Is this gonna be a standup fight, sir, or another bughunt?

April 27, 2010 1:54 PM

In an exclusive interview with MTV, Ridley Scott releases further details on his latest project: two 3D Alien prequels, which will have a non-Ripley female lead and focus on the story behind the first movie's "Space Jockey."

MTV: Will you consult the original alien designer, H.R. Giger, on these ideas?

Scott: Yeah, he's still around. Once I get more serious and get going, and the big wheels start turning, we'll certainly talk. And maybe we'll come up with something completely different.

Entertainment Weekly PopWatch: "Ridley Scott says Alien Prequel to Star a Woman: Who Would You Cast?"

The Alien Universe Timeline

posted by zarq (276 comments total)

in space, no one can hear me scream about how lame this sounds
posted by radiosilents at 1:56 PM on April 27, 2010 [26 favorites]

On the plus side: Geiger.

On the minus side: Pretty much everything else.

I'll stick to my Dark Horse comics and pretend anything in film after Aliens never happened.
posted by Artw at 1:58 PM on April 27, 2010 [5 favorites]

Scott has always refused to make a sequel (or in this case a prequel) to any of his films, but he changed his mind about going back to Alien because of the way the other film-makers have "squeezed the franchise dry."

Does not compute.
posted by grouse at 1:58 PM on April 27, 2010 [2 favorites]

Three words: Jar Jar Binks.
posted by tommasz at 1:59 PM on April 27, 2010 [3 favorites]

SciFi hasn't seemed to have any really original concepts in mainstream works for a few decades now, but I'll give this the benefit of the doubt, I suppose. 3D can go choke on it, though.
posted by Burhanistan at 1:59 PM on April 27, 2010 [3 favorites]

Please be good. Please be good. Please be good.
posted by MarshallPoe at 2:02 PM on April 27, 2010

Three words: Jar Jar Binks

A wounded spaceman lays on the table in an operating room, clutching his stomach. Suddenly, a miniature Jar Jar bursts from his belly. Soaked in blood and stomach acid, the creature screeches: "Hey yo, Daddy, Captain Tarpals. Mesa back."

Mesa back indeed.
posted by Think_Long at 2:03 PM on April 27, 2010 [7 favorites]

/artw thought you said Black Mesa and signed up.
posted by Artw at 2:04 PM on April 27, 2010 [9 favorites]

HEY RIPLEY THROW ME THAT YO-YO

whoaaaaaaa
posted by boo_radley at 2:04 PM on April 27, 2010 [3 favorites]

By all means, let's find out about the Space Jockey, since we can't have any kind of mystery, ambiguity or wonder in our movies these days. Everything has to be painstakingly explained, right down to the last detail, otherwise it's bad storytelling or improper monetizing of franchise properties or something...
posted by Bromius at 2:04 PM on April 27, 2010 [29 favorites]

Well I think (or at least hope) these could be good. Scott and Cameron made the only good Alien movies, the Scott one being one of best sci-fi/horror movies of all time...certainly there's potential. Hopefully the emphasis on 3D won't screw up the 2D versions.
posted by aerotive at 2:04 PM on April 27, 2010

Yet again Related Posts betrays me by revealing my monomania to the world.
posted by Artw at 2:05 PM on April 27, 2010

I wonder if we'll discover that the mysterious Space Jockey has a 10 year old son who speaks with a Maori accent and laughs like a wooden Snydely Whiplash.
posted by entropicamericana at 2:07 PM on April 27, 2010

Three words: Jar Jar Binks.

I would pay money to watch that for real.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:07 PM on April 27, 2010

By all means, let's find out about the Space Jockey, since we can't have any kind of mystery, ambiguity or wonder in our movies these days.

QFT. Jesus H. Christ, leave the Space Jockey alone. The ambiguity of that figure is one of my favorite parts of Alien.
posted by brundlefly at 2:07 PM on April 27, 2010 [4 favorites]

By all means, let's find out about the Space Jockey, since we can't have any kind of mystery, ambiguity or wonder in our movies these days.

See also successive versions of Blade Runner, the next one of which will have "I AM A ROBOT" superimposed upon Harrison Ford's forehead at all times.
posted by Artw at 2:08 PM on April 27, 2010 [21 favorites]

It was one of the scariest blockbusters of the seventies. A primal, deadly monster, revealed only sparingly throughout the running time, to create suspense and to compensate for a shoestring special effects budget.

And then they made it 3D.

This will not end well.
posted by condour75 at 2:09 PM on April 27, 2010 [3 favorites]

I don't know what you lame-o's are on about, I can't wait for Aliens Prequel vs. Predators! It's totally going to not be the filmic equivalent of a giant cancerous pus-filled gangrene foot!
posted by turgid dahlia at 2:10 PM on April 27, 2010 [2 favorites]

Excellent first use of the GAMEOVERMANGAMEOVER! tag.
posted by Infinite Jest at 2:10 PM on April 27, 2010 [9 favorites]

Not knowing much history of Alien(s), I wanted to believe that Giger wasn't a fan of the commercialization of his style, when in fact, he really enjoyed working with Ridley, and liked getting an Oscar. Apparently Ridley saw the cover to Brain Salad Surgery and liked the style.

More fun Giger facts, from a recent interview (when he was 69 years old): He wears Crocs. He potters around the garden, mumbles to the cat, drops himself in front of the tube for the afternoon, and cracks open a bottle whenever he feels like it. His wife Carmen lives next door. Giger punched a hole through the wall to join the buildings. I like to think he did so with some alien thing attached to a belt around his stomach, but I doubt that's true.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:10 PM on April 27, 2010 [5 favorites]

I hope this turns out to be a SyFy original!
posted by bstreep at 2:11 PM on April 27, 2010 [3 favorites]

Man, I wish Alien had been left to stand alone. (I know that I'm probably the only person in the world who thought Aliens was lame and false).

There have been great moments in each of the sequels (the opening sequence of Fincher's film was simply beautiful), but, on the whole, it's been ever-diminishing returns. Even Whedon cried when he saw the film they'd made of his screenplay. And what was the last truly great movie that Ridley Scott made? Blade Runner? I think I'll probably give them a miss; I don't want to know the origins of "the Space Jockey," I don't want every mystery or enigma of the first film explained away.
posted by Auden at 2:11 PM on April 27, 2010 [5 favorites]

The Alien sequels are mostly shit.

Mostly.
posted by Atom Eyes at 2:11 PM on April 27, 2010 [25 favorites]

I liked Alien3 AND Alien Resurrection.
posted by mkb at 2:12 PM on April 27, 2010 [3 favorites]

My favorite part is that he gave an exclusive interview to *MTV,* as if it was still 1986.

*phone rings*
"Umm... it's Ridley somebody. Do we still have a news department?"
"Not sure, dude."
"He says he wants to give us an exclusive."
"Very well. Begin the defrosting of Kurt Loder."
posted by drjimmy11 at 2:12 PM on April 27, 2010 [34 favorites]

+1 vote for telling a well scripted story where it crosses in with Terminator timeline.
posted by infinite intimation at 2:12 PM on April 27, 2010

Not knowing much history of Alien(s), I wanted to believe that Giger wasn't a fan of the commercialization of his style, when in fact, he really enjoyed working with Ridley, and liked getting an Oscar. Apparently Ridley saw the cover to Brain Salad Surgery and liked the style.

Giger was doing stuff for movies before Alien - like most of the artists he was previously involved in the failed production of Dune.

And hey, it meant he got to go on and work on such ionic films as Poltergeist 2 and Species.
posted by Artw at 2:14 PM on April 27, 2010

But wouldn't the space jockey be even better if you got to see him as a kid?
posted by clockzero at 2:18 PM on April 27, 2010 [6 favorites]

If this doesn't involve Hicks and Newt surviving the crash, I'm not interested.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:20 PM on April 27, 2010 [7 favorites]

Bitch, bitch, moan, moan you're going to see them in the theater just like me.
posted by The Straightener at 2:21 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

Man, I wish Alien had been left to stand alone. (I know that I'm probably the only person in the world who thought Aliens was lame and false).

There have been great moments in each of the sequels (the opening sequence of Fincher's film was simply beautiful), but, on the whole, it's been ever-diminishing returns.

I agree with all of this, but with the subsequent conclusion that since the sequels kept fucking up Alien harder and harder, I'm actually in a nicely "expect nothing" kind of state that's primed me to be totally fucking psyched about these new movies!

SPACE JOCKEY AHOY
posted by Greg Nog at 2:21 PM on April 27, 2010 [2 favorites]

But wouldn't the space jockey be even better if you got to see him as a kid?

I can't wait to see him win the pod race!
posted by benzenedream at 2:21 PM on April 27, 2010 [6 favorites]

Yippee!
posted by mazola at 2:26 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

The original is my favorite, but I do love Aliens and Alien Cubed. Alien: Resurrection? Ugh. What a disaster. What a gorgeous, gorgeous disaster.
posted by brundlefly at 2:26 PM on April 27, 2010

I'm cautiously optimistic. I just watched Blade Runner again (the "Final Cut" Blu-ray version), and goddammit if that isn't one of the greatest films ever made. Alien was also very good.

I disagree on resurrecting the Giger style. The Giger look is so overused as to be exhausted. It is almost a generic look unto itself. Even the visual sci-fi aesthetic that replaced it, the Jon Berkey-inspired gleaming white and blue curvy look of I, Robot, Portal, Wall-E, Star Trek , etc is becoming passe.

If he wants these movies to me something other than derivative, he's go to develop (or appropriate) something different.
posted by Pastabagel at 2:27 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

I think this is technically the third or fourth Alien-related thread with this exact title.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:30 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

Wasn't he working on a Monopoly movie? Maybe one of the prequels will tell the exciting story of how Weyland-Yutani built their space corporate empire by buying up properties in Atlantic City!
posted by kmz at 2:30 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

I never got it. If the marines knew about "bug hunts", how come they got their asses handed to them on the very first go? Does bug hunt mean something else, or were they all just full of shit rookies?
posted by r_nebblesworthII at 2:31 PM on April 27, 2010

If you took the Aliens out of Alien: Resurrection it could have been a pretty good Firefly movie.
posted by Artw at 2:31 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

His wife Carmen lives next door. Giger punched a hole through the wall to join the buildings.

That's the ideal living situation Mr. Arkham and I have talked about for years. I'm not sure whether to be pleased or creeped out that Giger thought of it first.
posted by JoanArkham at 2:33 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

The space jockey was actually an environmentalist trying to destroy the last batch of aliens - which were created in labs by an evil capitalist to destroy the primitive species on other planets (like earth!) so they could be mined for resources.

But with the help of a white guy, a slightly ethnic love interest, and a plucky 10 year old girl they get them off earth and out into deep space where and the last thing the jockey says before moving out of range is "I know now why you cry."
posted by anti social order at 2:33 PM on April 27, 2010 [5 favorites]

There is only one Alien sequel that deserved, or still deserves, to be realized.

"For a month or so in the summer of 1990, I was hired to work as a ‘conceptual architect’ on the movie project Alien III."
posted by One Thousand and One at 2:34 PM on April 27, 2010 [6 favorites]

I think this is technically the third or fourth Alien-related thread with this exact title.

Technically, it's the second, and it wasn't exact.
posted by zarq at 2:35 PM on April 27, 2010

But with its long pointy head thingy and teeth on the end of it's tongue, the Alien's just made for 3D...! And 3D chest-busting! This is gonna be awesome guys!!!
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:35 PM on April 27, 2010

I agree with all of this, but with the subsequent conclusion that since the sequels kept fucking up Alien harder and harder, I'm actually in a nicely "expect nothing" kind of state that's primed me to be totally fucking psyched about these new movies!

So basically we're in Episode III territory?
posted by shakespeherian at 2:37 PM on April 27, 2010

They should make a 3D movie of Hyperion - it's got a monster that's basically nothing but eye threats!
posted by Artw at 2:39 PM on April 27, 2010 [4 favorites]

I recently watch all the Alien and/or Predator movies in chronological order as set by the timelines in the movies. It was awesome. And the stories really do interconnect. Sorta.

I am excited for more.
posted by Sprocket at 2:43 PM on April 27, 2010

> I never got it. If the marines knew about "bug hunts", how come they got their asses handed to them on the very first go? Does bug hunt mean something else, or were they all just full of shit rookies?

I always understood 'bug hunt' to just be a generic term for alien encounter. Not necessarily those aliens, however. Presumably something less deadly.
posted by axiom at 2:43 PM on April 27, 2010

If you can't make it good, make it 3D.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:46 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

"Arcturian Poontangs"
posted by Artw at 2:47 PM on April 27, 2010

The great thing about Alien is that THERE WAS NO STORY BEHIND ANY OF IT. I'm so fucking sick of directors thinking that more is better. You made a classic, leave it ALONE.
posted by agregoli at 2:49 PM on April 27, 2010 [2 favorites]

Way back before the third Alien(s) movie came out, I recall seeing a trailer of one of the Xenomorph eggs spinning through orbit and a voiceover that said, "In space, no one can hear you scream."

Then, camera still on the egg, Earth comes into view behind it and the v.o. continues, "But on Earth, everyone can hear you scream."

I know I didn't imagine this, but I might have mis-interpreted it.

Some of the novels went this direction, where an Alien infestation reaches Earth.

And THAT is the movie I'd like to see.
posted by Thistledown at 2:49 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

So basically we're in Episode III territory?

Well, since this is set to be a prequel to the shit that's come recently, I suppose we're in "Enterprise territory." Which I'll admit does not bode well.
posted by Greg Nog at 2:49 PM on April 27, 2010

Bug hunts were where they were Vikings.
posted by entropicamericana at 2:49 PM on April 27, 2010

"Arcturian Poontangs"

Yeah between that and the implications of 'another bughunt,' I have sort of begun to dislike a lot of Cameron's choices in Aliens. The kind of terror-of-the-wholly-other thing that the first movie inspires is, I think, sorely undermined by the idea that the space marines live in a Star Wars-type universe populated by various sentient alien species who interact in various ways up to and including copulation. A cold, lonely, terrifying universe where any new discovery may also be an unforgiving, hostile, violent death is a much more interesting idea than 'Oh here's yet another species we were unaware of, and this one is mean, better shoot it good!' I mean, isn't that what the title Alien is all about?
posted by shakespeherian at 2:52 PM on April 27, 2010 [7 favorites]

Thistledown - read the comics.
posted by Artw at 2:54 PM on April 27, 2010

It could be worse. He could be working on a sequel to Silence of the lambs.
posted by Astro Zombie at 2:54 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

Thistledown -

Alien 3 Teaser Trailer (1992)
posted by Auden at 2:55 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

But do you really want to know the origins of the xenomorphs? It seems that is something best left in the dark recesses of the imagination to imbue them with a certain power that they wouldn't otherwise have.
posted by Burhanistan at 2:55 PM on April 27, 2010

Yeah, or his Thelma & Louise sequel.
posted by Auden at 2:57 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

Some of the novels went this direction, where an Alien infestation reaches Earth.

And THAT is the movie I'd like to see.

Then maybe they can fight some sort of, I dunno.... Predator?
posted by inigo2 at 2:58 PM on April 27, 2010 [2 favorites]

I always took 'bug hunt' to be the future-slang equivalent of 'snipe hunt.'
posted by mordax at 2:58 PM on April 27, 2010

Man, I wish Alien had been left to stand alone. (I know that I'm probably the only person in the world who thought Aliens was lame and false).

Nope, not alone. Alien is a great sci-fi/horror movie with a lot of very new elements that hadn't been explored in movies previously (and some seriously amazing art direction). Aliens is roughly the same movie made into a disneyland ride. The story in Aliens really doesn't expose anything new about the aliens and virtually all of the characters are stereotypes. It exists to drag the audience through a bunch of cool scenes and characters they can fantasize about being. It may be a fun movie to watch but you don't take anything home with you (I feel that way about most of Cameron's work).
posted by doctor_negative at 3:02 PM on April 27, 2010 [7 favorites]

I truly hope these prequels turn out to be brilliant... otherwise, we might be in for another 90-minute dissertation from that YouTube guy with the annoying voice.
posted by Crane Shot at 3:03 PM on April 27, 2010 [2 favorites]

But with its long pointy head thingy

It's a dick. The alien's head is a dick.
posted by Sys Rq at 3:08 PM on April 27, 2010 [5 favorites]

never got it. If the marines knew about "bug hunts", how come they got their asses handed to them on the very first go? Does bug hunt mean something else, or were they all just full of shit rookies?

Um, because the aliens were THAT bad ass. Remember Ripley's debriefing with the company in Aliens, where they basically laughed at her encounter in Alien, saying nothing even remotely looked like that in cataloguing over 300 worlds?

Here's the line from the script:

RIPLEY
I told you, it wasn't indigenous.
There was an alien spacecraft there.
A derelict ship. We homed on its
beacon...

ECA REP
To be perfectly frank, we've surveyed
over three hundred worlds and no one's
ever reported a creature which, using
your words...
(read from Ripley's
statement)
...'gestates in a living human host'
and has 'concentrated molecular acid
for blood.'

The marines were cocky because nothing like the aliens had ever been seen or imagined. Hell, the only other species mentioned was one some of the marines had sex with!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:08 PM on April 27, 2010 [3 favorites]

I never got it. If the marines knew about "bug hunts", how come they got their asses handed to them on the very first go?

Well, first, they were very badly led by an utterly green Lt with next to no combat experience that none of them knew from Adam's housecat.

Second, in part because of his inept leadership, they went into the nest essentially unarmed. For combat units that normally use armaments, this is suboptimal. Presumably if their Lt had some experience or even just a minimal connection with his platoon, when Ripley and Burke told him about the primary heat exchanger he'd have pulled the Marines out and rearmed them with frangible ammo or other appropriate weapons.

Third, the Marines hit a run of bad luck imposed by the director and writer. It was just bad luck that one of the few people with a flamethrower happened to torch Frost, the dude who was carrying all the rounds that went boom and confused everyone. Likewise, it was just really REALLY bad luck that the drop-ship crashed into the APC.

I didn't have look any of this crap up. I am such a fucking dork.

Me, I wouldn't mind seeing a version of Aliens where first the Marines walk into a secondary nest and calmly and expertly wipe it right. the. fuck. out, like they have nests of other dangerous aliens hundreds of times. Just to make the point to the viewer that the Marines really are badasses. And then they walk into the real nest, and get their asses handed to them, because the aliens really are that bad-assed, and also they have the writers on their side.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 3:14 PM on April 27, 2010 [15 favorites]

They should make a 3D movie of Hyperion - it's got a monster that's basically nothing but eye threats!

I always thought Endymion and Rise of Endymion were written more as film treatments, and suspected that was in the back of Dan Simmons' mind when he adopted the style.

But the Catholic Church would completely lose their minds over the story
posted by zarq at 3:15 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

I hope all of my unanswered questions get answered.
posted by mazola at 3:16 PM on April 27, 2010

For combat units that normally use armaments, this is suboptimal.

They had harsh language!
posted by Artw at 3:17 PM on April 27, 2010 [3 favorites]

doctor_negative: "It exists to drag the audience through a bunch of cool scenes and characters they can fantasize about being. It may be a fun movie to watch but you don't take anything home with you (I feel that way about most of Cameron's work)."

I kind of felt like Avatar was a reverse aliens (where you are rooting for the monsters) toward the end with the dragons and helicopters.
posted by idiopath at 3:17 PM on April 27, 2010 [2 favorites]

I would have liked Alien 3 if they a) stuck to the original idea - prisoners trapped in a prison with an alien, no guns, no Ripley, and b) didn't cue us in when the alien would attack by giving us 10 seconds of massive orchestral swell before it jumped on screen complete with slow-mo movement.
posted by yeloson at 3:17 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

God, I've like favorited half the comments here. There is something about that feeling of impending suck that is delicious. I think I started LOLing with the Alien Jar Jar, and rolled right on through "I AM A ROBOT."
posted by JHarris at 3:20 PM on April 27, 2010

I have three words for you:

Alien vs Chucky
posted by robocop is bleeding at 3:26 PM on April 27, 2010 [7 favorites]

I kind of felt like Avatar was a reverse aliens (where you are rooting for the monsters) toward the end with the dragons and helicopters.

In both, you're rooting for the underdogs to survive.

Avatar also had a distinct lack of witty one-liners. "You're not the only one with a gun, Bitch!" doesn't quite have the same panache as "I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
posted by zarq at 3:27 PM on April 27, 2010 [2 favorites]

Alien 3 Teaser Trailer

Wow. I knew they discarded several concepts in the process of making that one, but I never realized that it could have been part of the Eleventh Doctor's first series story arc.
posted by dhartung at 3:27 PM on April 27, 2010

Alien vs Panache
posted by phaedon at 3:28 PM on April 27, 2010

I think I liked Avatar a hell of a lot more than most of the people here, but I'd definitely say that the dialogue was either bland or terrible throughout, without a ngle outstanding line whatsoever. Which is weird, because I can have entire conversations made up of Aliens quotes.
posted by Artw at 3:33 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

The marines were cocky because nothing like the aliens had ever been seen or imagined. Hell, the only other species mentioned was one some of the marines had sex with!

What, like a Pleasure Gelf?

Ohwait .... wrong Sci-Fi meme!
posted by metaxa at 3:37 PM on April 27, 2010

ALIENS "doesn't expose anything new about the aliens"

the queen?
posted by muckster at 3:37 PM on April 27, 2010

Backstory? Apparently it involves a flying hamburger that shoot at things.
posted by mazola at 3:40 PM on April 27, 2010

I look at the Alien series as sort of a series of "let's give the concept to different directors and see what they do" sort of thing. So you've got Ridley Scott's version, and James Cameron's, and David Fincher's, and Jeunet's version...
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:40 PM on April 27, 2010

They should make a 3D movie of Hyperion

Oh no you di'n't.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 3:43 PM on April 27, 2010

the queen?

And that they build hives...

of course, this does not completely match up with the coocooning/impregnation scene in Alien, and in fact implies that the creature in Alien was a non-reproductive animal and so it's reaching earth is retroactively much less of a threat.
posted by Artw at 3:43 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

Oh no you di'n't.

Holy fuck.
posted by Artw at 3:43 PM on April 27, 2010

SciFi hasn't seemed to have any really original concepts in mainstream works for a few decades now,

Not so fast!
posted by ford and the prefects at 3:44 PM on April 27, 2010

Phew. Looking at this it's either not going to happen or will be shit and quickly forgotten.
posted by Artw at 3:45 PM on April 27, 2010

Yeah, this sounds terrible.
posted by Artw at 3:48 PM on April 27, 2010

Alien: Horror movie. Awesome!
Aliens: Action movie. Great!
Alien3: Attempt at horror movie again. Shit.
Alien Resurrection: Attempt at action movie action. Double-shit.

Trend hints at attempt at horror, again, this time triple-shit.
posted by notmydesk at 3:53 PM on April 27, 2010 [2 favorites]

Arcturian Poontang (NSFW) From the comic "The Long Tommorrow" by Dan O'Bannon and Moebius
posted by Tenuki at 3:58 PM on April 27, 2010 [2 favorites]

In order to make my own peace with the inconsistencies between Alien and Aliens, I long ago settled on the following interpretation:

So far in their exploration of the galaxy, humans have encountered only 2 basic types of aliens

1. Large, but docile, ladybird-like creatures. Mostly harmless, but accidentally dangerous, given as the are to flying about blindly and occasionally crashing into buildings. Their habit of herding and 'milking' cats as if they were aphids, while endearing to some, is disturbing to others. On the whole, if you plan on building any tall buildings or owning cats, you'd best get the military in first…
2. Arcturians. Star Trek and the like may have conditioned you to think that Arcturians are humanoid, at least vaguely; imagine your disappointment when you eventually found out that they're nothing more than a slightly warm cross between an Earth-style jellyfish (complete with stingers) and a Fleshlight (complete with casting marks). The fact that they tend to be most populous around military bars has been remarked on but, as far as is known, not studied; it has been theorised that it may have something to do with their nutritional requirements.

Seen in this light both the beginning and later events of Aliens make perfect sense, whilst staying in keeping with the universe as originally set by Alien.
posted by Pinback at 3:58 PM on April 27, 2010 [3 favorites]

I think they should cast Kristen Stewart as young Ripley, and have Sparkly Aliens.
posted by qvantamon at 4:12 PM on April 27, 2010 [2 favorites]

3D is the new Crystal Pepsi.
I don't think it will age well.
posted by Liquidwolf at 4:17 PM on April 27, 2010 [4 favorites]

I think the new film should be a spoof of the first four called Aliens 5, People 0.
posted by brundlefly at 4:18 PM on April 27, 2010 [9 favorites]

Hmm...

The film will be really tough, really nasty. It's the dark side of the moon. We are talking about gods and engineers. Engineers of space. And were the aliens designed as a form of biological warfare? Or biology that would actually go in and clean up a planet? It will take place in the years before that, when they first come across this thing on a planet called Zeta Reticuli. ...

Yeah, the thing about Alien vs Predator is, I know it's commerce, but what a pity... I think, therefore, I have to design - or redesign - earlier versions of what these elements are that led to the thing you finally see in Alien, which is the thing that catapults out of the egg, the face-hugger. I don't want to repeat it. The alien in a sense, as a shape, is worn out."
posted by Artw at 4:23 PM on April 27, 2010

Sounds like it could be called "Aliens: 0"
posted by Artw at 4:25 PM on April 27, 2010

There hasn't been enough discussion about Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem in this thread, so I'll quote from my own review:

A straight-out parody may be the only move left for the franchise, and then, perhaps, in a few years, the Gods governing the cycles of genre may just smile upon us again with another high-minded attempt at returning the monster to its former glories.

posted by muckster at 4:28 PM on April 27, 2010

Well, I mean, it's this or a remake of Alien. Probably directed by Rob Zombie or the guy who made High Tension or something. You know, it could be worse.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:32 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

It'd probably be Breck Eisner, the SOB who's remaking Escape from NY.
posted by brundlefly at 4:36 PM on April 27, 2010

This will weyland.
posted by fleetmouse at 4:39 PM on April 27, 2010 [6 favorites]

Man, fuck that guy. Directors who make remakes are utter worthless hacks who...

/checks IMDB for Escape from NY
/checks IMDB for John Carpenter
/checks IMDB for The Thing

...never mind.

(but seriously, what happened to the days when remakes could actually be better?)
posted by Artw at 4:39 PM on April 27, 2010 [2 favorites]

They should make it a movie and call it Aliens!
posted by Pope Guilty at 4:39 PM on April 27, 2010 [5 favorites]

It'd probably be Breck Eisner, the SOB who's remaking Escape from NY.

Man, what is that guy's deal, anyway? I haven't seen any of his movies, and for all I know they're great, but like every damn movie (except for Sahara -- I think!) he's associated with on IMDB is a remake. Is that like the Hollywood version of being a one-man cover band or what?
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:40 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

/checks IMDB for Breck Eisner (for reals this time, not just inside my head)

Man, fuck that guy.
posted by Artw at 4:41 PM on April 27, 2010

Isn't Alien the first contact with the aliens? What would a person do in a prequel?
posted by kirkaracha at 4:47 PM on April 27, 2010

Upon further reflection, as much as I don't enjoy Rob Zombie's films, a Zombie Alien could be pretty entertaining. I basically imagine juggalos on a spaceship. I don't even really need any alien for that to be entertaining. Picture Ripley as some huge-haired, be-implanted white trash chick in daisy dukes and a sneer. This fucking thing writes itself! ...In part because it's already been written. But, y'know. Only in part.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:48 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

Make it a musical, I mean.
posted by Pope Guilty at 4:49 PM on April 27, 2010

Isn't Alien the first contact with the aliens? What would a person do in a prequel?

There's something about a hot tub/time machine in the script which addresses and fixes this little chronology issue.
posted by Liquidwolf at 4:52 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

Call it "Lien".
posted by stammer at 4:55 PM on April 27, 2010

Ridley Scott needs to really rethink and study the canon that has been built up around the comic series. One of the more unique things in Alien 3 was that the Alien gestated in a dog, and thus, was not the same as the Alien in the first or second movies. It moved differently, it was shaped different, it had many more canine features, since part of the whole mythos of the creature was how it would appropriate DNA from it's host and thus it's final form as determined more from what it had been impregnated in.

Also, I've read the William Gibson script for this, back when Sigoorny Weaver was saying she wouldn't do Alien 3, and Gibson brought a whole new explination for the aliens biology and the reasoning behind the "hive" aspect (he made the Aliens a lot more of a terraforming species, changing the atmosphere and things because their designers had specific requirements, etc, etc).

Also, a lot of the writers for the comic series brought in a whole host of insect ecological and evolutionary aspects. Like phermones and other modes of non-verbal communication, etc. That was something in Alien 4 that was touched on that I really liked. And honestly, the alien/human hybrid thing would have been cool if they'd done the special effects differently. The gooey mess of mucus they ended up with really ruined that part. They also didn't use the Ripley Clone thing to the fullest. Though I really liked the far future aspects. That was cool.

Anyway. Bleh. It's a franchise. Deal with is.
posted by daq at 4:55 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

I don't get it; why even make Hyperion into a film? Structurally, it's unfilmable. Like Dune, to do the novel (s) justice would take a good season or two on HBO (or AMC. I'd say SyFy but they could never fit science fiction into their weekly schedule of crap)
posted by Auden at 4:56 PM on April 27, 2010

kittens for breakfast - I hate you now.
posted by Artw at 4:59 PM on April 27, 2010

First!
posted by sexyrobot at 5:03 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

My work here is done.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:03 PM on April 27, 2010

...Oh, C'MON! dammit!
posted by sexyrobot at 5:03 PM on April 27, 2010

Did any of the books or comics actually talk about Arcturians? I mean, it could be a settled planet with a whole lot of high-quality human prostitution.

..just saying.
posted by lumpenprole at 5:09 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

srsly, though...Yay! New Aliens movies! i went back recently and watched them again...3 was not as bad as i remembered it being...and i always liked 4...the creepy alien-human hybrids were seriously genius...almost worth having to watch winona ryder 'act'. also i was tripping on acid the first time i saw it...maybe not such a good idea...i think i left permanent handprints on the armrests ;P
posted by sexyrobot at 5:10 PM on April 27, 2010

I always find myself so torn by these things because, as an aesthete, I am like Oh no! Not the Space Jockey! Please, for the love of all that is holy, let him remain a foreboding enigma, a fossiziled scream on a planet far from anybody's home! But on the other hand, as a colossal worldbuilding nerd I am also like Oh yes! Please tell me about the evolutionary and political history of his species, including their agglutinative OSV language and trinary-centric culture!
posted by No-sword at 5:19 PM on April 27, 2010 [6 favorites]

Even Aliens #3 and #4 had their little charms. #4 made a bit more sense if you picked up the giant box set and got a better feel for what Whedon was going for — finally, Ripley's a bit of the monster, too — a role that Weaver seemed to play with some level of relish.

In our last go-round with this, end of July, we cooked up some at least feasible plot bunnies for what a prequel could look like. They certainly aren't guaranteed moneymakers, but damn, I hope we get something besides some watered-down action bang-bang after the focus groups and the panicky investors are done chewing on it. Even a horror movie would be more interesting than boom-boom-squish-boom.

However, I do not think Scott could get away with the kind of serene pacing that Alien had. For all of its moments of grue and startle, the film had a kind of inevitable, stately approach towards the climax. Whether audiences will no longer be patient enough for that sort of thing or it is that the financial backers merely perceive that to be true is irrelevant. Expect punchy and a little frenetic. Oh, and we have to have the chestburster in 3D. They'll be issuing raincoats with the little black glasses at the door, just so you don't get any on you. You know it's coming, the splatter, the shrill squeal of rage that it is not quite big enough to kill you, and the metal teeth right in your face.
posted by adipocere at 5:45 PM on April 27, 2010

I do not think Scott could get away with the kind of serene pacing that Alien had. For all of its moments of grue and startle, the film had a kind of inevitable, stately approach towards the climax. Whether audiences will no longer be patient enough for that sort of thing or it is that the financial backers merely perceive that to be true is irrelevant.

Yeah, but to be fair to the first movie, that pacing only seems sedate to us now because we have become so accustomed to the world of the film (and its many, many derivatives). When I saw Alien the first time (about ten years after it was released), I was enthralled by the ship, the weird-ass planet, everything -- I still am, of course; but seeing it for the first time, you are far from bored. Scott at least seems to get that he'll need to make a movie as fresh as the original, and if we're busy being wowed by exotic scenery, we may not need all the flash and grue to happen in the opening reel.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:54 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

"Isn't Alien the first contact with the aliens? What would a person do in a prequel?"

First contact for humans. Last contact for the space jockey and his extended family. Somewhere there's a whole planet of infested space jockeys just waiting to ruin someone's picnic. I hope it's Wallace and Gromit! (Nothing against W&G, but that would be cool.)
posted by sneebler at 6:03 PM on April 27, 2010

I can't tell if you're joking, but of course Sahara is a remake.
posted by phaedon at 6:05 PM on April 27, 2010

And hey, it meant he got to go on and work on such ionic films as Poltergeist 2 and Species.

Are you positive about that?
posted by longbaugh at 6:26 PM on April 27, 2010 [2 favorites]

Still waiting for Freddy Alien vs. Predator Jason.
posted by painquale at 6:35 PM on April 27, 2010 [2 favorites]

Did any of the books or comics actually talk about Arcturians? I mean, it could be a settled planet with a whole lot of high-quality human prostitution.

Exactly. I'm going to join in the spirit of retconning and argue we unbork Aliens like so:

- Alien fauna are unknown. We've explored and settled a lot, and maybe come across some rudimentary ur-organisms like bacteria and viruses (or signs of the past existence of same), but the worlds of the human empire aren't teeming with unfamiliar beasties. We are more or less alone in the universe, still.

- Arcturis is a human colony, which for whatever reasons has a bustling sex trade and a reputation for the deeply libertine Ziggy Stardust sexual androgyny of its personnel. It doesn't matter if your Arcturian is a male or a female; you wouldn't be buying in the first place if that sort of sexual indulgence wasn't your thing. And while future society in general has gotten a lot more comfy with progressive-by-modern-day-standards views of pansexuality, opinions still vary a bit, hence the mess hall ribbing. (Was that in the mess hall? Maybe the locker room. I can't remember.)

- A bug hunt is a quarantine/containment mission. The bugs being hunted are human-borne diseases, and they're not being hunted so much as kept in check through in part the enforcement of martial law in general and tactical military enforcement in specific. A bug hunt is not a stand up fight because it's all about corralling civvies, most of them unarmed and afraid and even the armed ones no match for a squad of bullet-chewing marines.

- The speech Ripley gets from the disbelieving corporate suits, that Brandon Blatcher quoted, isn't just saying they've never seen alien fauna as badass as what Ripley suggests; it's saying that they've found not a goddam thing in the first place.

- Everybody who doesn't take Ripley at her word isn't just thick and horror-movie-dense; they legitimately think she's a nut. She's Art Bell in space, but Art Bell at least had the excuse that we hadn't tromped across hundreds of worlds and come up with no little green men.

The space jockey (and the fact that the space jockey, and his ship) didn't cause immediate and tremendous freakouts by all is the stickiest counter-argument to this I guess. But I'm sure the new Ridley Scott films will make it clear how all of that makes sense in the context of the above proposition. In 3D, no less.
posted by cortex at 6:35 PM on April 27, 2010 [6 favorites]

Ridley Scott should not be underestimated.
posted by dragonsi55 at 6:38 PM on April 27, 2010

I've often repeated cortex's classic comment on Alien:Resurrection,

"The fourth movie didn't suck either, it was just wasn't an Aliens movie, exactly. Instead of calling it Alien: Resurrection, they should have called it Jean-Pierre Jeunet's "L'Hybride"."
posted by Pater Aletheias at 6:46 PM on April 27, 2010 [3 favorites]

Likewise, it was just really REALLY bad luck that the drop-ship crashed into the APC.

Nerdy point of order: the bad luck was simply the drop-ship crashing, the APC was already toast from Ripley's hectic driving.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:19 PM on April 27, 2010

Demystifying the Space Jockey sucks, but exploring a different alien species is basically the only direction the series can go unless you want more horrible fanservice bullshit based on comic books/video games (i.e. AVP).
posted by hamida2242 at 7:19 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

All I ask is to have a 3d Alien movie have an Alien skitter across the ceiling from behind the audience and pounce into the screen to tear a marine apart.

Is that too much to ask?
posted by Decimask at 7:19 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

I hear you, cortex, but I don't think you can get away that easily.

I mean, the drop ship has nose art on it that says BUG STOMPER -- WE ENDANGER SPECIES. It looks like the Colonial Marines are commonly in the business of eradicating alien infestations.

And if there were no life anywhere beyond bacteria and such, the one suit wouldn't have asked if there were any organisms like that on LV-426, because that would be like asking if there really were leprechauns there. And the other suit wouldn't have given a boring, straight-up answer of "Naw, it's a rock. No indigenous species." You'd only say that if it weren't a stupid question and if other planets did have indigenous species you might want nuked from orbit.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:22 PM on April 27, 2010 [3 favorites]

Nerdy point of order: the bad luck was simply the drop-ship crashing, the APC was already toast from Ripley's hectic driving.

Sure, it was toast, but it was toast that was full of guns and grenades and phased plasma rifles and piles of delicious ammunition. That mostly went away except for the sentry guns.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:24 PM on April 27, 2010

"The fourth movie didn't suck either, it was just wasn't an Aliens movie, exactly. Instead of calling it Alien: Resurrection, they should have called it Jean-Pierre Jeunet's "L'Hybride"."

Alien 4 would have been a lot better if they had let Weaver go all the way (literally) with her ideas re: the alien.

It was better than the AVP movies, but that's a pretty low bar. Alien is about rape - and for some reason they decided 4 should be a comedy. A rape comedy.
posted by hamida2242 at 7:24 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

Ridley Scott needs to really rethink and study the canon that has been built up around the comic series.

Yes, what this rape allegory/gynocentric body-horror story needs is Batman or possibly Judge Dread.

Dumb, missing-the-point fanservice (as found in the comics) is why the franchise sucks and it's why you have CG alien queens running around an ice base while Predators are suplexing drones in a temple (as seen in AVP).
posted by hamida2242 at 7:37 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

The space jockey (and the fact that the space jockey, and his ship) didn't cause immediate and tremendous freakouts by all is the stickiest counter-argument to this I guess.

They're just amazed. What are they going to say to each other? They've already responded to a distress call from an alien ship, seen it, and gone inside it. They understand what's going on by the time they find a corpse.
posted by stammer at 7:54 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

And if there were no life anywhere beyond bacteria and such, the one suit wouldn't have asked if there were any organisms like that on LV-426, because that would be like asking if there really were leprechauns there.

I contend that they were high on space-cocaine.
posted by cortex at 7:58 PM on April 27, 2010 [4 favorites]

Dumb, missing-the-point fanservice (as found in the comics)

While there is some dumb, missing-the-point fanservice to be found among the Aliens comics, there are a number of Aliens comics that do a great job of exploring and expanding the universe of the films free of said dumb, missing-the-point stuff. Just the ground covered in Book One is a hell of an example of doing something interesting with the material from the first couple films. I'm sure I've said in a previous thread how much I wish that had been the movie to get made, or something like it.
posted by cortex at 8:01 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

Three words: Jar Jar Binks.

I would pay money to watch that for real.

Here's a poster to tide you over.
posted by homunculus at 8:02 PM on April 27, 2010

cortex: "And if there were no life anywhere beyond bacteria and such, the one suit wouldn't have asked if there were any organisms like that on LV-426, because that would be like asking if there really were leprechauns there.

I contend that they were high on space-cocaine."

Space-cocaine would explain the state of the nose of the Alien-Human hybrid in Resurrection, at least.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 8:14 PM on April 27, 2010 [2 favorites]

My prediction. Hollywood, call me!
posted by zippy at 8:32 PM on April 27, 2010

Who cares about some Alien reboot? Anything other than the first two are worthless.

This is news, now!

Oh no you di'n't.

Dan Simmons himself said, back in 2003 or so, that Martin Scorsese and Leo DiCaprio were interested in making this into a movie. That's didn't go anywhere, but apparently it's started again. I didn't see The Day the Earth Stood Still, but read reviews that it was terrible. I wonder how much of the horribleness was Scott Derrikson's fault. Will he also fuck this up?

Also, 2010? Unless this is some super-secret production, I'd add another two years to that. IMDB doesn't even list any stars.
posted by zardoz at 9:14 PM on April 27, 2010

I think the prequels should start out with the Space Jockey sort of normal-looking, on some dusty planet. Then a bunch of shit happens and he gets thrown in lava and so they make him that crazy suit and he hears his wife died and he's all "Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
posted by turgid dahlia at 9:40 PM on April 27, 2010 [2 favorites]

Why are we supposed to take that meeting with the suits at face value? Remember, first of all, Upton Sinclair: It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. Then examine the culture of Weylan[d]-Yutani. A generation ago it was already sending cyborgs with secret missions to obtain alien weapons tech, crew expendable. There is no reason to take their word for this: they are probably regurgitating the corporate/PR line, and they are also choosing to find a reason to sideline Ripley. Carter wasn't the first company man tasked with obtaining another alien. He was just the replacement.

The Marines' bug hunt experiences give the lie to the corporate line. There are scary things out there, but they are mostly of a nuisance level. Animals with predator skills and hunting instincts (some of them are handy for bestiality). Not human-level intelligent.

If you base your canon on what comes out of the mouths of certain characters, who have been amply defined as liars with the capacity for murder .... well, when the Colonial Marines come calling, you go first, OK?
posted by dhartung at 9:50 PM on April 27, 2010 [4 favorites]

While there is some dumb, missing-the-point fanservice to be found among the Aliens comics, there are a number of Aliens comics that do a great job of exploring and expanding the universe of the films free of said dumb, missing-the-point stuff. Just the ground covered in Book One is a hell of an example of doing something interesting with the material from the first couple films. I'm sure I've said in a previous thread how much I wish that had been the movie to get made, or something like it.

The religious subplot was about the only thing even remotely redeeming about that, if you're talking about the comic where "Wilks"(Hicks) and "Billie"(Newt) go to the home planet with the Marine squad; possibly excepting Billie fucking the android. The first films are loosely about a fear of sex, so having an actual sex scene might be able to be serve as closure.

The religious undertones (the "conception w/o intercourse" the cult leader believed in) have potential to be interesting- and, more importantly- thematically consistent as "omniscience" was an undercurrent of the aliens in the first 2 movies (seeing w/o eyes and communicating w/o ears). There were other important themes based on no eyes, chiefly that the alien has some sort of superior understanding of the world, and that human perception is inherently inferior (cameron went so far as to have this explicity stated on-screen- "they don't show up on infrared at all") while in the first one it was just heavily implied with tons of screen time emphasizing that the crew's communication was flawed, which emphasizes that people's sense are flawed. Kane "felt fine," after all.

Other than the religious/omniscience side, though, a movie based on that comic would get you a shaky-cam prison-break scene where she gets out of the hospital and a Starship Troopers (ST movie, not book) style battle climax which would almost inevitably be uninteresting in addition to being basically the opposite of what the battle scenes in the 2nd movie were actually saying. And then later in that storyline the aliens come to Earth, right? Another terrible idea.

"Aliens invading Earth" is like the clone wars in star wars. Who watches Alien 3 & 4 and decides the series needs more faceless extras and cg aliens?

One of the biggest problems with the comics and other stuff (even besides Batman or Terminator crossovers) is how most of it just wants to be space marines kciking lots of ass and blowing up lots of bugs; "the further adventures of sgt Apone and the chickenshit outfit" or whatever. Weird that so many people take that away as what they liked best about alien 2 when the movie was as much a condemnation of Vietnam, the Cold War, and militarism as it was about the alien series.

I mean alien 2 is in-your-face with letting you know it's about Vietnam and that Vietnam was a terrible thing-- so terrible that the Vietnam war is essentially portrayed as a series of rapes culminating (and, in fact, causing) the apocalypse.
posted by hamida2242 at 10:13 PM on April 27, 2010 [6 favorites]

I don't really have an opinion on the interview or the prequels, but I wanted to introduce you to Alien vs. Pooh.
posted by bewilderbeast at 11:07 PM on April 27, 2010 [4 favorites]

I always thought Endymion and Rise of Endymion were written more as film treatments, and suspected that was in the back of Dan Simmons' mind when he adopted the style.

Totally. The space battle scenes, in particular, were unusually cinematic. But seriously, the Catholics would lose their shit over the depiction of the Pax, so any film version would necessarily need to be eviscerated a la His Dark Materials in order to pass ideological muster with any of the business guys who would potentially greenlight an Endymion movie.
posted by killdevil at 11:30 PM on April 27, 2010

Alien prequel won't actually feature aliens WARNING link contains closeup photo of hideous shit alien from Aliens Regurgitation
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:08 AM on April 28, 2010

(Shakes fist at ArtW for posting the link earlier)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:29 AM on April 28, 2010

Re Bug Hunts way back in the day I remember flicking through the Aliens spin-off role playing game book and the game was basically based around the players as Colonial Marines killing various beasties... I remember there was at least one new species that was giving extensive coverage so that it wouldn't be 'Oh it's Aliens again'

I remember Alien being the first film I ever saw on video with half-a-dozen school mates all crammed into one lounge. We didn't think it was slow at all just a brilliant tension builder for the first hour... And after an earlier childhood of Hammer and Amicus a total revelation. Though I imagine kids today with there mobile phones and MTV might be a bit different.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:35 AM on April 28, 2010

Why are we supposed to take that meeting with the suits at face value?

Doesn't matter if you don't. It was very clear that the Marines didn't have clue, be it because the suits didn't know the aliens existed or because they knew and were playing dumb. Add in an inexperienced leader and a massive run of bad luck and you've Space Marines that are sitting ducks.

Hmmm, why was such an inexperienced leader sent on mission filled with so many unknowns?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:02 AM on April 28, 2010

A lot like the way modern publishers deal with unknown authors - minimum expense means minimum risk.

Send in a bunch of green troops, and, if they die, well, they were expendable anyway.

And if they are successful? Well, they were expendable anyway.
posted by Samizdata at 5:43 AM on April 28, 2010

>> [W]hy was such an inexperienced leader sent on mission filled with so many unknowns?

It's the conspiracy conundrum all over again. Just as the original Alien metastasized our post-Nixon mistrust of power (political, corporate), the prequels ought to deal with the motivations of the Weyland(-Yutani) Corporation more directly. The Company™ is the only monster we haven't seen at this point. We've seen their agents -- Ash, Carter J. Burke, (the Church?), the fascist seeming Blue Hands-like interstellar government that would like to harvest the xenomorph as a biological weapon (again,?).

Power run amok -- especially at the Corporate level -- has always given stories longer legs. The best thing Scott could do at this point is make the Xenomorphs a terrestrial science experiment that left the coop.

Scott's challenge, here, is to put his franchise back on the shelf, after Tom Rothman has bled it of all the money it can make during his tenure as studio chief. It'll be interesting to see if Jon Spaihts is deft enough to embed the studio 'monetizing' narrative into his narrative (e.g., Evil corporation sells drugs than are less than prescriptive strength gets involved with xenomorphs, goes to hell...).
posted by vhsiv at 6:33 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Hmmm, why was such an inexperienced leader sent on mission filled with so many unknowns?

Space-cocaine.
posted by cortex at 7:08 AM on April 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

Space-cocaine.

Vacuum with your nose in the vacuum of space.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:12 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

The Company™ is the only monster we haven't seen at this point.

I bet it's made of black smoke.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:14 AM on April 28, 2010

Serialization kills baby metaphors!
posted by Burhanistan at 7:18 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

The problem with Alien is all the folks who came into the series with the second movie. They think it's about busting ass in space when the truth is #2 is an abomination, the exception to the rule. The rest of the movies are beautiful horror pics and I think #3 and #4 would be evaluated differently if it weren't for all the #2 fans making loud hooting noises. They're much more in the spirit of the original than the action comedy Cameron crapped out.
posted by toothgnip at 7:36 AM on April 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

Hmmm, why was such an inexperienced leader sent on mission filled with so many unknowns?

In all seriousness, the Colonial Marines are pretty explicitly the Vietnam-era regular Army with the numbers filed off. So they sent Gorman because their previous lieutenant finished his tour of duty and rotated home, and Gorman was a new lieutenant who needed a tour of duty in the shit to get "blooded."

Short answer: because the Army does dumb, counterproductive stuff sometimes.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:44 AM on April 28, 2010

They were basically mercenaries on loan to the Company, rather than acting in an official military capacity.
posted by Burhanistan at 7:46 AM on April 28, 2010

EXT. GRAND CANYON. DAY.

A convertible plunges over the edge of a cliff. It lands safely on a squishy and ominous nest-looking thing. A title scrolls into view:

THELMA & LOUISE VS. ALIEN
posted by Sys Rq at 8:38 AM on April 28, 2010 [3 favorites]

Space-cocaine is for yuppies. Now, the space-LSD from 2001... that's the shit...
posted by qvantamon at 8:45 AM on April 28, 2010

I would like to see Ridley Scott make the following movies, each on a $50k or less budget.

Lassie vs Alien (what are you trying to say, Lassie? A facehugger got Timmy?)
The Lone Ranger vs Alien
Herbie the Love Bug vs Alien
Spanky and Our Gang vs Alien
Abbot and Costello vs The Alien
My Dinner with Alien
Caligulalien
posted by zippy at 8:55 AM on April 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

Oh, and Zardoz vs Alien
posted by zippy at 8:56 AM on April 28, 2010 [3 favorites]

Am I late to the Alien geekout?

The Aliens RPG made it clear there were other alien species that had been encountered by humanity. I remember something about some giant worms/bugs on one planet that only existed on the dark side, but would follow the terminator and destroy everything in their path (the planet had days that last months/years).

So to my mind, the question of whether or not humanity had encountered other alien species was "yes" - but that they had never seen anything like the Alien. Or had they? During the first film, don't they discover that the Company knew something was out there, something worth bringing back, which is why Ash is sent along? That would be my guess for what the prequels can touch on...what the Company knew in the first place about LV426 that caused them to ensure the Nostromo made a landing there.

As mentioned above, the Company is the true evil of the films. The Alien is nasty, but it is what it is - what you see is what you get. The Company, on the other hand, is hidden and shrouded, and you never know where their hand is and what steps they might take.
posted by never used baby shoes at 9:01 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I guess I mentioned this in the last Space Jockey thread, but this idea isn't new for Ridley at all.

In the bonus materials of the special edition Alien DVD, director Ridley Scott expresses the opinion that a film exploring the backstory of the Space Jockey would be an interesting direction for the series to take... Scott suggests... that the Jockey's ship was a "bomber": alien eggs could be dropped on an enemy planet, and the aliens would proceed to kill the population as they spawned. According to Cameron, the Space Jockey's craft picked up alien eggs and the pilot became infected by the dangerous cargo; the ship landed on LV-426 and the Space Jockey transmitted the signal as a warning.

There are also apparently several explorations of the SJ of which I was unaware: Mollo and Cobb's "Alien Portfolio", Alan Dean Foster's novelization of Alien, the Aliens graphic novel, etc.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 9:10 AM on April 28, 2010

What did the Company know and when did they know it?!?

Hopefully these prequels will be more entertaining than a House Committee on Alien Affairs.
posted by mazola at 9:11 AM on April 28, 2010

The problem with Alien is all the folks who came into the series with the second movie. They think it's about busting ass in space

It's a product of ignorance and functional illiteracy. the alien franchise has clearly shifted from being landmark feminist horror to some kind of paradoxically homophobic phallus-worship.

It's been co-opted by the people it criticizes.

Alien, thankfully is still a powerful film despite attempts to diminish it. Aliens, however, has increasingly suffered from "Full Metal Jacket syndrome," where its scathing critique of the military has been been perverted into some kind of decontextualized videogame thing about the wicked-sweet glory of combat.

fans ruin everything, and that goes double for "hey weren't the 80's cool" manchildren.

2 is an abomination, the exception to the rule. The rest of the movies are beautiful horror pics and I think #3 and #4 would be evaluated differently if it weren't for all the #2 fans making loud hooting noises. They're much more in the spirit of the original than the action comedy Cameron crapped out.
posted by toothgnip at 7:36 AM on April 28 [+] [!]

Oops, looks like you completely missed the point too! Did you even watch the movie you're talking about? It starts with Ripley trying in vain to warn the marines their bravado is useless, then it has a montage of them gathering up their weapons, shows a battle scene where their weapons are not only essentially ineffective against the aliens but literally bring about the end of the world (reactor overload) while still failing to kill the antagonist (who uses humanity's own technology against Ripley- namely the elevator and the dropship). As if that weren't enough, there's explicit and totally unambigious on-screen dialogue showing the bravado/guns/hypermasculinity is useless: the entire Hudson character for one. Also RIPLEY: "they're soldiers." NEWT: "It won't make any difference."

Cameron is bashing you over the head with the theme that militarism/action comedy is a Bad Thing and you still can't figure it out even as you're criticising Aliens fans for not getting it.
posted by hamida2242 at 9:19 AM on April 28, 2010 [4 favorites]

The rest of the movies are beautiful horror pics and I think #3 and #4 would be evaluated differently if it weren't for all the #2 fans making loud hooting noises.

For the record, I think #2 is a terrible piece of shit that misses the point of the brilliant #1 entirely, like seeing King Lear and thinking, that was cool and all, but what if the rain on the moor was due to a GIANT ROBOT THAT PISSED ON THINGS and the GHOST OF CORDELIA has to come back TO KILL IT WITH A MAGIC SWORD to AVENGE HER DEAD FATHER

#3 makes a lot of great attempts to get the franchise back on track, but is so inept at creating the spooky unseen horror that its problems are more execution than concept. As someone who hated #2, I think that #3 is bad not because it's not action-packed or whatever, it's just that it fails to live up to what it's trying to do.

I forget most of #4, it's been a while. I should re-watch that.
posted by Greg Nog at 9:25 AM on April 28, 2010 [3 favorites]

And on post, I absolutely do not read the film in the way that hamida2242 does, even though I wish I could. I read its military failures not as critique, but merely as suspense-building leading up to the final military success ("Get away from her, you bitch!")
posted by Greg Nog at 9:27 AM on April 28, 2010

hamida2242:

you make a persuasive argument, which is mostly spot on, but consider this:

War porn is just another kind of porn. Once you include porn in your art it can and will be appropriated by fans and used as porn, no matter how thoroughly you implicitly contextually criticize it.

It is just like those moralistic tales of fallen women and the shifty men who take advantage of them: the moral may be to proselytize chastity and the dangers of a sinful life - but a significant percentage of the audience is just waiting for the dirty stuff so they can get their jollies.
posted by idiopath at 9:28 AM on April 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

Oh, and Zardoz vs Alien

I don't know whether to go with:

(1) THE GUN IS GOOD! THE LITTLE MOUTH THAT SPROINGS OUT OF THE BIG MOUTH IS EVIL!

or

(2) A big flying alien head that pukes a fountain of facehuggers.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:31 AM on April 28, 2010

I think #3 and #4 would be evaluated differently if it weren't for all the #2 fans making loud hooting noises. They're much more in the spirit of the original than the action comedy Cameron crapped out.

Nope. 4 is self-indulgent, ridiculously silly dreck. No horror in it at all, just guards chewing gum and Hedaya chewing scenery and Sigourney doing her several "writhe around with crud for some reason" scenes.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:33 AM on April 28, 2010

I forget most of #4

It had laser whiskey and the alien/human hybrid make a horrible shrieking sound as it was being sucked out into space through a tiny hole in a window made by Ripley's acid blood. There was also a basketball scene.

You're welcome.
posted by Burhanistan at 9:34 AM on April 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

You know you're having a good argument when it's getting to the point of referencing RPG sourcebooks.

Heres's my rough order of canonicity as it applies to the Aliens universe...

Alan Dean Foster novelisation of Aliens > The first two movies, extended cut of aliens > the same without extended cut > The comics > The AvP comics > Aliens movies after aliens > RPG Sourcebook > AvP movies > This new thing Ridley Scott is doing
posted by Artw at 9:35 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Wait, laser whiskey?
posted by Artw at 9:35 AM on April 28, 2010

I mean, the drop ship has nose art on it that says BUG STOMPER -- WE ENDANGER SPECIES. It looks like the Colonial Marines are commonly in the business of eradicating alien infestations.

And if there were no life anywhere beyond bacteria and such, the one suit wouldn't have asked if there were any organisms like that on LV-426, because that would be like asking if there really were leprechauns there. And the other suit wouldn't have given a boring, straight-up answer of "Naw, it's a rock. No indigenous species." You'd only say that if it weren't a stupid question and if other planets did have indigenous species you might want nuked from orbit.

All that can easily be fixed in future editions.
posted by Evilspork at 9:37 AM on April 28, 2010

Wait, laser whiskey?

And bad breath door locks.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:38 AM on April 28, 2010

Wait, laser whiskey?

Clan MacPhoton's 12 Yr
posted by Greg Nog at 9:44 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

the alien/human hybrid make a horrible shrieking sound as it was being sucked out into space through a tiny hole in a window made by Ripley's acid blood.

The original screenplay had Ripley utterly marmalise the New Born with a giant future combine harvester / lawn mower thing which might just have saved the film* instead of going for the same kill as 1 and 2...

*well if every single thing in the film wasn't shit brown in colour
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:44 AM on April 28, 2010

Apparently, Weaver actually made that behind-the-back-no-look swish during a live take.
posted by Burhanistan at 9:48 AM on April 28, 2010 [3 favorites]

The Company, on the other hand, is hidden and shrouded, and you never know where their hand is and what steps they might take.

Until they metaphorically burst from your chest, AMIRITE?!

It starts with Ripley trying in vain to warn the marines their bravado is useless, then it has a montage of them gathering up their weapons, shows a battle scene where their weapons are not only essentially ineffective against the aliens but literally bring about the end of the world (reactor overload) while still failing to kill the antagonist (who uses humanity's own technology against Ripley- namely the elevator and the dropship).

Nah, it's ignorant humans, a battle scene where they're poorly lead, don't have a clue what they're dealing with and a panicked use of weapons which creates the nuclear explosion.

Using the elevator isn't a big deal, IMO and they never used a dropship, just managed to accidently crash one and hitch a ride on another. If you're using Hudson as an example, you have keep in mind Hicks, who's more calmer, rational side was actually leading them correctly (via following Ripley's advice) to use that military weapon to completely get defeat the aliens. Sadly, various hijinks ensue to defeat that plan.

Interesting line of thought hamida2242, but it seems like you have pre-conceived views and are picking and choosing details to fit those views.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:04 AM on April 28, 2010

Laser whiskey (I made it sound cooler than it was...just some kind of freeze drying thing)
posted by Burhanistan at 10:09 AM on April 28, 2010

That better not be single malt.
posted by Artw at 10:20 AM on April 28, 2010

If I recall, it was Jack Daniels.
posted by Burhanistan at 10:21 AM on April 28, 2010

Ah, well they can cube it and laser it all they like then.
posted by Artw at 10:25 AM on April 28, 2010

This has devolved into a pretty great thread. Laser Whiskeys all around!
posted by benzenedream at 11:26 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Then we play knife games!
posted by Artw at 12:01 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

I get to nuke the site from orbit!
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:07 PM on April 28, 2010

My favorite knife games are the ones where the film is obviously sped up.
posted by shakespeherian at 12:08 PM on April 28, 2010

I get to nuke the site from orbit!

You got to nuke the site from orbit LAST time!
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:11 PM on April 28, 2010

This has devolved into a pretty great thread.

If there is one thing MetaFilter does well, it is discussions about the Alien films.

*facehugs all around*
posted by never used baby shoes at 12:20 PM on April 28, 2010 [8 favorites]

The swimming aliens in Alien Resurrection were pretty cool.

I wanted Aliens3 to be called Aliens Aliens! Aliens.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:21 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

I still want to see Jodorowsky make an Alien film.
posted by shakespeherian at 12:28 PM on April 28, 2010 [3 favorites]

This has devolved into a pretty great thread.

Well, it absorbed the DNA of other threads.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:32 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Cameron is bashing you over the head with the theme that militarism/action comedy is a Bad Thing and you still can't figure it out even as you're criticising Aliens fans for not getting it.

No, I understood that was his "message", but you can't expect me to buy that message while Cameron is making billions selling what is essentially war porn. He's a hypocrite.
posted by toothgnip at 12:42 PM on April 28, 2010

Caligulalien

Coagulation vs. Caligualien?
posted by benzenedream at 12:53 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

No, I understood that was his "message", but you can't expect me to buy that message while Cameron is making billions selling what is essentially war porn. He's a hypocrite.

So do you understand the difference between fantasy and reality or not?
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:32 PM on April 28, 2010

battle scene where they're poorly lead, don't have a clue what they're dealing with and a panicked use of weapons

Wow that sounds almost like a metaphor for the increasing irrelvance of traditional warfare- in a movie packed to the gills with Vietnam imagery and more than a little nuclear paranoia.

It's almost as if the movie is harshly criticising Cold War jingoism.......


Also this is why Aliens is so thematically similar to Predator (they even end in roughly the same way).
posted by hamida2242 at 1:36 PM on April 28, 2010

Pope Guilty: the hypocrisy is the same that you get with "lurid tales of fallen women" - while supposedly delivering an antiwar message, he is profiting by feeding the market's desire for exciting war scenes. The only people who get an antiwar message from it are the people who are antiwar already. The gung-ho fans who just want to see some war continue to be gung-ho war fans, despite the message of the film.

It is possible to make an antiwar film with war scenes. But films like Aliens and Full Metal Jacket contain war porn to fanservice for the hawks in the audience, thus making the films hypocritical.
posted by idiopath at 1:39 PM on April 28, 2010

I wanted Aliens3 to be called Aliens Aliens! Aliens

We always refer to it as Alienses: Buttload o' Aliens.
posted by JoanArkham at 1:48 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Did I see a different Full Metal Jacket from everyone else? Now, if you were saying Platoon I would understand.
posted by shakespeherian at 1:49 PM on April 28, 2010

No, I understood that was his "message", but you can't expect me to buy that message while Cameron is making billions selling what is essentially war porn. He's a hypocrite.

I'm not sure how much further Cameron could have gone with criticizing military machismo/war-porn and still have been making an Alien sequel. I mean the imagery is there, the dialogue is there, and the academic analysis is there along with his own words in countless interviews, etc. Alien is probably one of the most dissected franchises ever and the anti-military messages, fear of technology (and needing to appropriate/modify technology in order to survive), and feminist subtext are universally understood from Bumfuck Community College Film Theory 101 for the Semi-literate all the way to Zizek, Lacan, etc.

He's a hypocrite.

Between Aliens, the first 2 Terminator(*) movies and to a lesser extent The Abyss, Cameron has emphatically proven himself to be a harsh critic of militarism/Cold War and a fan of strong feminist subtext. I haven't seen Avatar yet, but from what I understand it's also "military, corporation, macho soldiers bad; (blue) woman good."

*[the first movie is this hypermasculine killing machine destroying the world, and the only hope is, literally, for a woman to create life. Then in the sequel, Sarah goes too far into misandry (in a sympathetic way) and has to relearn that men like Kyle, John and Arnold can be important allies (also similar to Lindsey re-learning to trust/depend on her husband in Abyss). Of course, the abuse by the hospital staff and by her many boyfriends was a big part of that shift into anger and militancy too. Skynet is just the ultimate example of the men who have been messing up her life since her first boss made his waitresses wear those ugly pink dresses. (She sees herself in the pink dress, oblivious to the bomb, during the T2 dream sequence. That's what she would have been if she had not learned to empower herself.) Both movies are loaded with that feminist subtext.]
posted by hamida2242 at 1:52 PM on April 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

shakespeherian: "Did I see a different Full Metal Jacket from everyone else? Now, if you were saying Platoon I would understand."

No, but the people looking for a war porn fix did see a different version. Of course it is an anti war film if you are anti war before watching it. It may be a conversion moment if you are on the fence. But the hawks love that film and remain hawks. Same with Terminator, Predator, and Aliens.
posted by idiopath at 1:59 PM on April 28, 2010

Hmmm, why was such an inexperienced leader sent on mission filled with so many unknowns?

1. Colonial Marines + Facehuggers
2. ???
3. Profit!

I mean, it sort of belies various explanations of motives that they sent both a Marine squadron and a company alien retriever. Both rather inexperienced. (Really, of course, no matter what you come up with, it's just retconning the story choices and limitations imposed. But still.)

War porn is just another kind of porn.

The thing is, Aliens isn't against violence. "Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure." It is against militarism. It's still the ultimate horror, the beast that will. not. die., but it also introduces arguably feminist themes and satirizes institutional responses. "Af-firmative!" Sure, not all get it, but that's what makes it subversive. Almost every scene or shot has a thematic point that echoes back to the main. I'm not arguing it's Truffaut, but it's quite intelligent action film-making and can be appreciated as such.
posted by dhartung at 2:01 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Between Aliens, the first 2 Terminator(*) movies and to a lesser extent The Abyss, Cameron has emphatically proven himself to be a harsh critic of militarism/Cold War and a fan of strong feminist subtext. I haven't seen Avatar yet, but from what I understand it's also "military, corporation, macho soldiers bad; (blue) woman good."

Without putting myself on either side of this argument, I think toothgnip is saying that despite all of this criticism in the subtext of Cameron's films, his films are successful because he is very good at making super awesome blow-em-ups. The hypocrisy isn't that there's no subtext, it's that the subtext is at odds with the text.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:02 PM on April 28, 2010

Did I see a different Full Metal Jacket from everyone else?

The same river never flows twice. But, FMJ had plenty of war porn that idiots found resonance with. Starting with the persecution of Private Pyle, going through with the helicopter gunner mowing down innocents and making a joke about not leading them as much, pitched firefights, and ending with soldiers cheerfully singing the Mickey Mouse theme song as the world burns.

Now, I don't necessarily consider it "hypocritical" of a filmmaker to include so-called war porn in a film that supposedly contains an anti-war message. Filmmakers think and converse in imagery, so they generally try to maximize that which they feel is relevant. Movies like that can be seen more as a kind of psychological mirror than war porn, I think. Some will see the subtle or overt cues and see what the filmmaker was doing, others will just grin stupidly at shit blowing up. But, their job is to sell tickets also, so it's a rather convoluted thing. At best, any message they try to embed is largely an exercise in vanity.
posted by Burhanistan at 2:02 PM on April 28, 2010

Starting with the persecution of Private Pyle

Wait, really? Like, really? There are people who go 'Haha it's awesome that they abused that guy until he shot the drill sergeant and himself!'? I just... wow.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:05 PM on April 28, 2010

In other news Predators looks like it's going to be super-awesome... I was watching one of the 'featurettes' the other day and Danny Trejo's character's sole disguising characteristic (well apart from the fact he's Danny Trejo) appears to be that he carries two Uzis and his elaborate, carefully worked out back-story is, in total, 'he's the baddest drug enforcer in the whole of Mexico'...
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:06 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Wait, really? Like, really? There are people who go 'Haha it's awesome that they abused that guy until he shot the drill sergeant and himself!'? I just... wow.

You should've met some of the boneheads in my freshmen dorm. Wait, no...you're better off not knowing them!
posted by Burhanistan at 2:10 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

I guess then I'd say that there's a difference between saying that Full Metal Jacket includes war porn and saying that certain cretins can get off on anything.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:20 PM on April 28, 2010

I guess then I'd say that there's a difference between saying that Full Metal Jacket includes war porn and saying that certain cretins can get off on anything.

Indeed, that's why I said it was more of a mirror than war porn...without really declaring it 100% either.
posted by Burhanistan at 2:24 PM on April 28, 2010

Wait, really? Like, really? There are people who go 'Haha it's awesome that they abused that guy until he shot the drill sergeant and himself!'? I just... wow.

I would love to be able to disbelieve.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:24 PM on April 28, 2010

suspense-building leading up to the final military success ("Get away from her, you bitch!")

It wasn't a military success. Cameron had to have the Ripley refer to the robot specifically as a non-military machine ("I can drive that loader") specifically so people wouldn't miss the point. He's obviously failed, but it wasn't for lack of trying. One of the things that made the aliens scary was that all the weaponry didn't really do anything to stop the threat (which is why the sentry gun scene was- wisely- removed). Newt survived not in spite of her lack of weapons & training, but because of it. She appropriated the machine (the station) in the same way the aliens did- she moved around almost exclusively in the air vents and even created a nest just like the aliens. Again with the theme of the inferiority of the humans and the superiority of the aliens ("they're soldiers." "it won't make any difference.") Bishop can only get to the radar dish by using an air shaft just like the aliens- and not being an inferior human he gives back the pistol that a marine hands him, again explicitly showing the ineffectiveness of human weaponry. The "7 canisters of CN-20 nerve gas" is stated on-screen to probably not work on the aliens. Even before the ship crashes the combined weapons of the marines are not enough to win- "you can't help them. you can't!" is the response to the suggestion of rescuing Apone.

Every weapon that's shown is used against the aliens to no avail. The marine armor is no match for the acid blood. Even a nuclear explosion (explicitly stated on-screen as the most powerful weapon available- and also stated as actually being too powerful, but being so powerful as to be beyond the realm of what the humans can or should be allowed to use "he can't make that kind of decision, he's just a grunt") doesn't stop the threat. Only by acting like the alien is there any hope- humans are just too weak. Look at Ash's "perfect life" rant, or one of the last lines in 2- "not bad... for a human." Cameron even shows Bishop as being the only character who can survive being literally penetrated by the alien threat, just to drive the point home a little further.

To even stand a chance against the threat, Ripley has to likewise appropriate/modify/cannibalize the technology to suit her own needs, just like the aliens do. She has to "see without eyes" like they do (using the locator bracelet) and she won't even attempt to go to the nest without reconfiguring her gun (with low-tech sticky stuff- duct tape- just like the low-tech sticky resin is used by the aliens).

She reconfigures the machine to serve her interests, while maintaining a degree of separation. The white and yellow suits from the first two films stand out where the aliens blend in. By expelling the aliens out the airlocks, Ripley is establishing what's her territory.
posted by hamida2242 at 2:32 PM on April 28, 2010 [3 favorites]

Damn, how did I miss out on the Aliens sentry gun deleted scenes until now?

*goes to watch some war pr0n on Youtube*
posted by Burhanistan at 2:36 PM on April 28, 2010

his films are successful because he is very good at making super awesome blow-em-ups.

That idiots like it for the wrong reasons or are intentionally misinterpreting the movie doesn't change what it is. Like the college students the other poster mentioned who thought Full Metal Jacket is a movie about super awesome war porn or eskimo pussy jokes. Hell, check out fans of Fight Club if you really want to see this in action.

Fortunately, idiot fans can only ruin future art; and can't change art that's already been made. That's why we got AVP instead of a retroactive fucking up of Aliens (as happened with the original Star Wars trilogy)- only Lucas could do that, and not hordes of manchildren with "canonical" comic books or game manuals.
posted by hamida2242 at 2:38 PM on April 28, 2010

and she won't even attempt to go to the nest without reconfiguring her gun (with low-tech sticky stuff- duct tape- just like the low-tech sticky resin is used by the aliens).

Um, reconfiguring her gun so she can shoot, use a flame thrower, and launch grenades.

Ripley doesn't succeed against the aliens where the marines failed because she thinks like an alien, she succeeds against the queen because she thinks like a mother, and understands that the queen will prioritize protecting her young.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:41 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Ah, and just in case anyone else hasn't seen it, this deleted scene illustrates how the aliens infected the colony on LV-426.
posted by Burhanistan at 2:53 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

But, FMJ had plenty of war porn that idiots found resonance with. Starting with the persecution of Private Pyle, going through with the helicopter gunner mowing down innocents and making a joke about not leading them as much, pitched firefights, and ending with soldiers cheerfully singing the Mickey Mouse theme song as the world burns.

Idiots thinking it's war porn doesn't make it war porn- just like the fact that there are people who are sexually attracted to animals doesn't mean a zoo is a strip club.

FMJ is one of those movies where it really can't get any more obvious that it's totally against war. One of the very first spoken lines in the movie calls marines "phony tough and crazy brave." With the helicopter scene, Kubrick was afraid that showing Joker/Raptorman with disgusted looks on their faces would have been to subtle, so in addition to that he shows Raptorman almost puking- several times. The firefight ends with a gut-shot child writhing in pain, pleading with the marines to put her out of her misery- and the marines just ogle her, letting her suffer. If that's not a condemnation of battle then what is? "Mickey Mouse" is about an obvious reference to cultural imperialism (to complement the military imperialism already shown). Also the marines are singing it right after the dying kid scene- to show the obliviousness/indifference of america toward the vietnamese. This is at the end of a movie where nearly every marine is shown as either a racist, coward, or bloodthirsty sociopath.

FMJ is one of the most heavily critical movies of Vietnam war + the American military as ever there was- and still there are people who watch it and think it's war porn. Maybe shitty movies like "Jumper" or "Glitter" are what we collectively deserve after all.
posted by hamida2242 at 2:58 PM on April 28, 2010

along with his own words in countless interviews, etc.

yeah but cameron also thought avatar was good so that sort of complicates how much weight we can give to the authorial intent on this dude
posted by Greg Nog at 2:59 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Let me just put a word out there:

"warotica"
posted by cortex at 3:06 PM on April 28, 2010 [8 favorites]

succeed against the aliens where the marines failed because she thinks like an alien, she succeeds against the queen because she thinks like a mother, and understands that the queen will prioritize protecting her young.
posted by shakesp

wtf are you talking about. of course she starts thinking like the alien. she even starts thinking like the queen- the main alien.

the queen wasn't just a mother, it was THE mother (literally the combination of the alien from part 1 with Mother from part 1). protect eggs=protect Newt. greatest threat to alien: ripley hurting eggs=greatest threat to Ripley: queen hurting Newt. queen converts station=Ripley converts forklift. queen drives Ripley out of egg chamber=ripley "blows her out of the god damn airlock."

This is even more obvious than the Vietnam references. Watch the movie (you can even cheat by listening to commentary/special features). It's not an easter egg or something it's actually one of the main themes of the whole movie.
posted by hamida2242 at 3:10 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Ah, and just in case anyone else hasn't seen it, this deleted scene illustrates how the aliens infected the colony on LV-426.

Something about the kids and the parents in the space-truck reminded me of the ewok movie.
posted by flaterik at 3:16 PM on April 28, 2010

That was a good scene to delete.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:17 PM on April 28, 2010 [3 favorites]

If it's in the novelisation, it's ultra-canon.
posted by Artw at 3:23 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

I think someone on another forum said it best when he said his ideal version of the prequel would be

"I'm picturing the ideal version of how this would go down, and I'm thinking like David Lynch at his most abstract. Just like a static camera slowly zooming in on the discordant screeching of elephant men fused to chairs."

in response to someone saying they wanted to see "some surreal nightmare-like art film on the lives if this alien culture with out any translation or idea of whats going on in dialogue leading up to the events of the crash."

Now that would be something to see!
posted by hamida2242 at 3:30 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

yeah but cameron also thought avatar was good

Avatar was a masterpiece and further thought about it makes hamida2242 comments concerning Aliens must more sensible, IMO.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:01 PM on April 28, 2010

Anthony Swofford on war movies in Jarhead (p. 8):

There is talk that many Vietnam films are antiwar, that the message is war is inhumane and look what happens when you train young American men to fight and kill, they turn their fighting and killing everywhere, they ignore their targets and desecrate the entire country, shooting fully automatic, forgetting they were trained to aim. But actually, Vietnam movies are all pro-war, no matter what the supposed message, what Kubrick or Coppola or Stone intended. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson in Omaha or San Francisco or Manhattan will watch the films and weep and decide once and for all that war is inhumane and terrible, and they will tell their friends at church and their family this, but Corporal Johnson at Camp Pendleton and Sergeant Johnson at Travis Air Force Base and Seaman Johnson at Coronado Naval Station and Spec 4 Johnson at Fort Bragg and Lance Corporal Swofford at Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Base watch the same films and are excited by them, because the magic brutality of the films celebrates the terrible and despicable beauty of their fighting skills. Fight, rape, war, pillage, burn. Filmic images of death and carnage are pornography for the military man; with film you are stroking his cock, tickling his balls with the pink feather of history, getting him ready for his real First Fuck. It doesn't matter how many Mr. and Mrs. Johnsons are antiwar--the actual killers who know how to use the weapons are not.

posted by kirkaracha at 4:15 PM on April 28, 2010

I don't really like Aliens that much. I think it's the movie that speaks to dudes who do the "USA! USA! USA!" chant at hockey games; Alien is for movie nerds. I also don't think much of James Cameron as a filmmaker, although I think The Terminator is great (and should never have had a sequel), and...also I like Titanic? I know that's not very cool to admit, but there you go. So anyway, I guess, take this all with that in mind, but: Even though I think Aliens is a loud, obnoxious movie that's too long and fucks up the creature design and makes it all rocky and ugly and stupid and I don't totally loathe the movie but I also just don't see the big deal at all, Cameron was smart to make a sequel that was a complete tonal shift from the original. Because you can't make Alien better; you can only make Alien different. This is actually a pretty ballsy way to approach any sequel, and I am hard-pressed to think of too many other directors who pulled it off (much less walked away with a bigger hit than the original movie). And I think, as others have more or less said above, that the major failing of most of the Alien stuff that has come since has been the attempt to remake Aliens -- not because Aliens sucked, but because it only worked because it was its own film. If Cameron had tried to make a film that was more or less the same as Scott's, it would have been a disappointment. I think the same is true of Scott now.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:31 PM on April 28, 2010

kittens, what do you think of hamida's analysis?
posted by Pope Guilty at 4:49 PM on April 28, 2010

protect eggs=protect Newt. greatest threat to alien: ripley hurting eggs=greatest threat to Ripley: queen hurting Newt. queen converts station=Ripley converts forklift. queen drives Ripley out of egg chamber=ripley "blows her out of the god damn airlock."

Look if you're not even going to take this seriously I'm not going to be able to talk to you.
posted by shakespeherian at 6:16 PM on April 28, 2010

Look if you're not even going to take this seriously I'm not going to be able to talk to you.

Well it went from people discussing whether or not Frost really had a gay fling in an Arcturian bath-house to a people lamenting the franchise isn't enough like a comic book, with other posters claiming alien 2 was war porn for hockey fans (just like Full Metal Jacket) and still more failing to see thematic connections or willfully ignoring crystal-clear imagery, explicit allegory, and even dialogue in all the movies; so I'm not sure this is the "serious discussion" thread to begin with. I mean, we've even got "James Cameron doesn't know how to make movies" up in here.

To give the benefit of the doubt, most people drawing incorrect conclusions or just talking nonsense (not saying you're one of those people) probably haven't actually seen alien 2 in the several years, and are just going off what they remember way back when they were a kid and smartguns were totally bitchin'.

So fuck it, let's talk about laser-whiskey, comics, and game rulebooks instead.
posted by hamida2242 at 7:48 PM on April 28, 2010

I mean, we've even got "James Cameron doesn't know how to make movies" up in here.

Really? Who said that?
posted by Greg Nog at 7:53 PM on April 28, 2010

To give the benefit of the doubt, most people drawing incorrect conclusions or just talking nonsense (not saying you're one of those people) probably haven't actually seen alien 2 in the several years, and are just going off what they remember way back when they were a kid and smartguns were totally bitchin'.

Or are just kind of relaxing and enjoying some bullshitting, honestly. I appreciate that you have a finely honed interpretation of Aliens and I genuinely dig you going into it, but there's been this underlying tone of "you guys are idiots, why don't you understand that this is exactly the correct way to interpret Aliens/War movies/film/etc", intentional or otherwise, that's kind of off-putting and making the thread a bit less fun than it otherwise had been.
posted by cortex at 7:57 PM on April 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

Avatar was a masterpiece and further thought about it makes hamida2242 comments concerning Aliens must more sensible, IMO.

Maybe he saw Alien Resurrection and was like "oh, so you retards want computer generated aliens, do you?" Or maybe he figured if idiots were going to watch his movies and have dumb opinions about them anyway, why not see how far the rabbit hole goes- and lo and behold losers have to go to the shrink because Avatar isn't real.

Talk about owned.
posted by hamida2242 at 7:58 PM on April 28, 2010

I appreciate that you have a finely honed interpretation of Aliens and I genuinely dig you going into it, but there's been this underlying tone of "you guys are idiots, why don't you understand that this is exactly the correct way to interpret Aliens/War movies/film/etc", intentional or otherwise, that's kind of off-putting and making the thread a bit less fun than it otherwise had been.

Thank you.
posted by zarq at 8:00 PM on April 28, 2010

The lamella is extra-flat...
posted by Crabby Appleton at 8:28 PM on April 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

kittens, what do you think of hamida's analysis?

I think hamida's pretty much right and that Aliens is not a film that is meant to celebrate death and destruction, etc. (although that's Cameron kinda having it both ways, as this film and much of the rest of his filmography as devoted to dramatizing militaristic action in loving detail; I'm not saying Cameron's politics as a filmmaker are bullshit, exactly, just that I think "make war no more!" is the basic subtext of a lot of war movies made by people who tend to make lots of war movies, and after a while the protest aspect begins to seem a bit disingenuous, and like just another trope of the war film...which is a much bigger subject...moving on!), and does have some not terribly subtle feminist themes, which is all well and good. I just don't like the movie a whole lot. I think it's the movie that Cameron set out to make, and I think it's well-made, but it's really not my thing.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:02 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Here's AO Scott on Aliens: "sheer astonishing moviemaking craft."
posted by muckster at 9:23 PM on April 28, 2010

wait, Avatar isn't rea....
NOoooooooooooooooooooooo
I don't see what's wrong with going back to a universe that is familiar to an audience In fact, personally, I enjoy multi-movie projects more than most 'mainstream' that is a 'stand-alone' movie... if you really hate one of the other movies, pretend they don't exist, it's not too hard, I often forget the plot of Alien Resurrection, and think, hey, wasn't that one pretty decent?and every time I go back, I then remember some of the odder parts {basketball?why?oh, k, I guess} but eh, it's nice to return to familiar filmic places, and its interesting to watch growth of people as creators and artists, and in their ideas.

Cameron surely made a good movie with aliens, and he has managed to get new perspectives on old ideas (the reunion of a separated couple {at the bottom of the ocean with intelligent water} it is pretty hard to say with a straight face that "Cameron sucks at filmmaking" or something, he's actually pretty amazing [/liked titanic/sue me], and always has a 'unique' take on familiar stories).HRGeigercounter; that's some amazing surreal realism art you create, thank you. I appreciate your work. and in the end I find I go, yeah, wow, that universe of ideas has a lot of places to go doesn't it, a free slate really.

I agree with the sentiment of not wanting to make the new prequel a "known" universe, like one where its all "oh, yeah, that's a blargity blout, ehehehehe, omg, don't you know that? You silly main character" where they make the main character be naive but everyone else is total information, so the audience feels like it's a universe that they might survive in... but also I hope it is a strong departure from where the series has been, back to the frontiers and the cold, and the dark, and far away from earth, hey, what kind of 'ore' were they hauling anyway? hmmm (I for one would like to see the last frames of the first prequel be the 'loading of a load of ore', into the cargo bucket that will be picked up by... and camera shot over the shoulder of a loading dock crew member, tight to a shot of the clipboard... "Nostromos, 1900 hours, tomorrow pickup destination, earth"). credits roll.

the "ruination" of your favorite series (and by association, the memories and feeling connected to when you first experienced those stories) is only as 'frustrating' or 'heart breaking' as you let it be.

Even when they suck, (I am coughing whilst saying *Terminator 3* right now) if nothing else, it brings more people to see the better qualities, and originality of the precursors.
Besides, if you want to get technical, didn't the "original" Alien movie "ruin" Darkstar? Maybe a remix of that storyline would be a prime direction for the new mov..

There always seemed to be a hugeness to the universe depicted in those moves and the associated media (The future of storytelling is multimedia, hey, even the past and present are...Versus predator movie not so great. But Danny Glover. classic.) the potential, and the 'scale' of this particular universe... it is a source of a plethora of unique ideas, concepts modes and themes and ways of looking at it. (anything from a "space marines action adventure" like a movie about halo for fast twitch gamers, to a slow, emotional drama like solaris [please make this; if you err on the side of 'too boring' but with some sci-fi, and THE ALIEN it's like nuking the place from orbit. {this is a good thing}], the potential for story 'types' in sci-fi is pretty massive; I for one would welcome much more science and predictive fiction in my Hollywood..., rather than what we keep getting fed more and more of; things aiming only to shock, and make someone ask, why on earth would someone make that for people to see? why do they do such horrible things? So little "visionary" stuff, "predictive", or "forward looking", so many movies today about "cell phones" and "international intrigue", and human caterpillars of evil medical scientists and stuff.

*Here's a question for the great 'aliens' debate of 'oh10... would you prefer movies makers who end up coming off as hypocritical when they have an 'element' of the 'warporn'... but the movie is FULL of, and dripping with the anti-war mythos ... but war hawks get off on it, and in some edge cases are convinced that war sucks; or would you prefer ACTUAL hawks making the movies, with ACTUAL pro-warporn, and actual pro war movies... because for me, I prefer the people who 'go for anti war', but mess up and make somethign that hawks like [as noted by others, fans of "warotica" will get off on the idea of violence whether it is packaged in an antiwar message, or not [they will just go to places that COMPLETELY 'target' their 'prowar' bias... and never be exposed to a good anti-war message if there is "no-war" in an anti-war movie.*

talking about star wars
For people comparing with 'star wars'... I think there is a real misunderestimation of the film maker Lucas, he has "everything they filmed" for the prequels (the original 'greenscreen' footage; before-cgi additions and each of the backgrounds layers and digital color-filter layers added; the 'special editions' of those movies may be pretty unrecognizable, to what everyone seems to hate or rather, the 'biggest complaints' --(cartoony, annoying animations, unrealistic, cartoony sounds, fake looking cgi characters, scenery too scrubbed, too sparse in the early one, too dense in the last etc., [remember the post about the blue and orange in movies, episode 1 feels several shades too bright and light of a blue very often, I am pretty sure this is adding to the 'cartoon feeling' of the first and second prequel compared to the real emotional tone of the movies are trying to convey, and something about the shades and tints in episode two feel like with some reduction or shifting of the oranges, with just some cgi touch ups and work on the digital color balancing, it would be a long way towards the 60's detective/space adventure movie I think he wanted; three they had vastly improved in the area of texturing and shading, much more 'realistic' {I get that it was a metaphor with the clean---> dirty universe}, but I think the cgi wasn't there yet as they were making the first two movies, it has been leaping forward pretty amazingly quickly].
Lucas much playing a part in the advancement, where theater chains and a lot of the studios had stagnated, with not real innovation, because of innovation and reinvestment from Lucas, and the other "big-event movie making cadre that they have, cgi modeling is slowly trickling down to the public; or how about digital projectors, he insisted that the biggest venues buy some of the first digital projectors around '99.)-- will quite possibly be made null. Besides, he has full body scans of the actors with their costumes on doesn't he? And digitizations of their voices. But I will wait until the next time star wars is mentioned to get into why I think he has a "good idea" in what he did with the prequels (making them like "frameworks" which tell the arching story, then have the tapestry of short animation, writing, video games, and other stories from new media to "fill in, and make us care about the characters"... I think he did an imperfect job, and he made them "too" frame worky- but I think the successful story tellers of the coming generations will use this ability to much better success.
/talking about star wars

Looking at the "timeline" link, and finding that terminators did get crossed with the series before, sounds like people hated the execution of tying in terminator timeline (but they need to connect, don't you see it? I mean, don't you?) I love the idea... they fit together.

Spoiler*************************...well, not really.
Alia; the first of it's kind. Plot outline of the next two prequels...

[weyland-yutani (the "shadowy" "evil" corporation, which in my twist, is 'not' the evil, they are our secret guardians) actually stopped the final terminator war by seeking out (as seen in all the movies) and re-engineering the xenomorphs, who were themselves engineered by these pilot guys to destroy some galaxy threatening menace millions of years ago... that is why they have been trying so hard to capture xenomorph specimens, and it is why they have been so secretive, it's a cycle, everything that happened before will happen again] as you may notice, this ties up, and goes full circle with the concept of "biological life" being superior to even humanities most 'powerful' and rapidly firing weapons. Even with a billion bullets in those 'autoguns'... the aliens could just keep on coming, they are biological, they reproduce... our technologies only sustain if we keep teaching sciences, and only stay "high tech" if we keep advancing our science (which Cameron seems to have as a favorite theme {the technology of the benthic explorer cut off from the rest of 'science' becomes powerless, literally, and figuratively, the failures of the helicopters in avatar, the titanic, the drop-ships crashing in aliens, the reactor going critical... always technology is failing us; especially when we are more "self assured" about its grand superiority.

...surely the nostromos wasn't the 'only' hauler out there fumbling around in the cold-dark; so far as I know, it would not break any timeline to have unexpected ideas incorporated into these prequels.)

1st new prequel elevator pitch; Very 'small' story, small group dynamics, tough crew, middle nowhere, story, aliens. Obliquely learn that terminators have risen before... and they will rise again... but overall,very slow, and sparse, something that gives us people we will love, and root for in...
Credits.
2nd new prequel elevator pitch; story continues, and similar to the experience of Ripley, floating in space for so long prior to "aliens" starting, we begin #2 with our people from prequel 1 ending up at a far out rim of the galaxy transit relay lane, it is on an old, out of the way but now almost totally abandoned shortcut of a shipping route, a small cramped old star-ignition ship, set up to teraform star systems[dark star], and set up to last a 1000 years, ...Begin Credit/Title sequence... "552 years later". Our people are awakened when the auto sensors, which they had set up to notify of passing ships, since they are stranded without fuel to get their ship anywhere where people might pass by more frequently, they had decided to go into cryo-sleep, and await someone passing... terminators exist when they wake up and are picked up by a pretty beleaguered ship; with several small hauler sized, but clearly bristling with armaments, we see that 'robotics' theme again, and see that 'ai' and robotics can be done in a way respecting the individuality of software, in the simple fact that they are not using 'the same' electrons, robotics 'dna' was discovered buried in the frequencies and spins of electrons, mean while we learn that 'the company' has really been seeking out the aliens all these years as yes, a bio weapon, because they got a warning about terminators at the place where the terminators thrive; originally, in the prime timeline humans created only the ai, skynet, it was once "skynet had been conceived", that the future was set in motion, and it was actually from the far future that a malevolent future presence sent back the first plans for the advanced robotics and ultra-special metals that built the terminators, and it was when the company found a message from several hundred years ago, trapped in a place like the antarctic... the 'company' has been working all these years, spurred by the leader, to find a way to fight this "great robotic threat" that they were warned about [to throw a twist on the 'evil' corporation seeking bioweapon thing] by 552 years later, the 'company' no longer exists, there is a democratic government, and it's actually a pretty happy ending (and goes ALL the way around everything anyone may, may not, may maybe not like about all of the sequels.)
also;SomeoneplzhelpremakeDark staragainplz. I pretty much just want to see a new take on 'dark star'.


tl;dr, I am weird, and prefer to "re"enter a particular universe, with new tales and stories very often, as I like the familiarity of the "level of suspension of disbelief" and "universe", the idea of coming back to an old place; seeing more, recognizing how much was "off-screen" before, I think that the only time there is a failure with "sequels" is when there is an alteration in the "level" of suspension of disbelief (I am thinking of the Cartoony "bang" and clatter sounds most noticeable in the "chase scene", that Terminator three had, where the other films had nothing like this in the sound design. Same thing with the 'cartoony' sounds in the star wars prequels, where the others have a very 'muted', and 'fictional, but realistic' sound design. I am also weird in that I have no problem with people coming back to their creations and tweaking them.
btw, I watched Aliens about a month ago, the special edition, and I enjoyed the extra scenes that had been added; can I still talk about it?
/passes the beach ball back to pinback
posted by infinite intimation at 10:08 PM on April 28, 2010

It looks like that in my brain too, but I'm not very good at getting it out. Cheers!
posted by flaterik at 11:34 PM on April 28, 2010

kirkaracha: "It doesn't matter how many Mr. and Mrs. Johnsons are antiwar--the actual killers who know how to use the weapons are not."

If making anti-war war movies only succeeds in converting the non-soldiers to the anti-war cause, because soldiers are always pro-war no matter what, doesn't that mean the anti-war war movies succeed as much as any other form of anti-war statement?
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 11:55 PM on April 28, 2010

What about anti-war films made by ex-soldiers? This guy, f'rinstance.
posted by Sys Rq at 12:15 AM on April 29, 2010

hamida2242, for your contributions to this thread I wish to marry you, regardless of whatever your gender or species is.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 8:07 AM on April 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

doesn't that mean the anti-war war movies succeed as much as any other form of anti-war statement?

- only if 'movies about war' were the prime cause of, or contributory factor to wars occurring. The thing is, people come to "pro"-war ideology for a multitude of reasons, some logical, honest, and compassionate, simply wanting to protect the "greater good", others for unspeakable, hateful reasons. It is not up to an anti-war activist to "pick and choose" who is 'worthy', or 'ready' to understand their message.

I personally have always found more value and quality and thought provoking, emotive and evocative imagery from the movies which didn't go for "one more shattered body" shown, or one more mass of digital characters you could never know, and only barely see dying, and surely aren't "encouraged to care about the death of" in scenes like '2012' from last year.
To filmmakers don't think you are intrinsically "making a better movie" when you show more graphic shattering of bodies in war movies, to make a real story, show the shattering of spirit. Show the suffering and shattering of the lives of people on the sidelines of wars.
...then the best storytellers (IMO) are not content at merely shattering spirit, the best find an overcoming of that...some lesson, even if it is an anti-lesson. (I am thinking the prequel sequel could look like farewell to arms... in space.with lazers, but not too powerful. But it would definitely have lazer whiskey, if it were to be a 'farewell to arms' interpolation.) some would hate that idea with a passion, (I've seen avatar reviews), I would like.

There are so many people to send this message to... I think everyone needs to learn it in a slightly different way, we all come to our 'truths' in different ways; why not "anti-war" ideas.
How do you convince people that when you hear 'war' as an answer; you need to ask right there, what is the question.
How do you win?
How do you convince people who support war intrinsically to always seek alternatives?
Subvert the ironic rhinoceros.

oh,or, were saying that all soldiers support war?
And never their heart could change? That no media or message can make a soldier say.. "I cannot enter a situation prepared to shoot another person, unsure if they may be innocent".
I don't think that is an accurate assessment. The fact that there are laws that prevent 'dropping out'... is very different from freedom to think and form opinions and ideas.
I think there are soldiers who abhor violence (the stereotype of redbull fueled maniacs just there seeking their "first blood", and "excited" to "kill" may "happen" or "occur", however this flat out does not describe everyone, also not everyone stays with the military forever, but they do believe that people ought to have a 'protectorate' group, an army and the feeling that it is important to serve the country in some manner... also because of those laws, it is up to citizens to voice a peace agenda, because if civilians don't, there just isn't any one else who rightly can voice that idea.

How about this soviet era soldier, who fought in Afghanistan, and now maintains the soviet/Afghanistan mission museum?

I would tell a young soldier going into Afghanistan try not to fire a weapon, When you come home you start to realize that You followed the orders that sometimes contradicted your personal beliefs; and That’s what you have to live with for the rest of your life.

The reality is that there are citizens who do support pre-emptive war (the bush doctrine [so glad I wrote that out on my hand before coming back in here;]) and so it very much is needed to promote such ideas, in packages with different readings, but clear impressions of the so many potential lines of storytelling techniques on the spectrum from positive reinforcement, to anti-war messages and the levels on which war imagery impacts the different people involved as observers and audience. unrecognizable perhaps at one stage of some individuals life... but humans are not constant, they bend, learn and experiences shape us - to discuss soldiers, the 'gung ho', who may get a rush when they watch a movie that is anti-war, but shows the horror of some 'warotica' -in a great many situations like this, real soldiers do not come home (after war) in the same state as they leave (before war), I would advance. And so yes, maybe some person who has is preparing to ship away to fight a war will get giddy when they see "warotica"... this does not guarantee that they will see the same movie when they come home (even if they watch the "same" movie [as Burhanistan noted; difficult it is to step in the same river twice.])
posted by infinite intimation at 10:30 AM on April 29, 2010

Hippies ruin everything.
posted by Artw at 10:35 AM on April 29, 2010

Or, another way of saying that would be 'only that in you which is me, can truly hear and see what I am saying.'
posted by infinite intimation at 10:37 AM on April 29, 2010

HipPies ruIn evErything.
Quoted; with randomly inserted capital letters for the effect of double the impact and zing, and to emphasize that the word "pie" is in there.

Also; take out the I in ruin, now let's slow it down, and play that quote again
"Hippies run everything." -back and to the left.
posted by infinite intimation at 10:45 AM on April 29, 2010

Hippies better not ruin pie.

/sets up sentry guns.
posted by Artw at 10:56 AM on April 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

only one way to be sure.

/Radios in requesting danger close release of nukes. Oscar Mike.
posted by infinite intimation at 11:10 AM on April 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Hippies better not ruin pi

We won't. Have you ever noticed how fascinating irrational numbers can be when you're tripping?
posted by hippybear at 12:06 PM on April 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

Three point one four one love, man.
posted by cortex at 12:14 PM on April 29, 2010 [3 favorites]

Is that the first time that Pi, a classic Aliens reference, and tennis scoring have been conjoined? And with such economy!
posted by Burhanistan at 12:18 PM on April 29, 2010

Is that the first time that Pi, a classic Aliens reference, and tennis scoring have been conjoined?

Yeah, maybe if you don't read my conspiracy blog.
posted by shakespeherian at 12:24 PM on April 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

One four....
One love....
Let's get together and
Nuke the site from orbit...
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:59 PM on April 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

They post aliens quotes all night.... mostly.
posted by Artw at 1:15 PM on April 29, 2010 [5 favorites]

I was hoping someone would be able to id the quote from my final tag, actually. :)
posted by zarq at 1:50 PM on April 29, 2010

Here are the facts! I never read tags.
posted by cortex at 2:01 PM on April 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Doesn't that guy get killed during that meeting, zarq? I'm not eager to rewatch Alien³ to check.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:23 PM on April 29, 2010

That's ok cortex. We tolerate anybody. Even the intolerable.
posted by never used baby shoes at 2:29 PM on April 29, 2010

Yep. Andrews said it twice, in two different meetings. During the second meeting, Ripley bursts in and says "It's here! It got Clemens!" and when Andrews tells her to stop raving and tries to have her dragged back to the infirmary, the Alien reaches down from an airshaft in the ceiling and grabs him.

Quotes here.

And the moral of the stories are... Always Listen to Ripley.
posted by zarq at 2:31 PM on April 29, 2010

Always Listen to Ripley.

Okay, but should we believe it or not?
posted by Sys Rq at 2:37 PM on April 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

A freind of mine recently tweeted that he was drinking with someone who went to prom with Newt. There was much nerdy quoting after that.

(obviously this would be a better story if it wasn't second hand over Twitter)
posted by Artw at 2:45 PM on April 29, 2010

Newt didn't act in anything else and is now a schoolteacher.
posted by Burhanistan at 2:47 PM on April 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

See? being in ET gets you addicted to coke, being in Aliens makes you a schoolteacher.
posted by Artw at 2:52 PM on April 29, 2010

She mostly teaches night school, mostly.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:21 PM on April 29, 2010 [8 favorites]

Hey, Carrie Henn, has anyone every mistaken you for a student?*

* Would work better if asker was in high school.
posted by Artw at 3:22 PM on April 29, 2010

My mommy always said there were no teachers - no real ones - but there are.
posted by benzenedream at 4:43 PM on April 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

She went to that school with no weapons and no training!
posted by Artw at 4:52 PM on April 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

"These people are here to learn from you. They're students."

"It won't make any difference."
posted by brundlefly at 4:57 PM on April 29, 2010 [4 favorites]

"Ms. Henn. My name's Ms. Henn. Nobody calls me Carrie, except my TA."
posted by cortex at 5:00 PM on April 29, 2010 [4 favorites]

Mrs. Henn! It's nice to see you at the grocery store! I really like your class; how are your kids this year?

They're dead! All right? Can I go now?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:26 AM on April 30, 2010 [5 favorites]

"Mrs Henn! No fair for giving me an N for participation! You didn't give Casey an N, and she never speaks up in class!"

"Bobby... Casey doesn't speak up in class because Casey's just a piece of plastic."
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:04 AM on April 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

This thread just keeps on giving.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:11 AM on April 30, 2010

/pulls out Thomas The Tank Engine icepack
I like to keep this handy... for ouchies.
posted by Artw at 10:36 AM on April 30, 2010 [2 favorites]

I'm ambivalent about sequels and prequels. They will be made because it's instant profit, but I suppose I fall in line with most fans and would like them to try to do a decent job. Because once you fuck it up, it's like getting a shit stain (like Alien 4) on a new pair of shoes. No matter how well you scrub and wash it out there will always be a stench connected with them. I guess that's why remakes and reboots are so popular, they are as much about washing your hands of the whole previous affair as they are about gathering dormant interest from the original.

So I suppose I'm interested in seeing any new iterations of really cool open-ended stuff. Like the new Predator movie, and if anyone hasn't seen it yet:

Predators

P.S. Maybe I'm a bit jaded but not much in this thread made me more than "hmphf" with knowing pleasure. But that "Avatar is a masterpiece" line...man, that was funny.
posted by P.o.B. at 6:09 PM on May 1, 2010

did anyone weigh in on the question from the post and linked articles? I for one missed it because there were too many series of beans on the plate already, and the introduction of a new kind, and then there were all the accouterments, condiments and associated franchises and brands...

I guess I would go with Summer Glau, in order for it to be the terminator timeline intersection. (Vasquez, Drake, Cortex, hold your fire!!)
Lady Gaga?
Actually, I think Lady Gaga was born to fulfill the teleology of being the star of Ridley Scott's Opus magnum, if you take my french.--I'm saying it's like a movie where the star plays an orchestra at the end...

This series can have replicants... I am qualified to post now (I watched the director commentary guided special edition of that small 'horror' film).
He refers to the rob-ots of alien as replicants (I am not expert, isn't that what he called the blade runnrz?)
posted by infinite intimation at 12:10 AM on May 27, 2010