Prometheus - Ridley Scott's Alien 'prequel' *SPOILERS*

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Re: Prometheus - Ridley Scott's Alien 'prequel' *SPOILERS*

Post by FVBTVS »

Necrometer wrote: Sat May 27, 2017 11:35 am
FVBTVS wrote: Sat May 27, 2017 11:20 ampowers of iditocy
:tup:

i was waiting for this - almost pm'd you
this thread is my de facto pm inbox when i really think about it
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Re: Prometheus - Ridley Scott's Alien 'prequel' *SPOILERS*

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Necrometer wrote: Wed May 24, 2017 11:33 am

Prometheus rewards you for thinking
Covenant punishes you for thinking

this remains fairly true, i just have a leonard garcia diego sanchez grade chin for alien related blows to the face doing yes cartwheels forever :cheers:
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Re: Prometheus - Ridley Scott's Alien 'prequel' *SPOILERS*

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SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW
Whether human or android, encounters with created beings prompt your own existential anxieties – you become akin to Frankenstein’s creature, asking yourself unanswerable questions: “What does this mean? Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination?” (131). Alien: Covenant replicates this likeness directly: humanity discovers itself to be the creation of beings who seem to find us monstrous, in that they find us to be a dreadful mimicry of themselves, and we thus share in the experience of the android, wondering about a greater meaning that must lie somewhere out in the vast infinity of space. And, as we witness during Peter Weyland’s final scene in Prometheus, the answer to these questions is a nihilistic one: there is nothing awaiting the search for our origin, identity and meaning. These recurring questions, as Frankenstein’s creature finds out, are “answered only with groans” (124).

While David is aware of this metaphysical nothingness in Prometheus, evoking the absurdist irony at the heart of humanity’s quest for meaning, he is also responsible for unleashing it in both Prometheus (where he infects Charlie’s drink with the seemingly omnipotent alien gel, leading to the brilliantly twisted med-pod birth scene) and Alien: Covenant (where he creates a literal dark cloud of death that consumes all life on the planet). And while the ‘inky death cloud’ bioweapon causes us, perhaps understandably, to bemoan a lack of creativity in the film, it does function as a clear metaphor: the dark nothingness awaiting our most urgent questions is not just a vacuum in this franchise, but a dreadful entity waiting to possess and mutilate our very being. And David, whose nonhumanity inoculates him against this darkness, is the ‘person’ who emerges capable of fashioning an answer to this void: he seeks to create “the perfect organism.” David is not just a Frankenstein creature to be abhorred as a monster – he is Frankenstein himself, a being obsessed with creating a “new species” who would exalt him “as its creator and source.” And, again, this obsession is really an inversion of that pursuit: while Frankenstein imagines that “many happy and excellent natures would owe their being” to him (55), David imagines a creature who, to use the words of his fellow android, is “perfect” in its “purity. A survivor, unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality.”
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Re: Prometheus - Ridley Scott's Alien 'prequel' *SPOILERS*

Post by elephants gerald »

knowing basically nothing about this movie before it came out, it's a strange coincidence that I JUST re-read frankenstein...and actually visited a by-appointment wing of the ny public library that had a bunch of mary shelley's manuscripts, letters, and things. among this stuff was her personal copy of paradise lost.

so when I was watching this last night, I was unsure at first about whether or not all of the frankenstein/paradise lost stuff I was seeing was actually there or if I just had it all on the brain. now, of course, it seems very obvious (and actually, the PL stuff was given away with the too explicit david-as-satan stuff)

I think the paradise lost stuff ultimately failed, anyway, because david ended up as this kind of stereotypical hollywood unstable lunatic villain type. he lacked the charisma necessary to pull that thing off. and the lack of ambiguity at the end about david and walter was frustrating...
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Re: Prometheus - Ridley Scott's Alien 'prequel' *SPOILERS*

Post by elephants gerald »

just watched that half in the bag, feeling febtus here. fuck this. enough. and they're reaching -- most of the inconsistencies they're pointing out are explained in some way or another in prometheus.

they don't wear helmets because they can get accurate atmospheric readings inside the ship, which we see in prometheus
the xenomorph thing (deacon?) at the end of prometheus comes into existence without any genetic tampering on david's part, which makes sense of the mural. he's refining, not creating something entirely new.
weyland corp knowing where weyland went has nothing to do with anything. prometheus and covenant take place on different planets, and weyland corp is notoriously shady -- even if they knew what happened, they wouldn't be revealing that info. plus it's only been like ten years. covenant might already have been in transit when prometheus landed

that's enough for now. lazy.
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Re: Prometheus - Ridley Scott's Alien 'prequel' *SPOILERS*

Post by Necrometer »

yeah, don't feed the trolls

the first "but why" video was grating enough, but this one was even more of a reach since this whole goddamned movie was dedicated to over-explaining shit

the frankenstein stuff definitely wasn't just you being fresh of the book - but that doesn't mean it's especially effective, either. it's like batman v superman actually being a re-telling of Excalibur - sure the director was going for that, but maybe focus on making a decent movie first

response to fvtbst pending
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Re: Prometheus - Ridley Scott's Alien 'prequel' *SPOILERS*

Post by RY4N »

i think the half in the bag criticism is more disappointment rather than hate. i didnt dislike it but just thought it could have been better by not being so indirect, and at this point theres going to be reboot fatigue.
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Re: Prometheus - Ridley Scott's Alien 'prequel' *SPOILERS*

Post by riley-o »

Just want to remind everyone that I warned you these half in the bag idiots were morons like a thousand years ago

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Re: Prometheus - Ridley Scott's Alien 'prequel' *SPOILERS*

Post by Necrometer »

all the time you've spent with prequel legos has clearly twisted your mind !

(I don't remember how many actual years ago you warned us of their idiocy - while they were mostly just doing prequel take-downs, or after that?)
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Re: Prometheus - Ridley Scott's Alien 'prequel' *SPOILERS*

Post by riley-o »

It was almost exactly 0.5 of your Earth years, after Plinkett did his bullshit takedown of Rogue One. I think I've had some previous criticisms that they might be sleeper agent retards, but that was the moment it crystalized that they've been riding on the back of that long prequel review ever since dumbface did it way back when
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Re: Prometheus - Ridley Scott's Alien 'prequel' *SPOILERS*

Post by Necrometer »

ok, just making sure you're not some sort of anti-anti-prequel vid monster

lego is plural, sure, but there's also the hyper-plural for when I'm talking about distinct lego kits, akin to when you say "fishes" instead of fish (pl)

yc
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Re: Prometheus - Ridley Scott's Alien 'prequel' *SPOILERS*

Post by riley-o »

Okay I checked with my courts and the judge ruled the plural of Lego is always Lego regardless of any outside bullshittery so that solves that
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Re: Prometheus - Ridley Scott's Alien 'prequel' *SPOILERS*

Post by Necrometer »

FVBTVS wrote: Sat May 27, 2017 10:00 amhttp://www.audienceseverywhere.net/davi ... -covenant/ :fonz:
SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW
If you're inclined (and i dont blame you) to lean on the idea these prequel movies shouldnt exist at all then maybe the link isn't worth reading. Insofar as theres anything to be gained at following the threads that prometheus started i think this movie has, at the very least, the second or third best possible idea on where/why/how it should go and it made the whole thing worthwhile to me. whether its a good movie or not is almost beside the point. It has to be watched charitably just like prometheus was. There's probably maybe kinda 30+ minutes or so of 'good movie' in the whole thing. Anyway, i love that this franchise has always had these AI figures in them that had moments of agency and alien beauty but were always kinda sidelined by the scope of the plot or whathaveyou. In alien 3 (my favorite) the scene with an obliterated bishop having a conversation with ripley is one of the most beautiful scenes in the entire franchise. With prometheus and now this i think we have two movies that are way way more about AI characters than ever. David emerging as the central driving force was a bit of an actual surprise for me and even adds more meaning to his role in prometheus! He's like a long long long gestating and chest bursting surprise emerging from the bloody and stupid corpse of this idiotic fucking property :betternotstartanyshit: I'm actually inclined to laugh at all the terrible shit in this movie as much as you guys but I loved the David stuff in total. Not so much his goofball reveal but the completely insane chest bursting scene where the creature mimicked David was so unambiguously out of control I cannot help but love it. Thats how i've been feeling. That shit was kinda genius guys. The kissing and the fluting and the rhetoric :brokenheart: Also there's always been that movie logic thing where the AI's in the movie weren't really ever in danger except for Bishop at the end of Aliens and you could argue it was a result of a kind of female competition thing between the queen and ripley, You broke my eggs i'll break your friend type a deal. They fucking distort and reappropriate everything they touch including human structures when they make nests and yet not AI?

Also, like, for real.. nothing will be worse than Resurrection going forward. Nothing will be worse than that. Maybe thats two mondays removed monday morning quarterbacking but I dont care. If there's another movie after this one I will bet my life it will succeed or fail based on a completely superior set of criteria than what it takes to appreciate that movie. In terms of ideas, the best you can say about it is that it stole some cool stuff from the comics.

I had way more dumb random musings that kept popping up about this still but a lot of them got lost to the void because i got laid directly after the movie and its been a migraine headache in my life ever since.
FVBTVS wrote: Sat May 27, 2017 11:20 am
SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW
ridley scott as rapidly aging and demented steward slash creator of a monster franchise concept that parallels the david arc nicely imho..

i didn't build this mess but by jove im going to break it in ways its creators would cower at :lol:

i am the sorta builder and sorta destroyer of worlds!! :ax: :ax: :ax: :ax:
not sure why it has taken me so long to respond - maybe because A:C is a movie that makes me angry to think about. but I finally read that interpretation thing you linked and it was really solid. aside from it convincing me I need to read frankenstein, it also helped me come around a bit, at least regarding what scott was trying to do. I still think the execution of this one was really bad, and I certainly don't LOVE his intentions. but I can accept that prometheus did its thing and was done with it, and now covenant is doing a starkly different thing. the unapologetic nihilism of covenant feels so goddamned nu-metal, it makes my skin crawl. I guess I would call Alien pretty nihilistic, too, but at least it's understated and not telegraphing everything? in contrast prometheus feels more absurdist - its ending has the voidgazing there's no afterlife moment but then shaw sort of soldiers on anyway. I love it.

alien3 does rule, and that bishop-head scene is great. I agree that resurrection sucks overall, but some of the scenes are just so good. the endless underwater sequence, the "failed clones", and the ghastly queen hive room. so yeah, just a few nice set-pieces.

I recently read the Alien: Labyrinth comics and I think that tempered the enjoyment I could get out of david's experimenting in covenant. there's similar DIY xeno-laboratory stuff in there, and a mad scientist character.

I also read/skimmed some of the generally terrible "Fire & Stone" comics (apparently the creators had access to scott & co's master plan), but one theme introduced there is the goo (?) interacting with an android, which has some implications for where the movies might go. I've heard some really pushing-it ideas about how the xeno we saw in covenant wasn't the "real thing" and that it needs android essence to be commingled before it'll take on its full/final biomechanical form. seems like a stretch...

admittedly mostly because she's hot, I background-(re)watched this chick's videos on prometheus & covenant last weekend...
SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW


and it got me thinking about ridley being about to die and reflecting on his films & how they've been received. I'm not sure if he's more david or more weyland, but here's some thoughts:
- weyland was played by young guy (pearce, that is) because he's a stand-in for scott, and scott is in denial about being decrepit
- weyland has two "kids", david & vickers. david represents his most successful movies, those that indulge in science & feature androids: alien & blade runner. vickers represents everything else, the safer stuff. even though she sort of "aims to please", she's ultimately a bland failure since she lacks vision and isn't interested in the big questions. I'm not sure how scott feels about his ouvre, but I can imagine it torturing him that even the acclaimed gladiator isn't revered in the same way as his first two sci-fi films were.
- the david & walter dichotomy might have similar stuff going on. david is prodding, going beneath the surface, exploring even when things get grim. walter is all about preserving human life & maintaining the associated sanctity. david decides that creating something is the highest purpose, walter can't even fathom such things and instead just wants to serve.
- maybe it's overboard to go this META, but filmmakers kinda create "people" when they invest in their films' characters, so the replicant-as-legitimate-being perspective might make more sense to scott, whose career has involved such creation
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Re: Prometheus - Ridley Scott's Alien 'prequel' *SPOILERS*

Post by Ray »

Necrometer wrote: Fri Jun 30, 2017 6:43 pm I recently read the Alien: Labyrinth comics and I think that tempered the enjoyment I could get out of david's experimenting in covenant. there's similar DIY xeno-laboratory stuff in there, and a mad scientist character.
Whoa, I read the novel when I was in seventh grade or something. Covenant did bring that one to mind, hadn't thought about it in years...I thought it was pretty sick when I read it.
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Re: Prometheus - Ridley Scott's Alien 'prequel' *SPOILERS*

Post by Necrometer »

it was not too shabby at all

the "failed experiments" scene was really similar to that awesome segment in resurrection - I think the comic was first
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Re: Prometheus - Ridley Scott's Alien 'prequel' *SPOILERS*

Post by Foot Foot »

Covenant felt less like an Alien sequel and more like one of those Italian Alien knock-offs from the 80s, only more ostentatious and with a more impressive production design.
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Re: Prometheus - Ridley Scott's Alien 'prequel' *SPOILERS*

Post by Necrometer »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVqd3Q1m5wo

not sure how much of this is fan-edit and how much is deleted scene, but here you can listen to David explain the slightly mysterious things in even more excruciating detail... doesn't really explain Shaw's fate any better though :(
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Re: Prometheus - Ridley Scott's Alien 'prequel' *SPOILERS*

Post by FVBTVS »

so shaw's dna is like in the queen or some such

interesting tidbit about being afraid of their own 'power' and 'sin' and stuff. might explain why they tried to eradicate man etc

o well
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Re: Prometheus - Ridley Scott's Alien 'prequel' *SPOILERS*

Post by Ray »

Holy shit, that was awesome. Best thing to come out of that movie.
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Re: Prometheus - Ridley Scott's Alien 'prequel' *SPOILERS*

Post by FVBTVS »

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/10/ridley ... 201884993/

Ridley Scott Wants the Next ‘Alien’ Movie to Focus on Artificial Intelligence Instead of the Xenomorph

Big things have small beginnings. They also have lots of sequels and prequels. Ridley Scott shows no signs of slowing down after “Prometheus” and “Alien: Covenant,” though he says that the next installment in his enduring science-fiction franchise will focus less on the xenomorph and more on artificial intelligence.

“I think the evolution of the Alien himself is nearly over, but what I was trying to do was transcend and move to another story, which would be taken over by A.I.s,” he tells Empire in a new podcast interview. “The world that the A.I. might create as a leader if he finds himself on a new planet. We have actually quite a big layout for the next one.”

One might reasonably conclude that this means David, the philosophical (and homicidal) android played by Michael Fassbender, will continue to anchor this new strain of the “Alien” mythos. Elsewhere in artificial intelligence, Scott just produced “Blade Runner 2049,” a sequel to the sci-fi classic he directed after “Alien.”
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Re: Prometheus - Ridley Scott's Alien 'prequel' *SPOILERS*

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Re: Prometheus - Ridley Scott's Alien 'prequel' *SPOILERS*

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that shit'll rule so damn hard

net us at least another 10-12 pages on this bad boy easy
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Re: Prometheus - Ridley Scott's Alien 'prequel' *SPOILERS*

Post by Necrometer »

:lol:

I want to see them address the jarring size discrepancy between the engineers and the derelict pilot by introducing a SUPER-ENGINEER a la T H E P R E D A T O R
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Re: Prometheus - Ridley Scott's Alien 'prequel' *SPOILERS*

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FVBTVS wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 1:01 pm that shit'll rule so damn hard

net us at least another 10-12 pages on this bad boy easy
I really never want these movies to end if it keeps this thread alive

I think in like 2030 both this and the avatar thread will sill be on pages 1-3 somewhere
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