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Leeloo DALLAS Multipass!

 Alex C wrote:

 Breotan wrote:

 Alex C wrote:
Perfect organism...

Leeloo?

Multipass!

Yeah, multipass. She knows it's a multipass!

 Alex C wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
It still annoys me how aliens can magically breed like rabbits with seemingly little food about

IIRC they get all/most of their nutritional requirements in the chestburster phase, or immediately afterward. They are very efficient biological weapons. Perfect organism...

The ability to ignore the laws of thermodynamics would make an organism pretty perfect...

 DarkLink wrote:

 Alex C wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
It still annoys me how aliens can magically breed like rabbits with seemingly little food about

IIRC they get all/most of their nutritional requirements in the chestburster phase, or immediately afterward. They are very efficient biological weapons. Perfect organism...

The ability to ignore the laws of thermodynamics would make an organism pretty perfect...

I think there is more to it than that.

Thermodynamics as far as I know is about heat and energy, but there is also the fact, a really basic fact that you can create more from nothing. Yes you can make it go further by using less of it, or using it more efficiently, but to grow bigger than a human, breed and continue living they would need to eat a lot more than just a tiny amount at birth.

If they could do that, then no wonder they are so badly wanted. Imagine the money to be made from that!

 DarkLink wrote:

 Alex C wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
It still annoys me how aliens can magically breed like rabbits with seemingly little food about

IIRC they get all/most of their nutritional requirements in the chestburster phase, or immediately afterward. They are very efficient biological weapons. Perfect organism...

The ability to ignore the laws of thermodynamics would make an organism pretty perfect...

Hey I never claimed it made sense, I just seem to remember something to that effect from the "making of" stuff. I could be wrong.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Um....no, I never said anything about effects, I'm not stupid.

I think it's just that we expect so much more now. When it come out it was revolutionary, there also wasn't as much violence on the screen. It's like looking at bar fights from old westerns, they look silly, more funny than anything else. Now it's gone the other way and everyone has to be doing somersaults and swinging off the lights and explosions. I just watched some chinese movie set in the 16th? century and the cannons were firing burning balls that exploded into fireworks - the Guillotines it was called. I guess they felt that regular cannon balls that just punched holes in things would be too boring for modern viewers.

Of course Star Wars was made two years earlier than Alien and is a much better movie though it was digitally remastered.

Another one is The Thing (1982). Everyone kept telling me the original was the best, scariest etc so I watched it last year - it was meh, I guess the fans of it saw it way back and just remember how it made them feel when they watched it then.

As for Aliens, the 2nd and 4th films are the best and I wonder if Space Hulk was based on Aliens? Marine kill teams going up against insectoid monsters that harvest humans to make more of themselves. So similar.

The 4th Alien movie never happened. You can't convince me otherwise.

The Thing happened, and it is glorious

Why do people dislike Alien: Resurrection so much? It's not my favorite of the Alien films, but I thought it was watchable.

It was better than the 3rd one.

Computron wrote:

Of course Star Wars was made two years earlier than Alien and is a much better movie though it was digitally remastered.

Whaaaaaat? I love Star Wars...but man....I'm not sure you can convince me it's better than Alien...

Okay, I didn't like the baby thing, but the rest of it was classic.
The Thing prequel is much better than the original.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 cincydooley wrote:

Computron wrote:

Of course Star Wars was made two years earlier than Alien and is a much better movie though it was digitally remastered.

Whaaaaaat? I love Star Wars...but man....I'm not sure you can convince me it's better than Alien...

I love space opera better than rattling around in a building and I think it holds up better.

 Hordini wrote:
Why do people dislike Alien: Resurrection so much? It's not my favorite of the Alien films, but I thought it was watchable.

I just found it uninteresting. Characters were bland, even Ripley, who wasn't really Ripley. Queen with nonsensical genitals. The "newborn" hybrid, when technically any of the Aliens except the one in Alien 3 are human/xeno hybrids. Just seemed goofy compared to the horror of what came before it.

I liked Alien 3 better, at least it retained some horror and grimdark.

I rank the movies from best to worst in the same order they released.

Computron wrote:
Okay, I didn't like the baby thing, but the rest of it was classic.
The Thing prequel is much better than the original.

No, bad Computron.


The 2011 Thing is quite the remake prequel. Plus the CGI is a little bit iffy. At least the physical effects in the 1982 version make it look somewhat real.

 Alex C wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
It still annoys me how aliens can magically breed like rabbits with seemingly little food about

IIRC they get all/most of their nutritional requirements in the chestburster phase, or immediately afterward. They are very efficient biological weapons. Perfect organism...

Perfect organism does not allow it exponentially increase is body mass over the course of hours. The cellular growth would generate too much heat, not to mention the metabolism required for such insane growth would probably kill it in very short order. It doesn't work. There's not a shred of logic to support an organism of its size acting or growing like it does in the movie. Not to mention the facehugger is both pointless and a complete waste of matter and energy.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
While I agree with the sentiment, ALIEN, and virtually all horror movies, are not horrifying. I saw the chestbuster scene when I was in my early teens and it was just meh.

If you want actually horrifying material, that's real war footage. Movies are entirely fictional, and thus there's no investment. Nothing is scary because it's all fake and can never hurt you.

This is entirely subjective. Different people get the heebie jeebies from different things.

Sci fi and fantasy horror really gets to me. That whole 'fear of the unknown' thing. When I first saw The Thing is absolutely terrified me, and I was in my late teens. When I saw Alien for the first time I was 15, and I was jumping at shadows all night. Those movies still make me uneasy, despite having seen them many, many times.

I can watch a slasher flick like Friday the 13th, Halloween or Scream and enjoy it, because the bad guy is a guy in a mask. There's nothing really unknown. By their nature they tend to telegraph their scares a long way off as well. Similarly, I can watch war movies and not feel a thing. I like watching the action, but I'm not really feeling horrified by the actions of other humans. The closest I came to feeling bad was during the episode of Band of Brothers when they find the concentration camp, and that was because it hit home due to my grandfather being kept in one during the war. Real war footage doesn't do much to me either, probably because I've been desentitised by military shooters over the years.

But virtually nothing in any horror movie is physically possible unless it's just a generic real life serial killer like the Zodiac Killer. The Xenomorph, Thing, etc however all are physically impossible, and thus there is no reason to fear what cannon exist on Earth.

And that's fine for you. Again - fear is a deeply personal thing. Hence why some are terrified of spiders and some don't give a toss.

For me, Alien was terrifying, and still makes me uneasy. I'd guess it's the same for many others or it wouldn't be so well regarded as a horror movie.

If you're not bothered by it, well, it's not for you. But there's no need to belittle others for being afraid of monsters. Some people just are.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Alex C wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
It still annoys me how aliens can magically breed like rabbits with seemingly little food about

IIRC they get all/most of their nutritional requirements in the chestburster phase, or immediately afterward. They are very efficient biological weapons. Perfect organism...

Perfect organism does not allow it exponentially increase is body mass over the course of hours. The cellular growth would generate too much heat, not to mention the metabolism required for such insane growth would probably kill it in very short order. It doesn't work. There's not a shred of logic to support an organism of its size acting or growing like it does in the movie. Not to mention the facehugger is both pointless and a complete waste of matter and energy.

Again, I never said it made sense, and I could be remembering incorrectly. However, it doesn't need to make sense, it just needs to be horrifying.

The Alien is a biomechanical weapon. Perhaps our understanding of growth processes do not apply. Maybe it has some sort of internal "battery" that kicks in at birth to provide the growth needed. Perhaps they draw energy from the atmosphere in some way, hence why they prefer to hang around it the hotter parts of the ship/colony. Ash does mention how surprised he is to see it adapt to their environment "considering it's nutritional requirements", though he doesn't mention what those requirements are.

In the end it really doesn't matter, and not understanding the Alien has always been part of why it's so disturbing.

 Alex C wrote:
Everyone else has said pretty much what I have to say about Alien. It is my favorite movie for exactly the reasons presented here.

I think the modern era has desensitized younger folks to the extent that they are numb to what made Alien so disturbing at the time.

After having played the new video game, Alien:Isolation, I found myself experiencing the same terror as I felt when I initially saw the movie. Perhaps younger folks can try the game and you'll have some sort of idea of what the movie did for the rest of us.

I felt genuinely terrified watching the first movie, but the second and third were more Action films, while Alien: Resurrection was more a 9 year old's creation, the Alien equivalent to the Star Wars prequels. Alien vs Predator video game was not that terrifying either, more fun than anything. But Isolation gave me the same thrills and fear as in the early game. Like the film, it explains nothing and chucks you in, not even letting you know you won't even see the creature for an hour or two. And when the beast first appears...

Just imagine this with Oculus Rift and headphones, as any survival horror should be played. Skip to 1:30 :

The 3rd movie wasn’t a bad movie, on it’s own. It was a horrible sequel the the second movie though. It does harken back to the first movie in tine though, with more suspense/horror, rather then action/horror.

The 4th was OK. I’m not a fan of some of the hybrid/queen themes, but the movie held together ok, there was some cool character interaction/lines, but it’s worth watching.

The biggest problems with both 3 and 4 is a bad case of sequel-itis. They are part of the franchise, but don’t really bring anything new to it. Just another visit to the world. Which is cool and all, but nothing really shines about them.

 LordofHats wrote:
It was better than the 3rd one.

Woah. Woah. Woah.

No. Stop that right now.

Yeah, sorry but personally I advocate "Alien World" as the place we should send all our rapists and murderers. I don't give a gak what happens to them. Not even if they go born again and become sexist pigs (who try to rape Ripley).

 LordofHats wrote:
Yeah, sorry but personally I advocate "Alien World" as the place we should send all our rapists and murderers. I don't give a gak what happens to them. Not even if they go born again and become sexist pigs (who try to rape Ripley).

I'm still waiting on the sequel to the AVP game (2010) that has as its end-game. Although given what Prometheus brought to the francise, this part of the game it totally irrelevant.

 paulson games wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
I constantly try to find a horror movie that scares me so bad that I can't sleep at night, but it hasn't happened in over six years.

If you want a terrifying experience watch anything by Micheal Bay, then realize he's still getting paid to make movies.

I haven't been able to sleep right since Transformers 4.

Transformers 4 was so slow it makes Alien look like a high octane action flick. Bay is probably the only director who can make explosions and action sequences look tedious.

 Antario wrote:

 paulson games wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
I constantly try to find a horror movie that scares me so bad that I can't sleep at night, but it hasn't happened in over six years.

If you want a terrifying experience watch anything by Micheal Bay, then realize he's still getting paid to make movies.

I haven't been able to sleep right since Transformers 4.

Transformers 4 was so slow it makes Alien look like a high octane action flick. Bay is probably the only director who can make explosions and action sequences look tedious.

Isn't his style with action scenes is that he clutters the screen with so much gak you can't really make out what's going on, I would never describe his movies as slow paced.

 Cheesecat wrote:

 Antario wrote:

 paulson games wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
I constantly try to find a horror movie that scares me so bad that I can't sleep at night, but it hasn't happened in over six years.

If you want a terrifying experience watch anything by Micheal Bay, then realize he's still getting paid to make movies.

I haven't been able to sleep right since Transformers 4.

Transformers 4 was so slow it makes Alien look like a high octane action flick. Bay is probably the only director who can make explosions and action sequences look tedious.

Isn't his style with action scenes is that he clutters the screen with so much gak you can't really make out what's going on, I would never describe his movies as slow paced.

Yes, that is correct but transformers 4 is a bit of an exception. The first hour nothing happens at all and that makes for awfully tough viewing in a movie that has no distinguishable plot or any interesting characters. Then there is an hour worth of pointless chase scenes and 30 minutes of wrecking Hong Kong. There is barely enough content to make a 5 minute video clip but it's stretched to 2 and a half hours of boredom.

As I've got older I've enjoyed Alien and Terminator a lot more than their sequels. They're both horror films, Aluen especially so, in which the killer in unstoppable. They've both been diluted since. Aliens is great for action, and I've watched it lots of times. But all the gung-ho guns blazing stuff is just entertainment, it's not horror and it doesn't show the craftsmanship that the original had. Alien followed the style of Dark Star, making the future a dirty working class one rather than pristine and clean. Dark Star did this earlier but Alien mastered and popularised it. Alien is the deserved masterpiece it is described. The design is excellent, the characterisation natural and interesting, and there's some cracking effects, shocks and scares along the way. Aliens is a lot of fun, buts it full of dumb OTT characters that you can't relate to because they're not normal people thrown into a frightening situation. There a many clever moments throughout the film, there are occasions you're likely to miss the alien if you're not observant enough. The mystery set up by the derelict should have been left one of the great unknowns.

Anyone asking why Alien is great should remember that everything was designed for the film, everything afterwards used that creativity in diluted forms with diminishing returns. Eventually it would hit rock bottom with AvP2, the final last step in making them mundane monsters, depicting aliens running around modern day America killing highschoolers. How far the great have fallen.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
So, I decided to finally watch the movie despite me knowing alot about the alien francise, but never watching anything but 4?
I all honesty. the sequel is better, it its a better horror and action movie. The original felt slow and just boring at times. And I didnt car for any of the chracters.
But 2 made it better and so much more fun to watch. more tense scences, when the alien queen comes out of the elevator, I was scared, Even though I knew the ending, I was scared they where not going to make it. And I feel it does the "Females can be both action heroes and nurturing at the same time" thing so much better, Newt at Ripley where great together.
Alien wasnt a bad film, it just wasnt fun.

It wasn't meant to be "fun." It was a ground breaking horror film.

We should remember, Alien is a horror movie with some action elements. Aliens is an action movie with some horror elements. Different genres, both excellent.

Don't mind that slick spot of the dorrknob to your room. I'm sure its nothing.
To quote the immortal bard: "One Day you will account for your many and varied blasphemies!"

Now we need Aliens vs. Predators v.s Cybernet!
"Hasta La Vista...Buggie..."

 Frazzled wrote:


Now we need Aliens vs. Predators v.s Cybernet!
"Hasta La Vista...Buggie..."

I'm pretty sure Dark Horse made something along those lines XD

Alien was amazing in its hey-day. It may not of aged well. Something strange about that franchise... No two movies were like the other. Completely different productions and feel.

Spetulhu wrote:
One thing I particularly liked about Alien (and Aliens) is how filthy and run-down the setting looks. Same as the original Star Wars trilogy. There's missing paint, bare-scratched metal and machines that actually look like they've seen heavy use. Real people could exist there, working their butts off and too tired to go slap fresh paint on something that works. It's easier to imagine yourself there, watching the movie in your own home where a few things could also use a touch-up when you have time and energy.

Newer movies with shining white computer-generated buildings and ships just don't seem as realistic somehow.

And that stupid plastic bird, dipping in and out of a glass of water....

I loved Alien - but that bird told you an awful lot about the folks on the ship.... They were blue collar working men and women on a years long journey on a space faring oil refinery. Not scientists, not xenobiologists... just folks that encountered a horror beyond the reaches of their knowledge.

And the term that I have heard that sums up the Alien is O'Bannon's 'the roach under the sink' - you almost never get to see the monster.

But then I'm not young, anymore....

The Auld Grump

Also, Alien is awesome because 70's tech future is the best future.

Super-dirty ramshackle space trucks run by computers with ultra-basic/no GUI and a button for every conceivable function = win.