Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.
Lance845 wrote: I saw Alien in theaters last night (released for 45th anniversary on 4/26 for alien day weekend i guess).
I saw it as well. Hopefully yours was a reasonably nice theater. My showing taught me that our big theater had little half screens hiding in the back of the building.
Amidst the mists and coldest frosts he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.
Zed wrote: *All statements reflect my opinion at this moment. if some sort of pretty new model gets released (or if I change my mind at random) I reserve the right to jump on any bandwagon at will.
There are certainly plenty of places they can drop the ball and make a horrible movie, but the trailer looks to be hitting all the right notes. Might even try to catch this on the big screen.
Looks cool, and its making me get the itch to play my long delayed new game+ of Aliens: Dark Descent.
"Sometimes the only victory possible is to keep your opponent from winning." - The Emperor, from The Outcast Dead.
"Tell your gods we are coming for them, and that their realms will burn as ours did." -Thostos Bladestorm
To be honest, much as I’m a fan of the genre, modern horror has kind of blurred into one for me. I blame Insidious and The Conjuring sharing not only tone, but lead male!
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
To be honest, much as I’m a fan of the genre, modern horror has kind of blurred into one for me. I blame Insidious and The Conjuring sharing not only tone, but lead male!
Horror more than any other genre seems to be dominated by trends where studio productions are concerned.
We've been in a 'demonic possession or crazed killer' phase for a long ass time.
One of the joys of Horror is it tends to be pretty cheap to produce. So when you hit pay dirt, you make some serious, ridiculous profit - particularly as marketing wise, horror seems to work best left alone to word of mouth.
But, the downside is that when one film creates a new zeitgeist? You get cash in compilations. Because again, it doesn’t take much to turn a decent profit. And so it all goes back to being really formulaic after initial innovation.
I still enjoy my horror, and even kinda like that stuff gets formulaic. Because part of the appeal is “turn off brain, enjoy the various ooooh, nasty! shenanigans.
But it does make it increasingly difficult to remember whether or not I have seen a given flick when it comes to modern stuff.
Of course, give I can easily discern older tropey horrors from one another, is entirely a Me problem.
But just bought Evil Dead anyways, so sod it, time to do a remember!
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
It be nice to have an actual Aliens movie. None of that hokey 'what if god was one of us and the devil was an android who talked about fingering' stuff XD
I was on the fence about seeing it so I watched a review that I knew would be brief and spoiler free and think it may be useful to others that are unsure.
Spoiler:
Amidst the mists and coldest frosts he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.
But man what if we got a proper Dead Space movie? I mean, let's not wish for too much on the back of Borderlands but let's just sit and dream for a moment of what could be.
But man what if we got a proper Dead Space movie? I mean, let's not wish for too much on the back of Borderlands but let's just sit and dream for a moment of what could be.
I dunno, we kind of did already? I thought the animated Dead Space movies that took place before the first Dead Space and the Dead Space 2 were pretty decent barring some of the animation choices in Dead Space: Aftermath (mainly the CGI one). They bridged the gap between the gaps decently and explained the significance of side characters like Nolan Strauss.
Having a live-action Necromorph that is done properly ala practical effectives in conjunction with VFX along the lines of the OG film "The Thing" would be legit amazing, but knowing Hollywood, they would make Isaac Clarke a wimpy guy that needs to be saved constantly by race-swapped Nicole, and instead having Nicole actually be dead the whole time, she'll actually be alive and helping him actively until the very end.
I wanted to like this more than I did, it's OK but that's about it, plenty of nods to the other films and tries to do some new things but also unnecessarily tries linking into things it didn't need to. It was a solid 7/10 until the ending which drags it down to a 6 there was better point to end the film. It feels like the film Resurrection wanted to be. The use of practical effects was great but the scenes that necessitated CGI look off (you'll know what I mean when you see it I don't want to spoil anything). Overall I'd put it fourth behind the dIrector's cut of Alien 3.
It was much better than I thought it would be but it did play out as "Alien: Greatest Hits, Volume I". Good in that the filmmaker makes respectful nods to all previous efforts( Terminator: Dark Fate and Clash of the Titans'2010, pay attention ) while using whats already established to create a new horror-adventure in the Alien universe. Even better, it seemed self-contained which is good in this day of multi-film cinematic universes...although I do wonder if someone with fresh eyes would agree with that, not having seen Alien first.
On the other hand it suffers from quoting lines other films, when its not needed. Also, Its got to the point where they've remade Alien so many times now that we're long( LONG! ) overdue for a return to the antics of Colonial Marines, Sentry Guns and Powerloaders. Obviously there are vintage Pulse Rifles in the film( its about 30 years before the events of ALIENS! ) but nothing as close to the electrifying action scenes of Cameron's sequel.
While Alien: Romulus is a good alternative sequel to Alien, it's lacking in inspiriation from outside the series. As divisive as Alien3 was it does have shades of Black Narcissus and Theseus & The Minotaur. ALIENS tapped into THEM! and Heinlein's Starship Troopers, as well as tapping into the Vietnam film rush at the time.
I must say that the old-school effects and the music score were welcome, and Andy stole the show.
My main nitpick is we go from face hugging to full size xenomorph in what, 20 minutes? Less? Doesn’t even eat anything, just mass from nowhere. Lack of consistent mass in stuff is a constant pet peeve of mine though so… Otherwise I liked it, chuckled at the memberberry line quotes, some of the cheesy action scenes, pretty solid. Did feel that third act was meh and drug it down/out at the end though. Some people will love that part though, but you’re gonna hear many who don’t.
I haven't seen it yet, the gestation period and growth period for a xenomorph has been flubbed in basically everything but the first 3 movies.
In the first movie it is about a day or so after Kaine is returned to the ship before the chest burster comes out. We know that because we know repairs are not completed yet (still some thing to do. "Oh we don't need that to take off!") and Parker said it would take them 24 (36) hours to complete the repairs.
We also know it takes time, though not much, for it to grow to full size with or without food supply. 1 Who knows what the chest burster might have gotten into to feed? 2 They had time to wrap and prep kaine's body for a funeral. Ash had time to rig together the motion tracker from stuff in the ship (that was not a standard piece of equipment). And the mechanics had time to rig up the cattle prods.
We don't have anything to time stamp all this but presumably it took time. Hours? A day? I doubt anyone went to sleep.
We do know from the time Kaine died to the destruction of the Nostromo was less than 24 hours. (Aliens: "Just one of these things managed to wipe out my entire crew in less than 24 hours!")
In Aliens we have the benefit that no one gets face hugged so all the full grown aliens growth happens off screen before we arrive on LV 426.
In Alien 3 the Bull (it was supposed to be a bull) gave more room for the burster to gestate and as a result it came out more developed. It's growth took time like in alien. Hours to a day before anyone saw it again. This time at least beasts of burden were around for food.
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
It’s really good, having an exceptional opening and middle section. But, a final section a bit on the wonk prevents outright greatness.
It does of course lean heavily on what came before. In some ways that is a bit lazy, but there’s enough original in there that this isn’t a delightful punnet of ‘Member Berries. Crucially for me? It does those bits well. And in some cases? Much better than predecessors.
I think the back end could’ve done with a belt tightening, but I’d be happy to go watch it again with friends.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And yeah. Andy deserves an Oscar. Seriously deserves an Oscar. That role and the actor were truly phenomenal.
Spoiler thoughts. DO NOT READ THESE IF YOU INTEND TO SEE THE MOVIE!!!
Spoiler:
Not sure how I feel about Ian Holm’s return from the grave. It does help ground things like, but I’m of mixed feelings about resurrecting actors when it’s not completely necessary. And even then there are shades.
Good Gravy! It just made Prometheus and Covenant make some kind of sense! And provided fresh context for why the company wanted specimens. And they’re not bad reasons either. I suspect The Emperor might be pulling a few strings.
It even managed a more visually arresting Human-Alien Hybrid. And whilst I’d need to watch it again? I’m sure it’s got its lipstick out for a moment in one shot. The mucky pup. Bad boy, dirty boy! Put your heavenly rhubarb away! In your bed, on your rug! DIRTY!
The cast are really solid. And as said in the non-spoilered? There’s enough new, done well, for this to work as its own thing.
This to me is a good example of how to stitch a film into a series’ mid-way point. And like Prey, our protagonists find out the difficulties of facing the Xenomorph in a pretty organic way. Indeed, one of my favourite additions is Facehuggers using sound and body heat to locate hosts. And then used that in a pretty effective scene.
I’d also say this borrows quite a lot of atmosphere and that from the Resident Evil games. And there is a certain shared DNA there already,
Jump scares are done well, and I didn’t find too corny,
Oh, and importantly Xenomorphs are back to being terrifying foes once again.
Overall, I’d give this a comfortable 8/10. The last third is a bit of a damper squib though, as it felt like a good 15 minutes here and there could’ve been trimmed.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Things I loved?
The sets are amazing. Absolutely spot on. And that allows for the overall atmosphere to work. We also get motivation for our protagonists to explain why they’re doing what they’re doing.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2024/08/16 23:21:06
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
AduroT wrote: My main nitpick is we go from face hugging to full size xenomorph in what, 20 minutes? Less? Doesn’t even eat anything, just mass from nowhere.
Yes, it was straight down the throat, wake up about 2 minutes later, then five minutes later the chest burster. In the other films there's been at least an impression that some time has passed before the burst.
It was ok I guess. I'll need to see it again just to visually munch on those pratcial effects some more.. Those, for me, were the highlight of the film
"The larger point though, is that as players, we have more control over what the game looks and feels like than most of us are willing to use in order to solve our own problems"
First movie to get me to go out to a theater in awhile.
It's good. It's not blow off your socks good, but it's good and that in itself kind of makes the movie better if your experience in the last 2 related films was rolling your eyes and going 'oh god why.'
Some of the references to previous films are eye rolling but w/e. They're not bad enough to take away form the film being good.
I feel the need to give out particular credit for 2 things;
Andy was amazing. That actor pulled work, playing basically 2 characters in one film flawlessly. The writing for the character was subtly great too. Kudos to this guy. The characters were mostly just okay but Andy is a real standout.
Secondly; Holy gak. Someone made an alien movie where none of the characters becoming blindingly stupid to move the plot along. Actually using desperate space trucker style characters once more, and people with a pressing rationale to take some risks, does a lot to make the characters and plot of Romulus way less shouting 'that's fething stupid' at the screen inducing that Prometheus or Covenant.
Even the dumber decisions the characters make, make sense in the context of what the characters know and what motivates their actions. The film actually understands how characters not knowing things the audience knows is a useful tool to allow characters to make mistakes in a believable way.
It's good. I'd rate it as the best Alien film since Aliens, though I can see why someone might rate Alien Cubed higher.
One note;
Spoiler:
I think the issue with the alien's rapid growth could have been solved in Romulus had just been a space ship. That would have justified the characters sticking around longer for the thing to develop and Rook/Andy could have been used to explain why the characters don't just leave when gak hits the fan... Also, how the 'ship' got there in the first place. I feel like in the amount of time it took a whole space station to drift toward a planet, the 'company' would have found it.
The 'get away from her line' also might have landed if they stopped while they were in place. Adding the 'you bitch' at the end was both out of character for Andy, and kind of just took it to 'assimilate this' levels of corny.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2024/08/17 20:58:36
Andy The First - glitchy, outdated. Eager to please but not a great deal of personal agency.
Andy The Second - The Evil Corporate Upgrade Andy. Physically and mentally superior, and clearly so. But morally highly dubious, albeit not of his own volition
Andy The Third - Stupid upgrade chip, you go squish now. But…he’s still superior to when he started out. His firmware remains updated, and some of his physical glitches remain fixed. But he’s also lost the edge of Andy The Second.
That it’s really subtle is again only praise for David Jonsson.
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
Andy is such a well-done character from start to finish and excellently acted throughout.
Like
Spoiler:
Even when he's 'evil corporate upgrade Andy', Andy is still mostly helping. He could have just ditched Rain and Who'sits and gone to complete his mission without them, but he brings them along and, so long as it doesn't endanger his main goal, doesn't screw them over for the evils.
The two worst things he did largely weren't even that evil. Keeping that one door closed probably did save Rain and Who'sits lives at the moment. Offering Kay the serum might have been, within the context of what Andy knew of it, an honest attempt to help. The characters didn't linger in the room/watch the video long enough to see how it resulted in horrific mutations. Andy might not have known that would happen and only knew of it how Rook described it.
There's a fantastic subtlety to the character at those stages in the movie that really makes Andy stand out from Ash, Bishop, or Rook as a distinct addition to the Wey-Yu Android supporting character family. EDIT: And while we're here, Rook is a pretty cool throwback to Ash while not just being an Ash clone character. Well done there too.
Just all around. Andy was probably a better character and the actor put more work into his role, than was necessarily needed for the movie itself. First class for him.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2024/08/17 21:20:49
Ultramarines, 3rd Co. and friends, 16k+ 
4k 
2k Points
Competition Index
