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Post by legios on Mar 23, 2012 23:26:57 GMT
Alien is a masterclass in isolated-cast-horror-movies. It is really an exercise in timing and pacing. Aliens draws so heavily on the iconography of the Vietnam war (seriously, the Colonial Marines look and sound so much like a couple of US Army rifle squads of that era) and I think that is why it has not aged as well.
Alien speaks much more to universals - the un-nameable something lurking in the dark just out of the firelight. I think that is why it still has the ability to get into my bones in a way that the rest of the series really don't. It speaks to the atavistic fear of being preyed upon in the way that Aliens really doesn't. (Scott's original instincts when he cut the later "egg" scene from the film were right - we don't need to know why, we don't need to know the creatures lifecycle, all we need to kn now is that it is hunting us, and killing us and that it is better at it).
Karl
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Post by The Doctor on Mar 23, 2012 23:31:25 GMT
Yes the infamous egg scene adds nothing.
-Ralph
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Post by legios on Mar 23, 2012 23:43:26 GMT
I do have a soft spot for Alien 3. It's a mess, but I've always found it to be an intriguing mess especially in the alternate cut. -Ralph Alien 3, in both cuts, always seems to me to be trying to work out what it is actually trying to say - almost as if the film is being assembled and sorted out whilst it is actually running in front of the eyes. It feels very much liked a pile of half-formed ideas. But at least the ideas are actually there, and it feels like the Director is trying to make them take shape. Resurrection always makes me think that any ideas there are exist because the cast are in revolt against the Director rather than being part of a vision. Actually, that is the thing that intriques me about Prometheus - the idea that it is Scott coming back to the universe of Alien, specifically, and not necessarily of the sequels and taking the concepts of Alien, and whatever ideas he comes to it with at the opposite end of his career. I don't think that can be less than interesting. Karl |
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Post by Toph on Mar 24, 2012 1:35:56 GMT
I guess it helps in that I have a very low opinion of humans in general, and find them to be less than interetsing. Anything that focuses on "human nature" or such tends to lose my interests fasts.
However, I've always been an amature zoologist, paleozoologist, and xenozoologist. Have studied animals for as long as I could read books, and understand TV.
Show me an interesting animal, real or ficticious, and I'll want to know as much as I can about it.
And in cinema, there are few creatures more interesting, or better thought out than the Xenomorphs.
Maybe that's one reason I don't care for Alien, or Alien 3. The creature is a single solitary monster out to get the poor little humans that I don't care much for in the first place.
Aliens however started developing them based on the idea of "What if these were real animals, and not monsters? How would they work? How could they survive, and preproduce?"
As soon as the filmmakers address it from that angle, then it makes them real, and then it makes them scarey.
A lion is not a solitary predator. One lion is not terribly scarey as a villain. However, if you find yourself having to fend off an entire pride of lions, hunting as they would and should? Then that's scarey.
The more an animal behaves like an animal, and less like a monster, the better I like it, the better I can get into the story, and the scarier the predators are. (Which is one reason I can't get into Avatar.)
One xeno drone, verses one woman alone on a spaceship just doesn't create a very interesting plot for me.
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Stomski
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Post by Stomski on Mar 26, 2012 11:21:56 GMT
I think I may have confused the point I was trying to make.
Prometheus appears to indeed be located on LV-426 (?), but this is different from the Alien's homeworld as set out by the comics. See Outbreak(?)/Genocide comics and Earth Hive.
The latter I suspect will not be mentioned in Prometheus, with Scott going for something more akin to Legios' point.
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Jim
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Post by Jim on Mar 26, 2012 13:53:24 GMT
I would be more excited if I'd seen the trailers without all the foreknowledge of years in development hell and that it was Ridley Scott and Damon Lindelof.
Scott hasn't made a good movie in goodness knows how long (Alien is probably his best) and Lost was the best thing on TV by the end of season 2 and from then on became a sporadically entertaining waste of potential (although when it was good it was very, very good).
As for Alien vs Aliens, I agree the first is the better movie but I've watched Aliens many more times. I find I need to be prepared to watch Alien but the sequel is the kind of movie I can just put on and enjoy.
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Post by legios on Mar 26, 2012 19:18:21 GMT
Scott hasn't made a good movie in goodness knows how long (Alien is probably his best) I'll have to agree to differ with you on that one. Black Hawk Down wasn't that long ago and I think that is one of the better "modern era" war movies in many ways. As to Prometheus, I think one of the things that makes me interested in it is the cast. There are some folk in there who I have seen do a fair amount of interesting work on the screen, so I'm curious to see what sort of performances they turn in. Karl |
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Post by Jim on Mar 26, 2012 23:46:53 GMT
I dimly remember watching Black Hawk Down and quite enjoying it, I'd forgotten it was by him. Frightening to think that was 10 years ago.
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Stomski
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Post by Stomski on Mar 27, 2012 8:27:54 GMT
I refuse to compare Alien and Aliens. Both are genre defining and nothing has come close in either since.
Totally agree on this. I too have a soft spot for Alien3.
Alien Resurrection had some great moments in the cinema (the scientist squaring off against the Alien behind the glass), however, the battle was anticlimactic and the ending was dire.
Both AvPs failed to deliver. The first being one of the worst paced films I have ever endured, and concept of an Alien bearing a grudge after getting scarred by a Pred's net? Please.
Anyway, this is all pretty off topic as Prometheus is surely NOT an Aliens film.
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Post by Stomski on Jun 1, 2012 15:59:33 GMT
Well hello IMAX, I look forward to your comfy seats welcoming my bum tonight.
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Post by Stomski on Jun 2, 2012 9:59:23 GMT
This review nails it for me... www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?FID=137119And it seems I was wrong... as it takes place on LV-233, not LV-426!
Now the Space Jockeys/Engineers would have multiple installations for the bio-weapons. In this case the final form of their efforts (although with a similar life cycle to the traditional Alien) is a shorter pointy headed beast based on another Giger design.
David's motivations still elude me, other than curiosity. It would seem that his actions to "infecting" one of the crew members may be driven through the conversation that precedes the act, David in his creators image trying his hand at creating himself. But this is a theory. I still enjoyed it, but it's not up there with Alien or Aliens. I'm going to give it 3.7 squid things / Ridley's cot. |
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Post by The Doctor on Jun 9, 2012 11:02:04 GMT
That review is spot-on, and never more so than the verdict:
'Buffeted by a lack of suspense, threadbare characters, and a very poor script, the stunning visuals, gloopy madness, and sterling Fassbenderiness can’t prevent Prometheus feeling like Alien’s poor relation. '
-Ralph
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Jun 9, 2012 21:49:11 GMT
I went into the film wanting to like it. The biggest letdown is The Space Jockey. Why are they just slightly more advanced versions of us? Such a disappointment, takes away a lot of mystery and atmosphere throughout.
Also, if the Alien as we kind of know it is based on those bio-weapons after they have been spawned by Engineers/humans, why in gods name are they part of a mural on the installation? That makes no sense.
Several of the cast, the mad geologist, and Rafe Spall in particular were pretty cardboard thin and made no sense. Especially when trapped in the cave with the jars.
Michael Fassbender was the highlight of the film. He is simply amazing in every scene he is in.
Andy |
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Post by The Doctor on Jun 9, 2012 22:04:30 GMT
Fassbender is an astonishing actor.
-Ralph
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Jun 9, 2012 22:04:54 GMT
Indeed he is. Head and shoulders above anyone else at the moment.
Andy
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Post by The Doctor on Jun 9, 2012 22:11:03 GMT
It's not for everyone due to the subject matter and tone, but I do highly recommend 'Shame' starring The Fassbender. How he was missed out for Oscar/BAFTA nods for that escapes me. I've never seen such an intense performance on screen.
-Ralph
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Post by legios on Jun 10, 2012 0:20:21 GMT
Indeed, "Shame" is not going to be everyones kind of film, but Fassbender does put in an absolutely superb performance. As he does in absolutely everything I have seen him in. He is one of the few actors who will sell a film to me on the basis of his presence in the cast- I know that if he is in the cast I am guaranteed at least one thing worth watching.
Karl
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Post by The Doctor on Jun 11, 2012 7:05:00 GMT
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Jun 11, 2012 7:26:08 GMT
Yep, that pretty much sums up the nonsensical plotline of it. Well, one of the many anyway.
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Post by jameso on Jun 11, 2012 13:53:33 GMT
I quite liked Prometheus and plan to see it again, but it didn't toally hold up. But that's part of the fun, could have a conversation about it with my friends in the restaurant afterwards.
Agree that Fassbender was excellent and is really at the top of his game. He did get Bafta and Golden Globe nominations for Shame, so there was some love, but yeah no Oscar nom was a massive snub.
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Post by kayevcee on Jun 11, 2012 22:24:23 GMT
I've read quite a few online reviews of Prometheus, with tones covering the spectrum from reverent to apoplectic. I think the one that rang most true with my experience was one that compared the film to "Lost", the series that Damon Lindelof was involved in before coming on to rewrite Prometheus' script. It seems to me that they have a lot in common- both slick, amazing looking, well acted, filled with intriguing plot points and story potential... that mostly never come to anything. The audience comes out at the end with few real answers and a whole lot of questions that the film has no interest in answering and the writers probably have no answer for. Weird/ominous for the sake of being weird/ominous.
That said I still quite enjoyed Prometheus but I'll wait for the reviews before watching the sequel. If the next film STILL doesn't answer the important questions, I'll just stay home.
-Nick
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Jun 12, 2012 8:39:32 GMT
I don't think the writers understood the questions they were asking or even what questions they had intended to ask it was such a mash up of half begun soon forgotten nonsense.
As someone who has read a bit on the academic side of AI/personhood it was especially frustrating to see Fassbender's character 'developed' and then to suddenly be dismissed as a soulless machine at the end by the characters who had been orchestrating the audience's questioning of that throughout the rest of the film.
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Post by The Doctor on Jun 12, 2012 16:39:45 GMT
It was just a bad film.
-Ralph
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Post by The Doctor on Oct 9, 2012 18:40:05 GMT
The proper trailer:
I was actually quite surprised to see the DVD in ASDA this evening. It was only released theatrically on June 1st!
-Ralph
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Oct 9, 2012 20:46:03 GMT
That trailer pretty much sums it up nicely.
Although who knows what the new ending and beginning on the home media release will 'explain'....
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Post by Dave on Oct 10, 2012 9:17:36 GMT
I get the criticisms and agree with a lot of them but for some reason I quite like Prometheus. Although who knows what the new ending and beginning on the home media release will 'explain'.... Nothing much. For those interested, the beginning is basically the same but there is a group of engineers that watches the one who sacrifices himself The ending differs in that before the Engineer rips David's head off, there is a longer conversation between David/Engineer/Weyland where Weyland starts saying because he created David he's just like the engineer, they are both gods infact.
There's then a bit more at the end with Shaw and Fassbender's head. Much of the conversation takes place whilst they are still in the ship, she's a bit angrier ("and you're a fucking robot" rather than "and you're a robot") and the name of the Engineer's planet is revealed: there's no direct translation but the nearest word is "Paradise" - tying in to the conversation with her dad she was dreaming about at the start. I assume everyone's seen this by the way (which isn't actually an easter egg). I only own the first two Alien films I actually ended up getting the Blu-Ray anthology set a while back because it was cheap and I knew it had the full version of the Alien 3 documentary on - which was a good watch. It was also my first time watching the alternate version of Alien 3 and I thought it was much better though still not a good film. Yes I am aware this the point where someone quotes me and says "bah Alien 3 may have been poo, but for entertainment any version of it is way ahead of Prometheus". |
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Post by Jim on Oct 10, 2012 9:33:05 GMT
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Post by Marc Graham on Oct 10, 2012 11:36:50 GMT
I think advertising expanatory bits to the start and end of the movie is another slapping of the label failure onto this movie. It failed to remotely make internal sense of its own plot, it was totally devoid of character, featured drab acting, poor structure and its only redeeming feature was a synthetic character who was well cast and portrayed, beyond that the total pantess of a movie scrambling to be 100 different things at once and failing to be any resulted in a shambolic mess.
The word disappointing doesn't got far enough to describe it for me, I won't be rushing out for blu-ray or DVD anytime soon.
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Post by The Doctor on Oct 10, 2012 17:14:16 GMT
No intention of picking it up. It was the wrong Ridley Scott. The one who made Robin Hood rather than the one who made Gladiator. And Damon Lindelhof can't write for toffee.
-Ralph
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Post by Philip Ayres on Oct 10, 2012 17:49:00 GMT
Saw it today and rather liked it.
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