Aliens movies

[SilentP]

Ooo linkys?

I kind of felt the interior of the ship matched the exterior aesthetics, which, considering as you say the matching aesthetics of the Xeno hives, gives credence to the idea that the Space Jockeys use the Xenomorphs as a living weapon (but perhaps instead of being artificially created, are a natural species on their homeworld, which is why their 'architecture' matches). Will have to look again at the Space Jockey ship to see how close the match is...

 

[LitmusDragon]

(even notice how the Hives look like the inside of the Jockey ship? The ship was "Hived" as well).

I think that might have been a retcon by James Cameron in the second movie. There is the "hive room" built by the Alien on board the Nostromo, but it looks a bit different compared to the walls and corridors that we see on the jockey ship. Now naturally the hived part of the reactor in Aliens looks exactly like the corridors of the jockey ship, so certainly in that movie it was intentional, but I'm not sure it was intended that way in the original Alien. It's an interesting point, I'd love to see some kind of official citation.

 

[Trent Roman]

Incidently, I caught AVP:R on Sunday. Wish I could call it unfairly maligned, but it really is a pathetic film. The idea of aliens attacking a town full of people has such potential, completely lost here by the film-makers' lack of vision, focusing on a narrow set of 'characters' who spend most of their time away from the action. "Characters", because quite honestly they're even more disposable than the standard cut-outs of a horror film; I was rather bemused when they suddenly have someone new join the group out of the blue before they go to the hospital, evidently because they'd run out of already established eventual corpses. And speaking of lack of vision, even what should have been the film's redeeming quality--slaughter--is next to absent, in no small part because the lighting in the film also next to absent. Black aliens don't come out against a black background, guys. I was well midway into the film when I realized that one of the Aliens was actually an Alien/Predator hybrid, impossible to have noticed before because everything was just so bloody dark (even knocking out a power plant so that they can continue fumbling around in near darkness). I don't know if it was a budget thing or just crappy cinematography, but it was like trying to watch Alien3 all over again.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[RoJoHen]

And speaking of lack of vision, even what should have been the film's redeeming quality--slaughter--is next to absent, in no small part because the lighting in the film also next to absent. Black aliens don't come out against a black background, guys. I was well midway into the film when I realized that one of the Aliens was actually an Alien/Predator hybrid, impossible to have noticed before because everything was just so bloody dark (even knocking out a power plant so that they can continue fumbling around in near darkness).

This is easily my biggest gripe with that movie. I could have accepted it as a brainless horror movie if I had been able to see anything, but the whole film is so dark that it's damn near impossible to tell what the hell was going on.

 

[Teelie]

AVP: R is just an abomination. It had almost nothing redeemable in it. The only thing worthwhile is a very brief dialogue where we hear Yutani discussing the Predator tech; an obvious precursor to Weyland-Yutani and their ambitions for space travel. 10-15 seconds out of an hour and a half isn't much.

 

[Anwar]

Some people were hoping that since Henrikson played Charles Bishop (ancestor of Bishop II and the model that the Bishop series was based off of), they could get Winona Ryder to play Ms Yutani.

 

[Reverend]

Scott is pretty clear in the commentary and other interviews that the ship was transporting those eggs as weapons and at lest one of them got loose somehow. I think he also said the blue laser sheet was some sort of stasis field.

The idea that Cain breaking just happened to trigger the egg right next to him is just stupid. Of course it's proximity, there's no other possibility that makes sense. The beginning of Alien 3 is the ONLY time in all four films where an egg opened on it's own. On all other occasions; Cain in Alien, Newt while cocooned in Aliens and in Alien Resurrection the cages with the miners and later the bottom of the shaft. If that's not proof then I don't know what is.

(even notice how the Hives look like the inside of the Jockey ship? The ship was "Hived" as well).

I think that might have been a retcon by James Cameron in the second movie. There is the "hive room" built by the Alien on board the Nostromo, but it looks a bit different compared to the walls and corridors that we see on the jockey ship. Now naturally the hived part of the reactor in Aliens looks exactly like the corridors of the jockey ship, so certainly in that movie it was intentional, but I'm not sure it was intended that way in the original Alien. It's an interesting point, I'd love to see some kind of official citation.

There's two ways to look at it; either they hived the ship and that's why the corridors look the same or they didn't and it looks the same because the Jockey's are the ones that created the xenos and that's why they're so similar.
Personally I like the latter option. Either way it's not a retcon as the very same cocooning was seen on the Nostromo, in the deleted scene where Ripley finds what's left of Brett and Dallas.

 

[selina]

Alien and Aliens. The rest is junk.

Agreed. Alien and Aliens are my favourite Alien-movies as well. The other two movies are ... well ... dispensable.

 

[saturn5]

Ooo linkys?

I kind of felt the interior of the ship matched the exterior aesthetics, which, considering as you say the matching aesthetics of the Xeno hives, gives credence to the idea that the Space Jockeys use the Xenomorphs as a living weapon (but perhaps instead of being artificially created, are a natural species on their homeworld, which is why their 'architecture' matches). Will have to look again at the Space Jockey ship to see how close the match is...

Yeah, LINKYS! Was that filmed or just storyboarded or just part of the original script? I certainly don't recall it from Alan Dean Foster's adaptation?
Interestingly Scott is also adamant that Deckard in Blade Runner is a replicant but we still discuss that.
AvP;R is a dumb movie but then anything with the term 'vs' in it's title is always going to be. I thought the characters were ok (you care for the mother and daughter if no one else) but yeah, they obviously kept it dark to hide the lack of budget. Great idea about Wionna Ryder (note Lance Henriksen's character from AvP does the same 'stab between the fingers' mannerism as Bishop does in Aliens), in the end she was played by Fraiser's agent. A shame too that Adam Baldwin couldn't repeat his role as one of Gary Busey's MIBs from Predator 2. Still, it was entertaining enough, my 4th favourite Alien film just pales in comparison with Alien/Aliens.
Maybe it's only the Queen that forms the hive? And the one that killed the space-jockey was a Queen?

Selina you have great taste but I'd expect nothing less from a Calvin and Hobbes fan

 

[Caligula]

Alien and Aliens are masterpieces, so good it's almost impossible to choose a favorite between them. Everything in the series starting with Alien 3 is dead to me.

 

[Anwar]

Once again, Scott and the actual screenwriters clash over the story: Dan O'Bannon's idea for the aliens were that they were the natural inhabitants of LV-426 and the Jockey ship was a mining vessel that found their hibernating eggs. One of the Jockeys got infected, put out the warning before he died and the resulting alien took over the ship and turned the other Jockeys into eggs along with the collected hibernating eggs in the hold.

This is also why the Aliens and the Jockeys share the biomechanical look: The Jockey DNA in the Jockey-Burster was passed onto the eggs it made in the hold so the resulting creature would be a mixture of the Jockeys, the Aliens and whatever creature they infected (Humans).

 

[Teelie]

Then Cameron came along with the Queen and hive mentality and washed much of that away. I don't know what Scott intends to do or if he'll even acknowledge the sequels or to what level of acknowledgement. It is possible he'll just go off on his own and do his own take on it and cause a fan war over which canon to follow.

 

[Anwar]

Then Cameron came along with the Queen and hive mentality and washed much of that away.

Not really, nothing in Aliens says that the Queen is the sole source of eggs (and a species as survival-obsessed as the Aliens would have a second method, it's only logical) nor that they will always have a hive mentality. They're more than Cameron's bugs.

 

[Reverend]

Then Cameron came along with the Queen and hive mentality and washed much of that away.

Not really, nothing in Aliens says that the Queen is the sole source of eggs (and a species as survival-obsessed as the Aliens would have a second method, it's only logical) nor that they will always have a hive mentality. They're more than Cameron's bugs.

That I'd agree with. I can see the host conversion process as something only a drone would do if it was isolated from a hive. Perhaps that stage is actually required to create a "queen egg" to get a hive going in the first place. Still it'd have to be strictly an alternate method since it means they can only theoretically impregnate half of a given population since the other half are needed to be converted into eggs. Once they have a queen, it'd become unnecessary and inefficient.

 

[Deckerd]

The thing that annoyed me most about Resurrection was the timeline. They had an alien fetus that was a queen and had produced eggs in a couple of days, which hatched, incubated and emerged again in another day. It was stupid to the point of ruining any good points in the film.

 

[SilentP]

Did we really get that much idea of the passage of time during the movie? There doesn't seem to be any indicators of how long/quick things were happening at least until the crew of the Betty show up.

As for the quick incubation of the drones, well I was under the impression it was a quick process from infection of host to fully grown drone anyway; remember the line from Aliens? Something along the lines of "That thing wiped out my entire crew in 24 hours"? It seems to indicate that it doesn't take long at all for a chest burster to become dangerous. Also consider the fact that the drones may of been specifically 'fed' after the chest burster stage to facilitate quicker growth than whatever they can scavenge.

 

[Reverend]

The thing that annoyed me most about Resurrection was the timeline. They had an alien fetus that was a queen and had produced eggs in a couple of days, which hatched, incubated and emerged again in another day. It was stupid to the point of ruining any good points in the film.

How so? The first Xeno went from burster to full sized drone with a kill score of 4 (not counting momma Cain) in less than 24 hours.
I think it was established that it was at least 3 days from the queen being extracted to being close to producing eggs.
Assuming the miners were implanted immediately and crew of the Betty were there for about a day before things kicked off (remember, they intended to stay for two days) then it's actually about right.

The AvP films had much more problematic compressed time-frames in terms of gestation. But then the films were crap anyway, so they can be safely ignored.

 

[Deckerd]

Did we really get that much idea of the passage of time during the movie? There doesn't seem to be any indicators of how long/quick things were happening at least until the crew of the Betty show up.

As for the quick incubation of the drones, well I was under the impression it was a quick process from infection of host to fully grown drone anyway; remember the line from Aliens? Something along the lines of "That thing wiped out my entire crew in 24 hours"? It seems to indicate that it doesn't take long at all for a chest burster to become dangerous. Also consider the fact that the drones may of been specifically 'fed' after the chest burster stage to facilitate quicker growth than whatever they can scavenge.

It was Ripley who said that but she was talking about an emerged alien. It was a given that they grew at an exponential rate once they were 'born' but not that they gestated in less than a day. If you recall the John Hurt character had the facehugger for a long time before it fell off.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

The alien that burst out of the Jockey wandered outside the ship after it took over the ship (even notice how the Hives look like the inside of the Jockey ship? The ship was "Hived" as well). It froze to death and fossilized into one of the hills Dallas and co walked by on their way to the ship. This was cut from the movie but exists as some stills on the net.

Ooo linkys?

I kind of felt the interior of the ship matched the exterior aesthetics, which, considering as you say the matching aesthetics of the Xeno hives, gives credence to the idea that the Space Jockeys use the Xenomorphs as a living weapon (but perhaps instead of being artificially created, are a natural species on their homeworld, which is why their 'architecture' matches). Will have to look again at the Space Jockey ship to see how close the match is...

Interestingly enough in a possible roughdraft of the prequel's script that a link was posted to somewhere on this board

Spoiler: for the draft

They had the queen dying after some time likely due to old age and then it's acidic blood dissolving the corpse as part of it's decomposing, which would be another point for the aliens being weapons as after they wipe out an enemy their used against the die off and then clean up after theirselves which would be convienent for disposal purposes.

 

[saturn5]

Alien and Aliens are masterpieces, so good it's almost impossible to choose a favorite between them. Everything in the series starting with Alien 3 is dead to me.

Again, you have taste!

Interesting, I wonder who we give more weight to in terms of storyline, the writer(s) or director?

In AvP;R we see the Predalien which is our 2nd or 3rd alien reproductive method depending on how you look at it. Or maybe this is a leftover from the Predator DNA? Or they just bred them that way, perhaps the Queen too much to handle? Or they wanted more of a challenge?

About the most bizarre adultfic I ever read had an all-female crew of the Nostromo (who all had names like Bea Yoncey, Meagan Floxx, April Levine, Melissa Millar etc). As in the orginal they get picked off one by one by the drone but it transforms them into eggs by having sex with them. They eventually all decide to surrender to their fate, the last survivor stripping naked and whilst awaiting her turn sending out a distress call luring a shipful of female marines to the same fate. Weirdly it was written by a woman but then the darkest fic always seem to be?

Anyone beat that for sheer outrageousness?