Alien-films
Lene Aasland Kittelsen
One thing I`ve been wondering about: Would you like it better if the story
had been stopped after Alien3, and there never been an fourth, or is it
worth the, to most, bad fourth, as long as there is a fourth?
Lene K.
---
The bride-maidens rejoice the eyes that wait the coming of the
bride; but when the bride draweth nigh, then the maidens shine
not to the eyes that are filled. Bram Stoker, Dracula
MODESTY
Personally I would have been overwhelmed if they had stopped at Number
three... Now it is getting out of hand and the stories gets thinner and
thinner.........
--
~~MODESTY~~
"Non Serviam"
Lene Aasland Kittelsen skrev i meddelandet ...
maj...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca
Lene Aasland Kittelsen (len...@ulrik.uio.no) wrote:
: One thing I`ve been wondering about: Would you like it better if the story
: had been stopped after Alien3, and there never been an fourth, or is it
: worth the, to most, bad fourth, as long as there is a fourth?
:
: Lene K.
: ---
: The bride-maidens rejoice the eyes that wait the coming of the
: bride; but when the bride draweth nigh, then the maidens shine
: not to the eyes that are filled. Bram Stoker, Dracula
The only way the piss-poor fourth film would be worth anything is if
Alien 5 is 1,000,000,000 times better.
--
Daniel Ovsenik
"I admire it's purity, a survivor. Unclouded by
conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality."
-ALIEN (1979)
Joachim Gross
Lene Aasland Kittelsen wrote:
> One thing I`ve been wondering about: Would you like it better if the story
> had been stopped after Alien3, and there never been an fourth, or is it
> worth the, to most, bad fourth, as long as there is a fourth?
The fourth Alien-film was one too much. They definitly wanted Alien3 to be the
last one,
and you can feel it when you watch the film that everything draws to a close.
Making the fourth was like going to the cemetery, digging up the good parts
and revive a peaceful death body. (thats how Frankenstein got famous but not
Alien)
It is obvious that Alien4 was made just to earn money
J.G.
Wmvrrvrrmm
In article <354A134B...@vienna.at>, Joachim Gross <j.g...@vienna.at>
writes:
>It is obvious that Alien4 was made just to earn money
>
>J.G.
>
>
I suppose that there are the ideas to do with Alien to investigate.
We want to see Aliens on Earth, and also return to the derelict on Acheron to
find out where the derelict comes from. The Alien Resurrection film seems to
have been an attempt to get Ripley out of the situation of being dead, and
there wasn't time to
go further.
It seems that this movie seems to was interesting as far as exploration of
alien relationships maybe.
Perhaps the next film will be the last one when it should go ahead unless they
film the next and the following one back to back which is always one of those
options that you find out about in the magazines.
Then there are those looking at the Franchise in an attempt to make money. but
we still have a long way to go along the road to get the various themes out
onto the screen.
Vince
MODESTY wrote in message <3549f...@d2o4.telia.com>...
>
>Personally I would have been overwhelmed if they had stopped at Number
>three... Now it is getting out of hand and the stories gets thinner and
>thinner.........
>
>--
>~~MODESTY~~
> "Non Serviam"
>
>Lene Aasland Kittelsen skrev i meddelandet ...
>>One thing I`ve been wondering about: Would you like it better if the story
>>had been stopped after Alien3, and there never been an fourth, or is it
>>worth the, to most, bad fourth, as long as there is a fourth?
>>
>>
Sorry but the third is the worst alien movie of the bunch. The first was the
best. If you want my opinion. Lot of movie never need a sequel and Alien is
one of them. But James Cameron made a good sequel...
Vince
>>Lene K.
>
>
>
Vince
Joachim Gross wrote in message <354A134B...@vienna.at>...
>Lene Aasland Kittelsen wrote:
>
>> One thing I`ve been wondering about: Would you like it better if the
story
>> had been stopped after Alien3, and there never been an fourth, or is it
>> worth the, to most, bad fourth, as long as there is a fourth?
>
>The fourth Alien-film was one too much. They definitly wanted Alien3 to be
the
>last one,
>and you can feel it when you watch the film that everything draws to a
close.
>Making the fourth was like going to the cemetery, digging up the good parts
>and revive a peaceful death body. (thats how Frankenstein got famous but
not
>Alien)
>It is obvious that Alien4 was made just to earn money
>
Not agree. Alien resurection was made for the fans the Alien movies. Or
maybe because the third one was very bad. Alien by Ridley Scott was a movie
not to have sequel. It is not like Star Wars who was a trilogy well
thinking. The term Alien Trilogy is just fake.
Vince
>J.G.
>
>
fspam-r...@usa.net
Joachim Gross <j.g...@vienna.at> wrote:
>Lene Aasland Kittelsen wrote:
>The fourth Alien-film was one too much. They definitly wanted Alien3 to be the
>last one,
>and you can feel it when you watch the film that everything draws to a close.
>Making the fourth was like going to the cemetery, digging up the good parts
>and revive a peaceful death body. (thats how Frankenstein got famous but not
>Alien)
>It is obvious that Alien4 was made just to earn money
>J.G.
All movies are made to make money. Sigourney Weaver is ruining these
movies. She was the one that forced Fox to do the 7 dwarves Alien3
instead of William Gibsons kick ass version. She also intervened when
Alien 4 came up. If they could make an Aliens film without Miss
Weaver, it would free them up in a thousand ways. The 5th file could
be great.
PJS
Wmvrrvrrmm
In article <354cf...@news.intersignal.net>, "Vince" <vlec...@yahoo.com>
writes:
>. Alien by Ridley Scott was a movie
>not to have sequel
Ridley Scott as soon as Alien was released was keen to make a sequel
Wmvrrvrrmm
In article <354c6b85...@news.nwlink.com>, fspam-r...@usa.net writes:
>She (Sigourney Weaver)
> was the one that forced Fox to do the 7 dwarves Alien3
>instead of William Gibsons kick ass version.
Are you sure?
Vince
Wmvrrvrrmm wrote in message
<199805041816...@ladder03.news.aol.com>...
yes, but only because the movie was popular.
>
>
maj...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca
Wmvrrvrrmm (wmvrr...@aol.com) wrote:
: Ridley Scott as soon as Alien was released was keen to make a sequel
That would have been a hell of a lot better than what we have now.
Wmvrrvrrmm
In article <6ilq7k$gi2$1...@news.sas.ab.ca>, maj...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca ()
writes:
>That would have been a hell of a lot better than what we have now.
One idea that Ridley Scott put forth in an interview a few years ago, was that
the alien was the demon that exists within our collective psyche, and maybe the
alien had been to earth before.
He would have done a number of things that would have irritated Cameron
fanatics.
There would not have been an alien queen, but then there may have been
something as ferocious, because Giger would have been quite capable of
designing something given the neccessary budget and experts that Cameron had.
I'm sure that Ridley would have tried to have an alien having sex with Ripley.
He wanted something sexual going on between the alien and Ripley in the first
movie
We would possibly have had an alien that was crossed with a four legged animal
as well. He would have liked to have made a sequel that would have pleased
hardcore science-fiction enthusiasts.
Wmvrrvrrmm
In article <354f6...@news.intersignal.net>, "Vince" <vlec...@yahoo.com>
writes:
wmvrr...@aol.com wrote
>>Ridley Scott as soon as Alien was released was keen to make a sequel
>
>yes, but only because the movie was popular.
Well, I suppose that Ridley should have assumed that Alien would not have been
popular, when he began to think.. When he expressed his interest to Fantastic
Film, although it was popular, he didn't know that there would be a sequel, but
he would have liked to have done one.
He would even have lowered his salary. Now that sounds like someone devoted to
his ideas.
Of course, there was a lot more that he wanted to express, especially since the
prognosis scene was dropped from the production. Ideas in his head are
obviously going to change with time. There were continuance of possibilities
forever being argued out, and there were ideas swimming around all the
interviews like sperm from the most outstanding overflowing ejaculation of
creativity, and those things are still swimming around out there, in and around
people's heads, seeding some strange idea that possibly doesn't get very far of
course.
I think that by the time he came out with his idea about the alien being "the
demon" in a real organic form, a few years ago, I think that it felt like some
thought that had been swimming in his head untouched for a very long time,
touching on a delicate obsession.
Brian Pesti
Wmvrrvrrmm partially wrote:
> I think that by the time he came out with his idea about the alien being "the
> demon" in a real organic form, a few years ago, I think that it felt like some
> thought that had been swimming in his head untouched for a very long time,
> touching on a delicate obsession.
The potential of the Alien being a metaphor for someting bigger has been lost in
AR. Just a bunch of unique-looking scary survivors not much different from the
hunting animals you see on the Discovery Channel.
I'd like to see Kubrick get a hold of it. Only of it made sense to him and touched
a philisophical chord in him. But if it did...it'd take the Alien idea full
circle, and maybe somewhere thought provoking we haven't been before [or in a
while at least].
----------------------------------------
Brian Pesti
----------------------------------------
Bobodacoon
>All movies are made to make money. Sigourney Weaver is ruining these
>movies. She was the one that forced Fox to do the 7 dwarves Alien3
>instead of William Gibsons kick ass version. She also intervened when
>Alien 4 came up. If they could make an Aliens film without Miss
>Weaver, it would free them up in a thousand ways. The 5th file could
>be great.
>
>
sigourney weaver is why we have all the alien movies.
maj...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca
Wmvrrvrrmm (wmvrr...@aol.com) wrote:
: In article <354A134B...@vienna.at>, Joachim Gross <j.g...@vienna.at>
writes:
: >It is obvious that Alien4 was made just to earn money
: >
: >J.G.
: >
: >
: I suppose that there are the ideas to do with Alien to investigate.
: We want to see Aliens on Earth, and also return to the derelict on Acheron to
: find out where the derelict comes from.
How could they possibly do this?
The Alien Resurrection film seems to
: have been an attempt to get Ripley out of the situation of being dead,
and
: there wasn't time to
: go further.
At 108 minutes I'm not surprised.
: It seems that this movie seems to was interesting as far as exploration of
: alien relationships maybe.
: Perhaps the next film will be the last one when it should go ahead unless they
: film the next and the following one back to back which is always one of those
: options that you find out about in the magazines.
I'd like to know when they plan to start.
: Then there are those looking at the Franchise in an attempt to make money. but
: we still have a long way to go along the road to get the various themes out
: onto the screen.
The suits at Twentieth Century Fox are too stupid to do anything but ruin
the series.
maj...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca
: J.G.
Which, as we all know, didn't happen.
Alien Regurgitation bombed, but Fox will probably still make another one.
Greed and Stupidity is a bad combination.
Wmvrrvrrmm
In article <6ioln8$r7i$4...@news.sas.ab.ca>, maj...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca ()
writes:
>
>: We want to see Aliens on Earth, and also return to the derelict on Acheron
to
>: find out where the derelict comes from.
>
>How could they possibly do this?
Exploration of the derelict remains and the silo may reveal some archeological
clues, so might the biomechanic landscape around the derelict. I'd like to look
through the jockey's telescope and see if it was pointing anywhere of interest.
Does the derelict have data banks that can be brought back to life. Maybe the
Jockey could be cloned, if an alien can. The Jockey clone might contain within
it information that might be able to work the derelict once again. There would
be various means of answering this
problem, and maybe it wouldn't all come together in a film anyway.
Wmvrrvrrmm
In article <354F84E3...@earthlink.net>, Brian Pesti
<bpe...@earthlink.net> writes:
>
>The potential of the Alien being a metaphor for someting bigger has been lost
>in AR. Just a bunch of unique-looking scary survivors not much different from
>the hunting animals you see on the Discovery Channel.
>
>I'd like to see Kubrick get a hold of it. Only of it made sense to him and
>touched a philisophical chord in him. But if it did...it'd take the Alien idea
full
>circle, and maybe somewhere thought provoking we haven't been before [or in a
>while at least].
>
>
I wonder what philosophic chord it could touch in him.
And what would we have considered the alien metaphor to be, other than just
demons of the human psyche..
The idea of the alien being a metaphor for cancer and sexual diseases etcetera
was spoken about in essays and discussions, and the producers were thinking
along those lines as scriptwriters. But Scott didn't have the idea that the
alien was a cancer or anything in the first movie when he made it, he thought
that the idea was too specific.
I suppose that the feelings of the late seventies crept into Alien, and the
next two sequels seemed to have some reflections of their time, and we seem to
be confused with the latest one. The director was less opinionated. I didn't
expect much to come out of his interviews the moment I found out that he was
going to direct the movie, about what was going on here and there. Maybe he
will talk about it one day, when someone asks him the questions because he does
seem to know what's going on usually.
But then we have the film connecting with the time when a sheep was cloned.
Maybe things will dawn on us in three or four years time.
The only thing that was frightening ( as far as my mind was taking the
information) was the fact that the Newborn was going to make the hole in Call's
stomach bigger, through the innocence of it's investigations and it's interest
in whatever Call was, and it wasn't too bothered about killing this android, it
was just interested in this rupture and what was inside, and this creature's
investigations into what made things work could be very destructive.
I think it seems strange also to think about the fact that when the Betty's
crew first see an alien, they are indeed supposed to be scared, and Jeunet
tried to make a special point of making them look scared, and then the actors
were pretty used to the site of aliens and so are we.
I would like to have a writer who was sensitive enough to the mysteries of
Giger's paintings, to the ideas that flow through there.
If we were to attempt to imagine something in the Alien series occuring as a
Kubrik film, what would we expect out of it, without asking for a retread of
2001: A space Odyssey mixed with Dr Strangelove and Platoon (was that last one
Kubrik's?).
We seem to be hoping for something strange and wonderful to hit us in AI. and
maybe if this comes out in good time, it could inspire the next Alien Movie
director to give us all a break.
It's possible that when we see Alien 5 , we might be saying better things about
AR.
I'm no longer addicted as such to the future Alien movies because there are no
more directors that I could possibly want to make another Alien film, and I
think that I know all the possible permutations of answers to the mysteries
that there may have been in the first film to haunt me, and anything new is
just another variation.
Brian Pesti
Wmvrrvrrmm wrote:
> But then we have the film connecting with the time when a sheep was cloned.
>
> Maybe things will dawn on us in three or four years time.
That's a good point. I think with Joss Whedon, it was coincidence, not
consciousness.
> I would like to have a writer who was sensitive enough to the mysteries of
> Giger's paintings, to the ideas that flow through there.
Ah, there you go. And I think a thinker like Kubrik is the type of guy [not
necessarily the specific or only guy] who could *start* to do that.
> If we were to attempt to imagine something in the Alien series occuring as a
> Kubrik film, what would we expect out of it, without asking for a retread of
> 2001: A space Odyssey mixed with Dr Strangelove and Platoon (was that last one
> Kubrik's?).
No. Platoon was Oliver Stone. Full Metal Jacket was Kubrik's anti-war, turning men
into killing machines systematically, set in Vietnam, but not about Vietnam,
movie.
The quality that Kubrik possesses is that he just doesn't make a Sci-Fi movie or
war movie or period piece to do just a Sci-Fi, war or period piece. He uses that
as a jumping off point by which to tell his story and examine his, and others,
philosophies concerning human nature. Something of substance compared to Joss
Whedon's 'Wouldn't it be cool if...' type of shallow approach. That's really the
point I was trying to make by referring to a man like Kubrik. I thought Ridley
Scott held his own with the first one. Thought provoking, creative, esthetic -
every shot is a painting, and sub themes subtly raised to give the film depth of
character, at the very least.
> I'm no longer addicted as such to the future Alien movies because there are no
> more directors that I could possibly want to make another Alien film, and I
> think that I know all the possible permutations of answers to the mysteries
> that there may have been in the first film to haunt me, and anything new is
> just another variation.
It would be nice if a relative unknown up and comer like Scott or Cameron
basically were, with some serious potential and drive, would get a hold of the
project and make it their own. I think the two mentioned did that successfully and
entertainingly. Jeunet had some of those qualities, but not the total package. I
also think it's safe to assume the first two directors were genuinely interested
in developing the subject matter, Jeunet didn't come across like that. You can
tell he enjoyed it, but he won't be writing the readers of Starlog magazine
sharing his background ideas on the Alien film he created like JC did, nor will
you find him explaining his original storyboards and his connection with O'Bannon
and Giger in Fantastic Films the way Scott did.
Those two people took a relatively new and fresh idea and ran wiht it. I really
don't think the idea is stale yet, but it *would* be more dificult to bring
something new to the table at this point, Someone would have to be insipred to use
it as a vehicle for exploring their own artistic development and not just
something cool to list on a resume.
----------------------------------------
Brian Pesti
----------------------------------------
Brian Pesti
Wmvrrvrrmm partially wrote:
> I'd like to look
> through the jockey's telescope and see if it was pointing anywhere of interest.
Actually, Ridley Scott referred to it as a gun in his storyboards. I always liked
to think it was a navigation device myself.
----------------------------------------
BP
----------------------------------------
Matti Koskinen
Lene Aasland Kittelsen wrote:
>One thing I`ve been wondering about: Would you like it better if the story
>had been stopped after Alien3, and there never been an fourth, or is it
>worth the, to most, bad fourth, as long as there is a fourth?
I dont consider the fourth Alien movie a bad one. I think Alien3 was the
worst of the lot (my god, was it boring... After reading the W.Gibson
script, I can only wonder how _stupid_ the studio people can be to throw
that away). Yes, I agree, the first movie is the best -- and maybe even a
piece of art, I don't know. All i know is that it scared the hell out of me,
which is why I enjoyed it. The second movie rocked like hell -- loads of
sweaty people shooting cool critters to pieces... After this I was jumping
to a comic book store to buy Dark Horse's alien comics. If you are saying,
that the whole franchise is just plain crap, then don't go see the fifth
movie. I'm a fan of all things alien, and i enjoyed AR (although I only saw
it twice in the theater). Maybe I could have lived without it, but it was a
fine movie (at least I liked it better than the obnoxiously stupid Titanic
running in the next theater).
maj...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca
Wmvrrvrrmm (wmvrr...@aol.com) wrote:
: I would like to have a writer who was sensitive enough to the mysteries of
: Giger's paintings, to the ideas that flow through there.
And that definately will NOT be Joss Whedon.
: If we were to attempt to imagine something in the Alien series occuring as a
: Kubrik film, what would we expect out of it, without asking for a retread of
: 2001: A space Odyssey mixed with Dr Strangelove and Platoon (was that last one
: Kubrik's?).
No. Oliver Stone. Kubrick directed Full Metal Jacket.
: We seem to be hoping for something strange and wonderful to hit us in AI. and
: maybe if this comes out in good time, it could inspire the next Alien Movie
: director to give us all a break.
: It's possible that when we see Alien 5 , we might be saying better things about
: AR.
If Alien 5 is better than Regurgitation, I'll just be glad that it didn't
kill the series.
: I'm no longer addicted as such to the future Alien movies because there are no
: more directors that I could possibly want to make another Alien film, and I
: think that I know all the possible permutations of answers to the mysteries
: that there may have been in the first film to haunt me, and anything new is
: just another variation.
--
Wmvrrvrrmm
In article <3550B2EC...@earthlink.net>, Brian Pesti
<bpe...@earthlink.net> writes:
>Wmvrrvrrmm wrote:
>
>> But then we have the film connecting with the time when a sheep was cloned.
>
>> Maybe things will dawn on us in three or four years time.
>That's a good point. I think with Joss Whedon, it was coincidence, not
>consciousness.
I'm interested in the idea that the collective unconsciousness is trying to
manifest through the Alien films as statements. And, the clone thing might be
mistaken by some who haven't read the interviews to be something brought over
from La Cite Des Enfants Perdus where there were foetuses of clones being shown
growing in glass tanks, and so with Jeunet's following film AR, it seems that
he's come back to the idea of clones being grown in tanks again.
Anyone would have had to use the Cloning idea whatever the situation if this is
the only way to get a Ripley back into the film series. There wasn't much one
could do to avoid it, but the idea of Ripley's clones could have worked in a
number of different ways.
Wmvrrvrrmm
> I also think it's safe to assume the first two directors were genuinely
>interested in developing the subject matter, Jeunet didn't come across like
that. >You can tell he enjoyed it, but he won't be writing the readers of
Starlog magazine
>sharing his background ideas on the Alien film he created like JC did, nor
>will you find him explaining the way Scott did with his original storyboards
and his >connection with O'Bannon and Giger in Fantastic Films .
Well, I suppose that there's only a certain amount that we can find out about
AR.
There's a whole different thing happening in the communication in the film.
There's only a certain amount that can be expressed.
I recall Cameron's letter to Starlog.
I suppose that there was a big arguement going on which forced O'Bannon to
write a letter to Starburst with his ideas about the actual story of Alien, and
Cameron wrote in response to the situation of the Starlog letters, maybe
because he read Starlog and felt some desire to reason with them, and also he
was the Aliens scriptwriter which meant that he had to account for the
direction of ideas.
Then we have Fincher trying to account for his situation in the Alien 3 film,
while the producers were being complementary about him, and they were the
script writers too and weren't in a position to be questioned over the script
problems.
And lastly we have Joss Whedon trying to talk about the ideas for his script
and where things went differently, as it seems he's supposed to know what was
going on, and interviews with him seem to be page fillers mixed with Buffy the
Vampire information.
Jeunet has spoken about some personal ideas and themes he used to develop the
film, but the references are too obscure. He is very foreign. He doesn't have
any important revelations about the alien because there was nothing to reveal
other than what was there, seemingly emotionally obvious.
There are answers given by the creature crew as to why the aliens looked
different, and what was asked of them to make them different and so there are
reasons for the differences and they end up seeming obvious, there's nothing
much possible to suspend our beliefs beyond that.
In this situation, the ideas that are there are often simple ones, these ideas
are often poetic thoughts like little midgets that are easily overlooked, and
they exist down there on a different wavelength in their own world. There were
no exciting ideas about biomechanoids that would make them more war-weapon
like. The story that is behind everything in the film isn't really a part of
the Alien movies that we have seen, but it seems that Jeunet saw a lot in Alien
3 that a lot of us couldn't even be bothered to think about, and the characters
were allowed to continue to exist with their own futile ways of thinking that
weren't really that interesting to a number of us, but they had more power such
as owning guns and ships.
Then we'll be waiting to find out the answers to why certain scenes never come
together, and how Call got up behind that door at the lift, and the answer
would be obvious.
There's nothing he has to say about the derelict mystery, because it had no
connection with the movie. There was nothing to look foreward to in terms of an
alien king or another stage in the alien's evolution. No budget for a winged
alien either.
The film seemed almost as small as the remnants of Alien 3. Of course there's
Whedon's shit script ironed out and trimmed which didn't help, but looking at
the problems the production team had with finding a story for Alien 3 and the
final release was badly trimmed, leaving subplots left disconnected, I suppose
that they tried to make a tidy film with AR where the problem of the latter
would not happen, and they of course tried to have the film's material pass
with a lower rating so the serious alien sex scenes never happened. It doesn't
seem to be that anyone can focus on the situation of flaming Jeunet for his
position in the film, in hope that he would leap out to defend his name in some
interesting way. No one's taking any arguements too seriously at present.
Maybe he'll have a few revelations much later on, but he doesn't reveal too
much other than the jokes that he and the other people were making together.
I think that certain shots can be catagorized in his cartoonish realm of
thought that really seems to be there holding a lot of the structure together,
as his other films were held together.
ETC. ETC. ETC. and so on.
And I'd like to have more time to read the French text I have with interviews
with Jeunet, that might have information, and complete the patterns of
statements and I could then harmonize with the place where he creatively
connects his thoughts, as he usually does in his films.
Brian Pesti
Matti Koskinen wrote:
> [...] I think Alien3 was the worst of the lot (my god, was it boring... After
> reading the W.Gibson
> script, I can only wonder how _stupid_ the studio people can be to throw
> that away).
I'm one of the few who didn't think it wasboring. I thought it was well acted
among other things. The FX were the big let-down.
What is the link to the W.Gibson script again. Several people have mentioned
it. I've read all the pre-A3 scripts in the past, but I lost it amongst all my
bookmarks.
Thanks!
----------------------------------------
BP
----------------------------------------
Wmvrrvrrmm
In article <3550C2CF...@earthlink.net>, Brian Pesti
<bpe...@earthlink.net> writes:
>
>> I'd like to look
>> through the jockey's telescope and see if it was pointing anywhere of
>interest.
>
>Actually, Ridley Scott referred to it as a gun in his storyboards. I always
>liked to think it was a navigation device myself.
I'm trying to think what I read about it, I wonder if Scott refers to the
triggers that the Jockey had it's hand on in reference to it being frozen in
death weapon he was firing , and maybe the actual weapons are outside.
What we can assume is that the creature could see through the structure before
it,
and what he was looking at was perhaps something outside the ship and maybe he
could see things that were outside the ship, at a great distance, and maybe the
ship must have had some protective weaponary system.
It couldn't have been itself just a gun because it had nowhere to fire unless
it could shoot through the walls of the derelict, or it was to kill the enemy
within.
Navigation device is the best thing to label it without being too specific.
Wmvrrvrrmm
In article <6iv7kf$pdb$1...@nntp.teliafi.net>, "Matti Koskinen"
<mkos...@nettilinja.fi> writes:
>After reading the W.Gibson
>script, I can only wonder how _stupid_ the studio people can be to throw
>that away).
They were feeling poor at the time. They wouldn't so easily do a Ripley-less
movie.
Wmvrrvrrmm
>Lene Aasland Kittelsen wrote:
>>One thing I`ve been wondering about: Would you like it better if the story
>>had been stopped after Alien3, and there never been an fourth, or is it
>>worth the, to most, bad fourth, as long as there is a fourth?
What is a brilliant story for an alien.
There was something intricate happening in Gibson's script.
We seem to want something that is brilliantly structured and complex.
There is nothing for a mystery to arise from anymore, I think that Gibson's
script's idea about the DNA of the alien seemed mysterious, but who's idea was
that, was it Gibson's or was it the producers.
The Mystery is about the Alien's biology, and then to make that mysterious, we
need an alien monster that once again looks like a mysterious result of the
biology that makes it up. The biology of this mutated Gibson alien seemed to be
more infectious than the creature from The Thing, maybe somewhat as mysterious
too.
He wasn't too bothered about his Alien 3 script anyway, I think that he said
that he just wrote what they asked him to, they didn't seem to have much idea
about what they wanted. And then he liked the idea of unfinished Shopping Malls
in space. And the cold war had come to an end, so Gibson's script was already
out of date, although a cold war might happen again one day.
The Alien 3 script days seem to be shopping trips in every directon, and they
came back with lots of tasty treats which were never to be used. They could
never be put together in a way that would be easy for them.
There are no writers who I want a script from today. There are no marvelous
writers who could be summoned that I know of, because there is very little
artistic freedom to be given on the project.
I'd like future Earth to be a cold desolate snowy landscape like Alaska.
maj...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca
Matti Koskinen (mkos...@nettilinja.fi) wrote:
After reading the W.Gibson
: script, I can only wonder how _stupid_ the studio people can be to throw
: that away).
They threw it away because of a writers strike. But even if they hadn't,
it shouldn't have been made because it's a stupid piece of hackwork. I
couldn't believe that the man who wrote Neuromancer could write such a
garbage script (but then i haven't seen Johnny Moronic yet). After
reading that shit I felt a hell of lot better about the way the whole
thing eventually turned out.
The Amazing Nathan
Brian Pesti wrote:
>
> I'm one of the few who didn't think it wasboring. I thought it was well acted
> among other things. The FX were the big let-down.
I totally agree with you. I think Alien 3 is much more
suspenseful and interesting than Alien 4....
> What is the link to the W.Gibson script again. Several people have mentioned
> it. I've read all the pre-A3 scripts in the past, but I lost it amongst all my
> bookmarks.
I got all the scripts (that are availible on the internet :)
at
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~naflande
and then go the script section. Also has some background
info.....
Hope this helps;
--Nathan
remove 'nospam' from my address to reply
http://www.ucalgary.
Felix Hunt
Wmvrrvrrmm wrote in message
<199805092150...@ladder01.news.aol.com>...
>It couldn't have been itself just a gun because it had nowhere to fire
unless
>it could shoot through the walls of the derelict, or it was to kill the
enemy
>within.
Maybe the jockey's platform was maneuverable into a practical firing
position (although I can't think of one!).
Maybe the gun was solely for use when defending the ship from lifeforms when
landed on a planet's surface - this way hard vacuum wouldn't be a problem
when the gun penetrates the ship's walls.
Who knows?
However, the 'navigational device' idea is the nicest.
...and maybe Ridley scott would like to explain how this 'gun' works...
One question:
Did Giger design the gun of his own volition, or not?
[As designer of the space jockey, what was his design brief from Scott? Did
Scott tell him to design a pilot WITH a gun, or did the phallically obsessed
Giger decide to add it in as artistic license?]
Felix
"I ain't much for begging" - DILLON, Alien³
Brian Pesti
Felix Hunt wrote:
> However, the 'navigational device' idea is the nicest.
> ...and maybe Ridley scott would like to explain how this 'gun' works...
>
> One question:
> Did Giger design the gun of his own volition, or not?
> [As designer of the space jockey, what was his design brief from Scott? Did
> Scott tell him to design a pilot WITH a gun, or did the phallically obsessed
> Giger decide to add it in as artistic license?]
>
> Felix
>
> "I ain't much for begging" - DILLON, Alien3
That's a good question. I think in any event, it was a phallic symbol, seeing
that Giger and Scott were interested in sexual undertones in the development of
the story. You can see one idea I'm talking about at
http://home.earthlink.net/~bpesti/alien/html/storyboards_2.html
I'd like to see if anyone who's followed Giger more closely than I have, can
answer your question more directly.
I'll also see if I can't find Ridley's reference to calling it a gun in a 1979
interview so you can see it in context. I still like the navigation instrument,
or maybe it was a combo of both.
----------------------------------------
BP
----------------------------------------
provide.net
>> [...] I think Alien3 was the worst of the lot (my god, was it boring...
After
>> reading the W.Gibson script, I can only wonder how _stupid_ the studio
people can be to throw that away).
the gibson script was stupid and full of holes.
Personally I think A3 was the second best (after the original, hell yeah)
It was suspenseful like the first, something that Mr Cameron seems to have
forgotten. Also, it was a GREAT way to end the series and cut RIpley out of
the picture, why they brought her back I can't understand.....
kdog2000
maj...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca
Wmvrrvrrmm (wmvrr...@aol.com) wrote:
: I'd like future Earth to be a cold desolate snowy landscape like Alaska.
Then what would be the point in saving it?
maj...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca
The Amazing Nathan (nafl...@nospam.acs.ucalgary.ca) wrote:
: I got all the scripts (that are availible on the internet :)
: at
: http://www.ucalgary.ca/~naflande
: and then go the script section. Also has some background
: info.....
: Hope this helps;
: --Nathan
: remove 'nospam' from my address to reply
: http://www.ucalgary.
Speaking of Alien 3 scripts, are there any plans to put up any more
scripts? There were, what, 18 different scripts? And only three scripts
on the internet.
I also would like to know if there are any pre-Cameron Alien 2 scripts in
existance.
Wmvrrvrrmm
In article <6jbauk$jiu$3...@news.sas.ab.ca>, maj...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca ()
writes:
>
>Wmvrrvrrmm (wmvrr...@aol.com) wrote:
>
>: I'd like future Earth to be a cold desolate snowy landscape like Alaska.
>
>Then what would be the point in saving it?
>
>--
That's somewhere I'd like to save
Wmvrrvrrmm
In article <35589D49...@earthlink.net>, Brian Pesti
<bpe...@earthlink.net> writes:
>
>I'd like to see if anyone who's followed Giger more closely than I have, can
>answer your question more directly.
>
>I'll also see if I can't find Ridley's reference to calling it a gun in a
>1979 interview so you can see it in context. I still like the navigation
>instrument, or maybe it was a combo of both.
>
>
In view of the interview which you've shown, it does seem that he is firing a
weapon, but we are supposed to know that this chamber it's in is the cockpit.
I'll give you this one
Giger's Alien p34
"31 March 1978 Just back in Zurich from England. Today I received the
specification of the outsize pilot who has to be sitting in the cockpit of the
derelict"
As far as Giger could do to label a set of photos of our mysterious
construction which he designed, under construction
Giger' Alien p36
"377p-r Styrofoam work on the telescope."
The navigation instruments may as well also have access to weaponary and he is
dead frozen to the trigger handles of such weapons.
Brian Pesti
Wmvrrvrrmm wrote:
> In view of the interview which you've shown, it does seem that he is firing a
> weapon, but we are supposed to know that this chamber it's in is the cockpit.
>
> I'll give you this one
> Giger's Alien p34
> "31 March 1978 Just back in Zurich from England. Today I received the
> specification of the outsize pilot who has to be sitting in the cockpit of the
> derelict"
>
> As far as Giger could do to label a set of photos of our mysterious
> construction which he designed, under construction
>
> Giger' Alien p36
> "377p-r Styrofoam work on the telescope."
>
> The navigation instruments may as well also have access to weaponary and he is
> dead frozen to the trigger handles of such weapons.
Yeah, not as a cop-out, but I tend to think it was a combo of both navigation /
scope and weapon / scope. Of course the Ridley Scott interview was at the time of
the movie release, but he was going back to talk about pre-pre-production ideas.
Ones that obviously changed. So in context of his interview, I'd surmise he just
got comfortable calling it a gun, and was really interested in getting the bigger
point across about how the space jockey and eggs weren't originally in the same
place [but still definitely could be related to one another beyond 'he got killed
by an Alien'].
When I first read the interview, I was waiting for the part where he explains the
origin of both and the relationship between the two, but they never brought it up
:-( So I guess we'll never know...that's what NG's are for :-)
----------------------------------------
BP
----------------------------------------
Wmvrrvrrmm
In article <355A4D03...@earthlink.net>, Brian Pesti
<bpe...@earthlink.net> writes:
>
>When I first read the interview, I was waiting for the part where he explains
>the origin of both and the relationship between the two, but they never
brought
>it up >:-( So I guess we'll never know...that's what NG's are for :-)
He explained the relationship between the two but only arriving at half formed
ideas.
There were statements within the Fantastic Films interviews and then
Cinefantastique interviews. And in the interview fragment in Scanlon and Gross'
Book of Alien, he revealed another possibility in the relationship that took it
another way, and maybe this for me would have been ideal as another ambiguity,
so we looked at some life form and we didn't know whether it was the creatures
own young or a weapon, and we might have to come to terms with it being both.
The ambiguous revelation would have been following the idea of the transmission
being both a cry for help and a warning , while the hole in the platform seems
to have been placed and then also burnt through, and the jockey, we didn't know
if it was a seperate organism or a part of the ship itself.Such a question
about the relationship between the jockey and the Alien would have to be
stretched out to another degree to make it interesting after his statement, to
leave us guessing and looking for answers in interviews, but that's only in the
ideal world where Ridley Scott might have directed a sequel with a good script.
However we do not know where the Jockey would have originated from, we can have
the idea that the Alien originated was left behind on that planetoid as a
biological weapon. according to Scott's ideas at the time, from
Cinefantastique.
Brian Pesti
Wmvrrvrrmm wrote:
[...]
> The ambiguous revelation would have been following the idea of the transmission
> being both a cry for help and a warning
[...]
That's a good point. After thinking about it, I almost don't want to know the
relationship or the whereabouts / origin. The mystery and ambiguity contained in
the first movie ,without being incomprehensible but instead being intriguing, is
what propelled the entire Alien saga to begin with. So it would probably be
interesiting on one hand, but too much like seeing the Wizard of Oz behind the
curtain on the other. It's like when I worked with a bunch of Industrial Designers
and learned how things worked, then I made a return trip to Disney World and could
figure out how all the mechanisms were working the rides or shows or whatever - it
lost its visceral interest immediately. Sometimes knowing less is better. That's
why I don't pay attention to the Star Wars Prequel news anymore ;-) But it's still
fun to talk about to some degree and at least guess - I think that's it, guessing
instead of knowing.
----------------------------------------
Brian Pesti
----------------------------------------
maj...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca
Wmvrrvrrmm (wmvrr...@aol.com) wrote:
: In article <6jbauk$jiu$3...@news.sas.ab.ca>, maj...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca ()
: writes:
Actually, my point is that people might be disappointed with that scenario
if it were done as Alien 5. I always thought that Aliens on Earth would
be about Aliens stomping on Blade Runner-like cities and cocooning
innocent civilians for implantation. I was never sure what kind of plot
the movie would have, but that's what I always thought it would be. It
obviously shouldn't be some kind of ID4 type crap, but people would be
disappointed with desolate landscapes.
Wmvrrvrrmm
In article <6jk9t7$ikq$4...@news.sas.ab.ca>, maj...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca ()
writes:
>: That's somewhere I'd like to save
>
>Actually, my point is that people might be disappointed with that scenario
>if it were done as Alien 5. I always thought that Aliens on Earth would
>be about Aliens stomping on Blade Runner-like cities and cocooning
>innocent civilians for implantation. I was never sure what kind of plot
>the movie would have, but that's what I always thought it would be. It
>obviously shouldn't be some kind of ID4 type crap, but people would be
>disappointed with desolate landscapes.
>
>
well, i'd like a variety of landscape.
We could have overcrowded giant cities, post-apocalyptic deserts and every
futurisitc cliche under the sun, and some snowy regions too, just to show off a
little snow.
Maybe areas with thunderstorms and rain downpours and people standing around
saying important things in the film while carrying umbrellas.
They might have the weather on Earth, around the cities under control using
futuristic technology.
Wmvrrvrrmm
In article <355D75A9...@earthlink.net>, Brian Pesti
<bpe...@earthlink.net> writes:
>That's a good point. After thinking about it, I almost don't want to know the
>relationship or the whereabouts / origin. The mystery and ambiguity contained
>in
>the first movie ,without being incomprehensible but instead being intriguing,
>is
>what propelled the entire Alien saga to begin with. So it would probably be
>interesiting on one hand, but too much like seeing the Wizard of Oz behind
>the
>curtain on the other. It's like when I worked with a bunch of Industrial
>Designers
>and learned how things worked, then I made a return trip to Disney World and
>could figure out how all the mechanisms were working the rides or shows or
>whatever - it lost its visceral interest immediately. Sometimes knowing less
is >better. That's why I don't pay attention to the Star Wars Prequel news
anymore ;-) >But it's still fun to talk about to some degree and at least guess
- I think that's it,
>guessing instead of knowing.
I think a lot about the great idea about surrealism and what it was to have a
surrealist involved in the design of the monster and the derelict.
It was all taking place somewhere in the realm of our present day obsessions.
The alien and the derelict obvioudly came from a thought within the human mind,
and this was the great fascination that hit people at the time, that it was all
from the Id. That was the hard hitting statement. It didn't matter which star
system the monster was supposed to have originated from, but it came from a
long way away. The hard edge was an attempt to hit of a particularily realistic
realisation, that we couldn't point to one of the planets in our galaxy that we
knew about, if we did, we could only say, that they had been there for a while,
and this was not their point of origin.
To look at any star that we know about or have even labelled makes anything too
familiar.
We have the Zeta Reticuli where the Alien was first found, and then we
recognise this binary star system as a place over used by creatures who had
come to abduct Betty and Barny Hill decades ago. Today, the star system sounds
too familiar to some people. Some people try to make the connection to talk
about aliens referred to as the greys.
But the ship and the alien seems to conform to the most alien parts of
ourselves, they come from planet Id, or maybe an asteroid shaped like the
cranium of Sigmund Freud, who was said to have had quite an interesting cranial
morphology.
But the place that the alien comes from is outside our ability to comprehend in
terms of distance, and time and dimensions, and our mental horizons. The alien
is a shadow, a reflection or a representation of something completely different
behind the veils, and still we are caught within an illusion that everything
must be so solid.
In the first movie, it was not allowed to conform to anything so that it would
seem alien.
The second movie did not allow the first movie's alien to be a creature of
procreativity, a creature of danger.
The third movie, denied the creature any particular point to exist, although we
know that it was supposed to protect the queen, that it was the second embryo
from a super facehugger, that came from a spore that was left behind by the
queen on the Sulaco, which people are still struggling to come to terms with.
The fourth alien movie, begins to deny the alien any important alien
characteristics whatsoever in the movie, as it becomes more humanised. We find
it hard to even assume that the alien was a creature worth talking about, maybe
it might have been goo to watch a half naked Call and Ripley 8 having sex doggy
style together in the Vipers nest with the aliens and the Newborn as voyeurs.
Once we come to realise the limits of the alien, it becomes more and more
familiar, and restricted by a need to encounter a dark erotic part of the human
mind, because if we looked for something truly alien, there would be nothing to
reason with.
At the beginning, the alien of Alien conformed to a poetic symmetry, and there
was something to be understood here because of what surrealism suggested, in an
attempt to point to a higher concept. And this concept was denyed a place in
the following two movie, and even if there was an attempt to bring some wave of
thought that came from the very first back into the film, it has come back in
such a fractured turmoiled state, because the creative approach was so
different, that the poetic symmetry does not mean too much to us any more. They
do not recognise what they are dealing with.
Some people actually do not know whether there is supposed to be a similarity
between the form of the Space Jockey and the form of the Newborn. The
arguements about the life cycle of the creature from the first Alien may have
led to the natural manifestation of a Space Jockey in a manner similar to the
way that the Newborn came. The ideas that we have about the alien and the
stages in it's life cycle leads us with no desire to see a new alien, and the
Newborn that we've seen was just a peculiar side effect from genetic
manipulation, bringing the alien closer to the human form, and we do not wonder
what it might have become in a later stage of it's life.
To say that it is about the size and build of a space jockey does not interest
us.
It will continue to make me think of a Space Jockey that had not formed
properly, and then it will continue to be a product of a mammalian style
reproduction used by an alien queen with human DNA within it's own genes. The
poetic symmetry that might make me have the Space Jockey and the Newborn as
warped reflections of one another, but this does not hold enough as the designs
of the creatures are not enough to make us ask questions like the aliens in the
first movie were. There is no information in any given form to point in a
certain direction to satisfy my cravings for poetic symmetry. There is no
relationship to assess in the light of the possibilities of the relationships
between organisms in the very first movie. There is nothing to be seen as a
definition that hides in between the cracks as a powefully intricate way of
thinking, even if the ideas are going left, right and backwards.
With Whedon about to turn the rest of the alien mythos into something to rot
one's teeth, with old hat ideas mixed with the molten toffee that had been
there for a long time anyway. And with Gillis and Woodruff running riot in the
sweetshop themselves, bringing back to us their half formed and half chewed
specimens.
The alien is no longer a stable organism, it never was, it breaks down our
desire to make it conform to one set of rules by making sure that everyone
tries to deny some element of it, or change some rule to make it's reality work
within their favour. Even those who seek to understand it intensely will suffer
the strain of missing out so many important details that they may be following
wrong patterns of information, and a long time may come to find the correct way
to thread everything together.
To have everything in the mind as information is likely to give one brain
damage.