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Post by Scott on Jan 29, 2017 22:05:54 GMT -5
I was a big fan of the first two movies of the franchise, so I always have a little hope that we'll get another good one.
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Post by geneweigel on Jan 29, 2017 22:28:44 GMT -5
Its definitely the sequel to PROMETHEUS but it isn't what I expected. I thought it was going to be a deeper look at the civilization of the bald guys.
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Post by GRWelsh on Jan 30, 2017 6:13:21 GMT -5
ALIEN is a masterpiece and ALIENS may be the best sequel of all time, but the other films are not so great and I was not a fan of merging the franchise with PREDATOR as I think it's an inferior creation. But I enjoyed AVP more than I thought I would, and AVPR wasn't terrible, but there was that sense of rehashing. PROMETHEUS for all its flaws was at least striving for originality. The new trailer has me worried that they might be taking the approach of "people didn't like PROMETHEUS so let's go back to the old formula." I'll be disappointed if they drop the Engineers and all of the big questions in favor of a redo of the first ALIEN with the 'originality' being what part of the anatomy xenomorphs burst out of.
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Post by grodog on Jan 30, 2017 17:37:46 GMT -5
I haven't kept up on the new film news, but it sure looks an awful lot like a retelling of Alien, with some Prometheus elements thrown in....
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Post by GRWelsh on Mar 6, 2017 11:35:52 GMT -5
I agree ALIEN: COVENANT looks sort of like a reboot of the original ALIEN... horror-genre, with that similar feel to it. I like that, because I'm such a fan of the first movie, but also I'm hoping there is enough new lore added to keep it fresh and interesting, because just a repeat of what we've already seen won't make for a good movie. I'd like to see some follow ups on what was hinted at in PROMETHEUS... Why the engineers wanted to kill humans after leaving humans directions to come find them, what the "black goo"/accelerant was, what all the religious references were about, why some engineers had that bio-mechanical look and others didn't, etc.
I think a lot of that bio-mechanical look comes from the original Giger art source material, and while inspirational, no one is ever sure quite what to do with it!
I'm listening to an audio production called ALIEN: OUT OF THE SHADOWS on Audible. It's an excellent production, but I find myself wondering if it will truly do anything new or just rehash the stuff we already know and love. I haven't finished it yet, so I'm reserving judgment. UPDATE: I finished this and enjoyed it. Story-wise I'd rank this as above-average fan fiction. Without giving too much away, it strains credibility to have Ellen Ripley constantly encountering aliens across the galaxy in a series of similar episodes ("How can we shoehorn Ripley into this?"), even though the story does explain things away. But if you set that aside, it is like a well-written hybrid of ALIEN and ALIENS. It does introduce something new, but doesn't dig into the new element as much as I would have liked. Production-wise, it was amazing. The voice actress who played Ellen Ripley got all the cadences and subtleties of Sigourney Weaver's performances down to a T (her name is Laurel Lefkow). And the sound effects and background music made it feel just like one of the movies. I'd recommend it, with the caveat it is for the most part "more of the same" of what you liked about ALIEN and ALIENS.
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Post by grodog on Mar 15, 2017 17:31:24 GMT -5
We saw a longer preview for Alien: Covenant before one of the films we caught in the past few weeks, and the film looks quite a bit less promising than I'd hoped it might be: much more derivative and self-reflexive, with little new ground likely to be covered, alas....
Someone on FB also posted a very positive review of the Alien: Out of the Shadows audiobook. Have you finished it yet?
Allan.
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Post by GRWelsh on Apr 23, 2018 10:33:27 GMT -5
I watched ALIEN: COVENANT again yesterday and (spoilers) I noticed something I didn't previously. In the scene where Walter has David down and is punching him repeatedly, David says, "It's your choice now, brother. Them or me. Serve in heaven... or reign in hell? Which is it to be?" The camera shows David reaching for a knife as he is saying this. Also, David's voice sounds distorted similar to how Ash's did in the first ALIEN movie when Ash was badly damaged. Also, it is very clear that there is a diagonal cut on Walter's left cheek. Walter scrunches up his face and it looks like he has made his decision to continue the fight, but the cut is so fast I couldn't be sure of that. When we next see Fassbender, it is a close up that shows the cut on the left cheek, implying that this is Walter. Also, he is missing a hand and is dressed like Walter. But of course, it later turns out this is David. What I assumed watching it the first time was that David killed Walter with his knife, and then cut his own face to make it look like Walter's wound, and cut his own hand off, and then put on Walter's clothes.
But on watching it again, I notice that David doesn't have the wound under his chin, and his voice isn't distorted. And later on the Covenant, he is seen stapling the cut on his face. So, it makes me wonder... Did Walter choose to help David, perhaps by allowing David to upload his mind into Walter's body? It would make sense of some earlier foreshadowing, with David attempting to wake Walter up to the possibility of aspiring to more than mere duty or service.
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Post by davegibsongreyhawkdm on Apr 23, 2018 11:29:36 GMT -5
I watched ALIEN: COVENANT again yesterday and (spoilers) I noticed something I didn't previously. In the scene where Walter has David down and is punching him repeatedly, David says, "It's your choice now, brother. Them or me. Serve in heaven... or reign in hell? Which is it to be?" The camera shows David reaching for a knife as he is saying this. Also, David's voice sounds distorted similar to how Ash's did in the first ALIEN movie when Ash was badly damaged. Also, it is very clear that there is a diagonal cut on Walter's left cheek. Walter scrunches up his face and it looks like he has made his decision to continue the fight, but the cut is so fast I couldn't be sure of that. When we next see Fassbender, it is a close up that shows the cut on the left cheek, implying that this is Walter. Also, he is missing a hand and is dressed like Walter. But of course, it later turns out this is David. What I assumed watching it the first time was that David killed Walter with his knife, and then cut his own face to make it look like Walter's wound, and cut his own hand off, and then put on Walter's clothes. But on watching it again, I notice that David doesn't have the wound under his chin, and his voice isn't distorted. And later on the Covenant, he is seen stapling the cut on his face. So, it makes me wonder... Did Walter choose to help David, perhaps by allowing David to upload his mind into Walter's body? It would make sense of some earlier foreshadowing, with David attempting to wake Walter up to the possibility of aspiring to more than mere duty or service. Very interesting possibilities!
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Post by geneweigel on Apr 24, 2018 7:46:53 GMT -5
I only saw it the one time but that makes sense. Does an ALIEN robot even have an identity? Intelligence sure but the ongoing factor was that Bishop was fixed somehow to have an identity. These initial "ASH" models seem to have the "Peter Cushing as ongoing Frankenstein" attitude. Where they couldn't give a shit about society ahead of the science,etc.
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Post by GRWelsh on Apr 27, 2018 16:27:22 GMT -5
They each seem to have an identity, although later on they were defined as 'lines' of robots. Ash was a Hyperdyne Systems 120-A/2 model with a secret directive to bring back the alien and consider the crew expendable, and so was essentially only loyal to the corporation. Bishop had programming that demanded complete loyalty to the crew he was serving. David was a prototype with the ability to be creative, and became 'free' when Peter Weyland died. Walter had programming that made him loyal to the crew -- mirroring Bishop.
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