THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)

  • 29 Mar 2024, 00:55
  • Welcome, Guest
Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: 1 [2]   Go Down

Author Topic: Remake of Alien  (Read 28576 times)

Reed

  • Bling blang blong blung
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,101
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #50 on: 17 Jun 2009, 08:07 »

But look at the anger, the fire in his eyes!
Logged
Quote from: meebo
[22:49] Quietus: I'm personally imagining a white supremacist locked in his basement, furtively listening to Parliament on headphones
[22:49] Quietus: "Oh, lawd, why must them coons rock me so"

KharBevNor

  • Awakened
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 10,456
  • broadly tolerated
    • http://mirkgard.blogspot.com/
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #51 on: 19 Jun 2009, 23:10 »

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.
Logged
[22:25] Dovey: i don't get sigquoted much
[22:26] Dovey: like, maybe, 4 or 5 times that i know of?
[22:26] Dovey: and at least one of those was a blatant ploy at getting sigquoted

http://panzerdivisio

scarred

  • Older than Moses
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4,440
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #52 on: 20 Jun 2009, 02:36 »

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
Logged
tumblr | wordpress | last.fm

Quote from: De_El
nick is a dick so you don't have to be!

maxusy3k

  • FIGHT YOU
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 436
  • Lurker of Lovecraftian proportion
    • Obligatory Social Networking Page
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #53 on: 20 Jun 2009, 03:51 »

AvP2 on the PC (and maybe other systems) was awesome.
Logged

KvP

  • WoW gold miner on break
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6,599
  • COME DOWN NOW
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #54 on: 20 Jun 2009, 14:43 »

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.
« Last Edit: 20 Jun 2009, 14:47 by KvP »
Logged
I review, sometimes.
Quote from: Andy
I love this vagina store!
Quote from: Andy
SNEAKY
I sneak that shit
And liek
OMG DICK JERK

MadassAlex

  • Bling blang blong blung
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,050
  • "Tasteful"?
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #55 on: 21 Jun 2009, 09:54 »

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.
Logged

Orbert

  • 1-800-SCABIES
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 870
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #56 on: 22 Jun 2009, 09:51 »

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. 
Logged
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who do not.

McTaggart

  • William Gibson's Babydaddy
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2,416
  • Positive feedback.
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #57 on: 22 Jun 2009, 12:50 »

AvP2 was great for the multiplayer (and the intro sequence for the aliens). Cloaking + good alpha strike + patience and I'm happy.
Logged
One day ends and another begins and we're never none the wiser.

KvP

  • WoW gold miner on break
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6,599
  • COME DOWN NOW
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #58 on: 25 Jun 2009, 15:32 »

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.
Logged
I review, sometimes.
Quote from: Andy
I love this vagina store!
Quote from: Andy
SNEAKY
I sneak that shit
And liek
OMG DICK JERK

ackblom12

  • Guest
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #59 on: 25 Jun 2009, 15:38 »

I think it was before actually. If I rememver right it was when they were toying with the idea of the comic franchise.
Logged

Orbert

  • 1-800-SCABIES
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 870
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #60 on: 26 Jun 2009, 08:01 »

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.
Logged
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who do not.

KvP

  • WoW gold miner on break
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6,599
  • COME DOWN NOW
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #61 on: 27 Jun 2009, 10:15 »

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.
Logged
I review, sometimes.
Quote from: Andy
I love this vagina store!
Quote from: Andy
SNEAKY
I sneak that shit
And liek
OMG DICK JERK

Faker

  • Furry furrier
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 198
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #62 on: 01 Aug 2009, 10:24 »

Logged
You're scared of mice and spiders, but oh-so-much greater is your fear that one day the two species will cross-breed to form an all-powerful race of mice-spiders who will immobilize human beings in giant webs in order to steal cheese.

lprkn

  • Obscure cultural reference
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 147
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #63 on: 01 Aug 2009, 10:59 »

You know what's cool? Sharks. You know what I don't give a fuck about? Where sharks come from.
Logged

MadassAlex

  • Bling blang blong blung
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,050
  • "Tasteful"?
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #64 on: 01 Aug 2009, 19:38 »

Logged

scarred

  • Older than Moses
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4,440
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #65 on: 01 Aug 2009, 23:40 »

Logged
tumblr | wordpress | last.fm

Quote from: De_El
nick is a dick so you don't have to be!

Joseph

  • Duck attack survivor
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,822
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #66 on: 02 Aug 2009, 09:00 »

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.
Logged

MadassAlex

  • Bling blang blong blung
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,050
  • "Tasteful"?
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #67 on: 02 Aug 2009, 09:18 »

I dunno, I thought Gladiator was pretty great.

But I haven't seen that in ages. Perhaps my standards have gone up.
Logged

scarred

  • Older than Moses
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4,440
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #68 on: 02 Aug 2009, 12:58 »

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.
Logged
tumblr | wordpress | last.fm

Quote from: De_El
nick is a dick so you don't have to be!

Alex C

  • comeback tour!
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5,915
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #69 on: 02 Aug 2009, 14:02 »

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.
« Last Edit: 02 Aug 2009, 14:05 by Alex C »
Logged
the ship has Dr. Pepper but not Mr. Pibb; it's an absolute goddamned travesty

Alex C

  • comeback tour!
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5,915
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #70 on: 02 Aug 2009, 14:09 »

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.
Logged
the ship has Dr. Pepper but not Mr. Pibb; it's an absolute goddamned travesty

Joseph

  • Duck attack survivor
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,822
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #71 on: 02 Aug 2009, 14:41 »

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?
Logged

Dazed

  • Scrabble hacker
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,338
  • Straight outta Boston
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #72 on: 04 Aug 2009, 00:36 »

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.
Logged
I would probably be getting laid right now if it weren't for the Jews

David_Dovey

  • Nearly grown up
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8,451
  • j'accuse!
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #73 on: 04 Aug 2009, 23:57 »

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.
Logged
It's a roasted cocoa bean, commonly found in vaginas.

a pack of wolves

  • GET ON THE NIGHT TRAIN
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2,604
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #74 on: 05 Aug 2009, 04:21 »

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.
Logged
Quote from: De_El
Next time, on QC Forums: someone embarrassingly reveals that they are a homophobe! Stay tuned to find out who!

MadassAlex

  • Bling blang blong blung
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,050
  • "Tasteful"?
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #75 on: 05 Aug 2009, 05:43 »

Kind of like ALIEN in that regard.
Logged

Alex C

  • comeback tour!
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5,915
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #76 on: 05 Aug 2009, 09:49 »

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.
« Last Edit: 05 Aug 2009, 09:55 by Alex C »
Logged
the ship has Dr. Pepper but not Mr. Pibb; it's an absolute goddamned travesty

Dazed

  • Scrabble hacker
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,338
  • Straight outta Boston
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #77 on: 05 Aug 2009, 10:00 »

Just get the final cut, the movie is about 30x better w/o the voiceover.
Logged
I would probably be getting laid right now if it weren't for the Jews

a pack of wolves

  • GET ON THE NIGHT TRAIN
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2,604
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #78 on: 05 Aug 2009, 20:44 »

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.
Logged
Quote from: De_El
Next time, on QC Forums: someone embarrassingly reveals that they are a homophobe! Stay tuned to find out who!

Alex C

  • comeback tour!
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5,915
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #79 on: 06 Aug 2009, 08:22 »

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.
« Last Edit: 06 Aug 2009, 08:27 by Alex C »
Logged
the ship has Dr. Pepper but not Mr. Pibb; it's an absolute goddamned travesty

a pack of wolves

  • GET ON THE NIGHT TRAIN
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2,604
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #80 on: 06 Aug 2009, 09:28 »

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.
« Last Edit: 06 Aug 2009, 09:29 by a pack of wolves »
Logged
Quote from: De_El
Next time, on QC Forums: someone embarrassingly reveals that they are a homophobe! Stay tuned to find out who!

Alex C

  • comeback tour!
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5,915
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #81 on: 06 Aug 2009, 10:46 »

Yeah, but in a lot of cases you get to the point where it says more about the viewer than what's on screen.
Logged
the ship has Dr. Pepper but not Mr. Pibb; it's an absolute goddamned travesty

a pack of wolves

  • GET ON THE NIGHT TRAIN
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2,604
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #82 on: 06 Aug 2009, 11:04 »

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.
Logged
Quote from: De_El
Next time, on QC Forums: someone embarrassingly reveals that they are a homophobe! Stay tuned to find out who!

Alex C

  • comeback tour!
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5,915
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #83 on: 06 Aug 2009, 13:20 »

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.
« Last Edit: 06 Aug 2009, 13:24 by Alex C »
Logged
the ship has Dr. Pepper but not Mr. Pibb; it's an absolute goddamned travesty

a pack of wolves

  • GET ON THE NIGHT TRAIN
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2,604
Re: Remake of Alien
« Reply #84 on: 06 Aug 2009, 14:14 »

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.
Logged
Quote from: De_El
Next time, on QC Forums: someone embarrassingly reveals that they are a homophobe! Stay tuned to find out who!
Pages: 1 [2]   Go Up