a number of parallels between the first two Alien movies and the two Predator movies and how they played out.
But I do agree that if it's the Predators who have all the high-tech weaponry, and are bipeds and behave more or less like humans, then between them and the humans, one species is more or less redundant. That may have been one of the reasons why they didn't go that route with the AVP movies.
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AvP2 was great for the multiplayer (and the intro sequence for the aliens). Cloaking + good alpha strike + patience and I'm happy.
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I guess it should also be pointed out that in Predator 2, when Danny Glover (!) is in the Predator ship, there's an Alien skull in the trophy display thing they got going. I don't know if that was before or after AvP became a big thing in cheap novelry and comic bookdom.
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I think it was before actually. If I rememver right it was when they were toying with the idea of the comic franchise.
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The Alien skull in the Predator's trophy case definitely came first, and is credited by many as what sparked the whole idea of Aliens vs Predators in the comics and eventually the films. The guys making Predator 2 wanted to include a scene with a trophy case so Harrigan (Glover) would understand that they're not just aliens here to kill people randomly or take over the planet or some shit, but a species travelling the galaxy in search of the ultimate prey. Keyes' (Busey's) little speech reinforces that - for people who aren't big on picking up visual clues. So anyway, they came up with a bunch of skulls of what would be the ultimate species to hunt from everywhere, and the Alien came up, so they included it.
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that I'm hopeful this new one and maybe some of the things Sega is doing with the game license will return at least a bit of luster to it. But if Obsidian Ent doesn't keep the RPG rights I'm doubtful that will really happen
Yeah not happening.
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Good news everyone!!
Ridley Scott is gonna direct the new film! (http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=25459)
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You know what's cool? Sharks. You know what I don't give a fuck about? Where sharks come from.
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Good news everyone!!
Ridley Scott is gonna direct the new film! (http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=25459)
Hells yeah.
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Ridley Scott is gonna direct the new film! (http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=25459)
Fuck. This means I have to go see it.
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I guess it'll probably be alright then. Though the last thing Ridley Scott did that was actually great, not just pretty decent, was in the 80s. So that doesn't give me too much hope.
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I dunno, I thought Gladiator was pretty great.
But I haven't seen that in ages. Perhaps my standards have gone up.
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I dunno, I thought Gladiator was pretty great.
But I haven't seen that in ages. Perhaps my standards have gone up.
No, Gladiator is still effin' fantastic.
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Gladiator is a singularly boring movie with a singularly boring color palette. It's a damned shame that it won best visual effects because aside from a few ridiculously beautiful desert shots early in the film, the cinematography makes the backgrounds blurry and gray, like a Gears of War clone rendered low res. It also replaced drama with characters that did nothing but brood really hard. It's a macho wank fest saved from obscurity by efficient acting and frowns.
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By the way, I am fine with the occasional macho wankfest (I -love- Aliens), I just prefer for them not to be as slow as molasses as well as utterly bereft of personality.
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Yeah, even when I was 12 or whatever I thought Gladiator was pretty boring.
And even if you do like it, can you seriously say that it is half the movie that 'Bladerunner' is?
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It's probably half the movie Blade Runner is. Blade Runner is goddamn fantastic though and I am now actually looking forward to this movie.
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I just don't get Blade Runner. Someone explain Blade Runner to me, guys.
(I don't wanna know the plot or anything, tell me what is appealing about it.)
Gladiator is pretty cool but I think that may be because I saw it a long long time ago and now all I remember are the 'action movie one-liners' ("On my mark, unleash hell") and speeches (the whole "I am Decimus Meridius Maximus and I will have my vengeance" deal) which were of a pretty high standard, considering.
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The whole Western terror of Japanese economic and cultural power thing is pretty interesting. The unease surrounding the inability to differentiate organic and non-organic is pretty nice too, and using noir as a setting for that makes a satisfying amount of sense. Basically all of the appealing parts are about paranoia one way or another.
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Kind of like ALIEN in that regard.
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Oh, dear. Blade Runner.
Well, first off, the city looks amazing. Visually, Blade Runner is one of those vanguard films that executes its design so well that it becomes hard to separate its visual trademarks from both its imitators and its inspirations. It openly cribbed from Metropolis and old noir films, but it did it so damn well that many of its designs have since become de rigeur. These days, if you want to design a dystopic, cyberpunk flavored setting, than you must contend with the visual standards and conventions that were laid down by Akira and Blade Runner. The essence of that design has become a visual shorthand for a whole genre.
That said, if you consider near universal appeal to be a quality required of a truly great movie, than Blade Runner falls a bit short. For one thing, its often hard to really become invested in noir inspired characters due to their ambiguity and I would say Blade Runner gets hit by this hard. The situation and themes are more interesting than any individual character. We only know them in their desperation; it is all too easy to hold the everyone at arm's length and remain detached from what goes on in the film. It's still a good film, I would say even a great one, since that ambiguity and the nature of humanity are central themes of the film, but I do see why people would be disappointed in it, particularly given that these days many people are prone to evangelizing for it. Blame the legendarily awful first release for that one; it's a film that deserved a second look and sometimes fans get a li'l overzealous making sure everyone gives it a fair shake.
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Just get the final cut, the movie is about 30x better w/o the voiceover.
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Kind of like ALIEN in that regard.
You probably could make a decent case for the hive culture and lack of individualism of the aliens stemming from Western conceptions of Japanese society (and then you have the name of the company, Weyland-Yutani). Not sure I'd run with it myself but there's something there. That's more for Aliens though, I don't really see it with Alien. Not really seeing the paranoia with Alien either, aside from the whole thing with Ash. I wouldn't say paranoia was as central as it is for Blade Runner though.
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I think that's reading waaaaaay too much into it. There's quite a leap from saying that a film reflects its age or leverages pre-existing fears to heighten mood to saying that the film's antagonist stems from Western conceptions of the Japanese. Keep in mind that studio films by their very nature are collaborative projects and that what you're seeing is a combination of a wide variety of viewpoints, a situation that results in a surprising amount of off-the-cuff design decisions being made on a daily basis. For example, Weyland-Yutani IS a commentary on how Western powers have had to change and react to new economic realities; the only reason it wasn't Leyland-Toyota is due to the fact that such a thing would take legal wrangling. It also has virtually nothing whatsoever to do with the narrative, since it was just a throw away gag brought in by Ron Cobb, the set designer. One of his favorite things about sci-fi was the way it often took the familiar and altered it, a great technique for showing how the world has changed without having to be heavy handed about it.
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It doesn't matter to me all that much whether something was placed in a film as a deliberate attempt to influence the viewer's perception of events or if it was completely accidental, I'm always more interested in what's there rather than what the filmmakers intended to create. End result of studying English literature I'm afraid, the text and your reading of it is considered what's important and not where the name Weyland-Yutani came from and there is rarely such a thing as reading too much into something. My girlfriend once wrote several thousand words on about three panels from Maus. For example, I seriously doubt Emmerich's Godzilla was intended to be so sexist the result was that aspect of the film making me more angry than all the hideous things they did to Godzilla itself, but the end result is something that feels like an all-out assault on female sexuality. Having said that I wouldn't ever try and claim Western paranoia about the Japanese is a massive part of Aliens in the way it's plastered all over Blade Runner, but I think it holds some water as a reading of one aspect of it.
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Yeah, but in a lot of cases you get to the point where it says more about the viewer than what's on screen.
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Depending on your outlook that isn't necessarily a problem. Barthes argues that meaning is produced only when a text is read so you can't talk about anything else except what happens when someone watches the film, not the film itself. Besides, unless we're talking about reactions to art there's really nothing to say. Without interpretation Alien is just some moving colours.
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I think the conversation about what people take from any given work is worthwhile, but in such a case I'd rather we use less definite language than "stems from", since I tend to interpret such talk as attributing intent to the author, and I'm not really comfortable attributing that viewpoint to either the author or other viewers. I'm familiar with Barthes and I respect the idea that a work exists independent of an author's intent, but at the same time art is still often intended as a form of communication and on that note I am very careful about what I attribute and to whom.
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I don't think it removes communication myself, it just places the site of communication at the point where you watch the film and acknowledges that communication is mediated by a huge amount of factors other than what the author was trying to do. I share your reticence to attribute intent but that's why I pretty much never talk about what the author was trying to do and just talk about the text, so for me saying the conception of the aliens might stem from Western ideas about the Japanese isn't saying anything about the film makers but is just talking about the film itself. I can understand how it might sound otherwise since almost all popular criticism focusses so heavily on authors but I've spent too long in academia to change the way I talk now.