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.

I see where you’re coming from...but it seems oddly specific,

As if they or they’re contemporaries have seen action to find ‘big ‘orrible Killy thing with big teeth like that!! Yet only found relatively disappointing native fauna?

Either way, I feel there’s mileage in it - if only to explain just why The Company was so interested

Thought, genuinely? Let’s treat both AvP films as canon?

They neatly explain the overall interest. And why ship computers would wake their crew to respond to certain sensor readings.

Could it be that Colonial Marines were referring to false positives?

Think I’ve unruined it for myself!

Nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure...

Honestly, though, I REALLY wish Hollywood would give up on the reboots and mindless sequels. I mean, we all love going back to a familiar story and characters, but come on... There are a lot of creative writers out there. Can’t we came up with new stories to tell and not just endless reboots and sequels?

Inidaan Jones 5? Star Wars 9? Now many DC universe reboots (although Joker did a great job of telling a new story in an “old” universe)? Terminator. Jurassic Park. Transformers. The just just keeps going... Let them be. Move on with new stories to tell!

Grognard hat off...

Valete,

JohnS

I echo your sentiment, if not exact picks of films to refer to (each to their own!)

But given I’ve gone off on one about exploring the background of the CMC? That might prove more fertile ground for exploring established movie universes.

I’ll even go so far as to suggest that’s exactly what Marvel got right with the MCU. A single thread ran through them, which lead to Thanos’ plan.

But each entry is still its own thing. Spin offs without feeling like spinoffs.

Alien and Predator could both do with some of the same.

As someone said earlier, and they were entirely accurate, Alien depends upon the unknown factor for the audience. And it’s hard to up the ante without resorting to ‘this time, instead of a face, it’s got four arses’ type stuff.

Because narratively, you simply cannot recreate the claustrophobic feel of Alien. Or take apart the ‘sod it, I’ll just get a gun, OH NO’ feel of Aliens.

This is why I rate Resurrection over Alien3.

Now I’m not calling either of them bad, or brilliant. Just that Resurrection at least tried to do something different, where Alien3 felt like a shonky remake of Alien.

Neither quite succeeded, that’s true. But I’ll take an ambitious mess over a safe mess any day of the week.

The less said about Prometheus and the other one the better. There’s very much such a thing as explaining too much,

It's not as if there aren't enough stories out there in the world that have never been told on the screen.

They could do some wonderful things with 40k. I also think there are many many many stories to be told from star wars still, the rise and fall of Revan and Malik would be outstanding, they could leave stop the series with Bastilla storming the bridge and boom, straight into KOTOR, if they really wanted to make some money they could remake KOTOR also to continue the story. (I know this is off topic and discussed in another thread but there is crossover).

In comparison, the Alien universe is just not as rich in history, but stories could be told, they should not be a film though.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
It's not as if there aren't enough stories out there in the world that have never been told on the screen.

They could do some wonderful things with 40k. I also think there are many many many stories to be told from star wars still, the rise and fall of Revan and Malik would be outstanding, they could leave stop the series with Bastilla storming the bridge and boom, straight into KOTOR, if they really wanted to make some money they could remake KOTOR also to continue the story. (I know this is off topic and discussed in another thread but there is crossover).

In comparison, the Alien universe is just not as rich in history, but stories could be told, they should not be a film though.

Eh, if you're going to do both KOTOR and the events leading up to it (Mandalorian wars, rise of Revan and Malik) then you have to start with adapting the game. If you do the lead up first then the twist of KOTOR is ruined.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
It's not as if there aren't enough stories out there in the world that have never been told on the screen.

They could do some wonderful things with 40k. I also think there are many many many stories to be told from star wars still, the rise and fall of Revan and Malik would be outstanding, they could leave stop the series with Bastilla storming the bridge and boom, straight into KOTOR, if they really wanted to make some money they could remake KOTOR also to continue the story. (I know this is off topic and discussed in another thread but there is crossover).

In comparison, the Alien universe is just not as rich in history, but stories could be told, they should not be a film though.

Eh, if you're going to do both KOTOR and the events leading up to it (Mandalorian wars, rise of Revan and Malik) then you have to start with adapting the game. If you do the lead up first then the twist of KOTOR is ruined.

The game has been out long enough not to be concerned by the twist. It's a bit like the VII remake - the twist that cloud is not in fact a soldier first class is already known going into it.

Anyway - You quite simply never show Revans face in the film/series, you always have him/her with the mask on.

Also, you do NOT need to re do the game, It was just a suggestion to bring more cash out of the film (series would be better though) if they wanted to.

As already mentioned by several people, you don't, you instead make a completely new movie that people will ask "How do we make more movies like this" in 30 years...

 creeping-deth87 wrote:
I I personally found David to be a very compelling character, and touching on the themes of where we come from/what our purpose is, etc. and juxtaposing that with David interacting with his creators in real time was brilliant. .

David is really interesting character in the first film and I even liked his mad scientist version in the second.

The problem for me is how deeply uninteresting and annoying the humans are in the first one - the relationship between Davd and Charlize Therons character could have been ineresting but they did not with it or indeed her for the whole film, instead focussing on the gibering idiots running around the alien base.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 creeping-deth87 wrote:
I I personally found David to be a very compelling character, and touching on the themes of where we come from/what our purpose is, etc. and juxtaposing that with David interacting with his creators in real time was brilliant. .

David is really interesting character in the first film and I even liked his mad scientist version in the second.

The problem for me is how deeply uninteresting and annoying the humans are in the first one - the relationship between Davd and Charlize Therons character could have been ineresting but they did not with it or indeed her for the whole film, instead focussing on the gibering idiots running around the alien base.

Yeah, i would fully agree with this. They could have done some interesting stuff with them for sure. Total wasted opportunity.

Yup.

Both suffer heavily from ‘smart people doing stupid things’.

I mean, had they shown the scientists in Prometheus being massively excited? OK, I could get the odd lapse of judgement.

Overall it just feels somewhat contrived.

I cant stand any more reboots or cashing in on people's nostalgia with some series. Just release the first 2 or 3 in theaters for a limited time and maybe remaster them. Then let the series die with whatever remaining dignity it has left.

Video games might be another story though. Dear God stay away from another movie though. Alien movies don't work out well now.

Reboot. At this point it's just gone too far into the sadly common pit pit of "Hey, let's make it new and surprising by ignoring what made it great in the first place and throwing in things that make no sense in the current continuity!"

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Yup.

Both suffer heavily from ‘smart people doing stupid things’.

Another issue with a few modern films/remakes is the Starwars situation where you've got clearly very immature/stupid people in positions of extreme power. It works for a character like a sith lord; but I always found it so jarring that the commander for the whole First Order was basically not much more of a teenage kid in behaviour. Basically trying to shoe-horn in the "oh we have to have comic relief" aspect.

Smart people being really stupid often exists because if they were actually smart then the writer/director can't get the story to where they want it. I think sometimes it happens when a big chunk of story gets cut and suddenly what was several scenes of justification gets axed in one fell swoop for timing. So your logical argument goes out the window so you have to bring in a fast, daft, idea in order to keep the ball rolling. Otherwise you've got to re-write the whole script all over again.

There is another issue, smart people may not be as smart as they (or we) think they are.

 Manchu wrote:
There is another issue, smart people may not be as smart as they (or we) think they are.

Yeah but sometimes they are blatantly stupid in films or don't even seem to have basic proceedures that we'd know would be in place.

Eg in Alien 1 when the alien first infects someone Ripley is all for leaving the crew member isolated and without medical aid to prevent infect. She gets overrruled and we later find out that it wasn't just because of an appeal of sympathy but a plot to ensure that a sample was collected. That presents a logical sensible policy and reason for it being countered on two levels (one in the moment and one behind the scenes). A silly argument would be them pulling the crewmember back on without any mention or hint of containment or risk of infection of the rest of the crew etc...

To begin with, you won’t find me arguing that Prometheus (much less Covenant) is as good as Alien!

But I will say, with regard to Prometheus, that the entire venture of visiting LV223 is compromised by its origins in hubris and selfishness. The scientists are not really the best of the best; they are weirdos willing to throw themselves into an extremely dangerous situation with very little info. They are the people Weyland settled for after more responsible, thoughtful, well-adjusted people turned them down.

So, basically imagine Elon Must taking the Ancient Aliens Documentary Scientists on an expedition to find Space El Dorado?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
So, basically imagine Elon Must taking the Ancient Aliens Documentary Scientists on an expedition to find Space El Dorado?

Honestly, I feel like that in itself (while an apt description) is such a ham-fisted way of shoving the message down the audience's throat the film still deserves condemnation even if you were willing to chalk up the bizarre behaviors of the characters to theme. I think the much more straight forward explanation is the film was too wrapped up in it's own 'deepness' for its own good.

Yeah Bob, you’re on the right track.

LoH, not gonna argue, Prometheus radiates pretension. But the weird rage over “smart people doing dumb things” says more about the people feeling it than the movie IMO.

I think that's more something about modern cultural consumption than anything specific to Prometheus. We're in a weird place where people can make money inventing conspiracy theories about works of fiction, generating 40-60 minute Youtube videos about how "awful" such and such is. And there's an audience that'll watch it. Prometheus I think ran headlong into that, not so much because "smart people doing dumb things" but because the film itself has so much oddness to it. It was like canon fodder for the way things are on the internet.

 LordofHats wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
So, basically imagine Elon Must taking the Ancient Aliens Documentary Scientists on an expedition to find Space El Dorado?

Honestly, I feel like that in itself (while an apt description) is such a ham-fisted way of shoving the message down the audience's throat the film still deserves condemnation even if you were willing to chalk up the bizarre behaviors of the characters to theme. I think the much more straight forward explanation is the film was too wrapped up in it's own 'deepness' for its own good.

I’m not defending the film, but I am interested in hearing other takes. Frankly, most of what I remember from my initial (and only) viewing was a crushing sense of disappointment (mixed with vindication/schadenfreude). I think it was about the scene where Charlize ACTED! at bad grampa that I stopped even caring if the characters were dumb or not because it was that moment when it became clear to me that the film was a disjointed mess more interesting in setting up thematic hooks than in paying anything off. I felt the plot and characters inconsistencies flowed from that fundamental flaw, which kind of raised my qualms from “that action was dumb, and that one, and that...” to “what was he even trying to say with this scene?”

I think it was Tolkien or Lewis or I-dunno-someone who said that stories can’t work on a deeper level if they don’t first work on the surface level. To me, Prometheus attempted depth at the expense of surface and failed at both.

 Manchu wrote:
The scientists are not really the best of the best; they are weirdos willing to throw themselves into an extremely dangerous situation with very little info. They are the people Weyland settled for after more responsible, thoughtful, well-adjusted people turned them down.

From where are you getting this? I don't recall an in-universe reference to this, though of course I may have missed it.

Regardless of if they were smart people doing dumb things or riding the first peak in the Dunning-Kruger chart is almost irrelevant to the many, many problems with Prometheus, of course.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Frankly, most of what I remember from my initial (and only) viewing was a crushing sense of disappointment (mixed with vindication/schadenfreude).

Very much my experience as well. Honellty I think 'crushing disappointment' is the most accurate description of the film. Everyone could see the potential for a great movie in it. It had all the right parts. They just weren't mixed right.

LoH and Bob, I have been all over the place on Prometheus but the turning point for me, in terms of starting to really like the film over the last two years or so, is realizing that the relevant cypher is Mary Shelly rather than Greek myth, or even the Alien franchise for that matter.

Ouze, it’s mostly implicit to the exposition. But Fifield and Milburn have a conversation around the issue.

In that case, the stitched-together-monstrosity of the plot is a feature and not a bug?

Shrug?

I think it’s a pretty solid film that has been raked over the coals mostly because (1) it was marketed as something it isn’t and (2) it’s pretentious.

 Manchu wrote:
There is another issue, smart people may not be as smart as they (or we) think they are.

Well the problem is, to write a smart character, you have to be well......smart. you cant just say they are smart, they have to show it. Problem is, Writers are not always smart(Im using this in a very loose context, more along the lines of books smarts kinda people, nerd basically) people
Its like when people write manipulative characters with no way to know how to BE manipulative

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
There is another issue, smart people may not be as smart as they (or we) think they are.

Well the problem is, to write a smart character, you have to be well......smart. you cant just say they are smart, they have to show it. Problem is, Writers are not always smart(Im using this in a very loose context, more along the lines of books smarts kinda people, nerd basically) people
Its like when people write manipulative characters with no way to know how to BE manipulative

This is definitely an issue. For a perfect example you just have to look at the BBC show Sherlock. A Sherlock Holmes adaptation (or at least it claims to be) where the intelligence of Holmes is turned into a superpower and the mysteries are solved using information acquired off-screen or pulled out of thin air so the viewer can never solve the mystery with the information given on-screen in case they solve it before Sherlock does.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
There is another issue, smart people may not be as smart as they (or we) think they are.

Yeah but sometimes they are blatantly stupid in films or don't even seem to have basic proceedures that we'd know would be in place.

Eg in Alien 1 when the alien first infects someone Ripley is all for leaving the crew member isolated and without medical aid to prevent infect. She gets overrruled and we later find out that it wasn't just because of an appeal of sympathy but a plot to ensure that a sample was collected. That presents a logical sensible policy and reason for it being countered on two levels (one in the moment and one behind the scenes). A silly argument would be them pulling the crewmember back on without any mention or hint of containment or risk of infection of the rest of the crew etc...

Which is a huge issue I have with Covenant. They land on a completely unknown world and go for a walk without full protective gear. They have absolutely no idea what kind of flora and fauna inhabits that planet!

If the crew of a space salvage hauler had protocols in place to avoid contamination coming aboard their ship then why the hell does a colony ship not have anything like that?! No oversuits which can be disposed of/decontaminated? Just wandering around in your clothes, picking up who knows what to trudge back onto your ship.

Which is a huge issue I have with Covenant.

Ridley Scott in general has this bizarre thing where his movies tend to be heavy handed in presenting very simplistic notions in ways that feel completely out of touch with their setting. A lot of his big movies have this problem. Gladiator, Robin Hood, Prometheus, Kingdom of Heaven, and Covenant. He presents these really heavy handed themes, makes a convoluted plot line with lots of coincidence and contrivance, and often times produces a film where the values and pursuits of the characters feel completely out of place with what's actually going on around them.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
There is another issue, smart people may not be as smart as they (or we) think they are.

Well the problem is, to write a smart character, you have to be well......smart. you cant just say they are smart, they have to show it. Problem is, Writers are not always smart(Im using this in a very loose context, more along the lines of books smarts kinda people, nerd basically) people
Its like when people write manipulative characters with no way to know how to BE manipulative

This is definitely an issue. For a perfect example you just have to look at the BBC show Sherlock. A Sherlock Holmes adaptation (or at least it claims to be) where the intelligence of Holmes is turned into a superpower and the mysteries are solved using information acquired off-screen or pulled out of thin air so the viewer can never solve the mystery with the information given on-screen in case they solve it before Sherlock does.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
There is another issue, smart people may not be as smart as they (or we) think they are.

Yeah but sometimes they are blatantly stupid in films or don't even seem to have basic proceedures that we'd know would be in place.

Eg in Alien 1 when the alien first infects someone Ripley is all for leaving the crew member isolated and without medical aid to prevent infect. She gets overrruled and we later find out that it wasn't just because of an appeal of sympathy but a plot to ensure that a sample was collected. That presents a logical sensible policy and reason for it being countered on two levels (one in the moment and one behind the scenes). A silly argument would be them pulling the crewmember back on without any mention or hint of containment or risk of infection of the rest of the crew etc...

Which is a huge issue I have with Covenant. They land on a completely unknown world and go for a walk without full protective gear. They have absolutely no idea what kind of flora and fauna inhabits that planet!

If the crew of a space salvage hauler had protocols in place to avoid contamination coming aboard their ship then why the hell does a colony ship not have anything like that?! No oversuits which can be disposed of/decontaminated? Just wandering around in your clothes, picking up who knows what to trudge back onto your ship.

This. For Prometheus too. The lead scientists being over-enthusiastic and crossing lines to prove their theory I can buy. David running really unethical experiments because no-one thought to install an inhibitor &/or serious Daddy issues with his creator(s) I can buy (and really like). The Space Jockeys having an issue with one of their failed / abandoned experiments turning up on the door step I can buy. But scientists who seem to have no comprehension of quarantine or decontamination protocols? Nope, stupid. Particularly when they have overwhelming evidence of a previous containment breach emergency. And a supposed biologist who deliberately advances on an unknown creature making an obvious threat display? Nope, stupid. Etc, etc.

That's not from some over-hyped "takedown" on Youtube, that was my initial reaction, whilst watching the film in the cinema, with no prior knowledge. LIke I said, Prometheus has a lot of solid, interesting ideas that are totally ruined by sheer Hollywood silverscreen dumb-assery.