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Holy Balls. The first two Alien movies are amazing.

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Watched Alien and the 1st hour of Aliens blu-ray tonight (I've seen both before) the transfers are just gorgeous. Alien holds up better photographically and from design perspective. I guess the movie aged better because it was more limited in scope. 95% of the movie takes place inside the ship. That said, the derelict spacecraft with the Space Jockey still looks extraordinary. Aliens feels more like a product of its time but movie still works on every other level.
 
Can someone help me with a question about Aliens?

During the mission briefing in Aliens, Hicks asks if this is another bug hunt referring to the xenomorphs, but supposedly the aliens are completely new to these guys. So are there other aliens in the Aliens universe that the marines have been going after?

I hope my question is clear. I've had this question for years but seeing this thread brought it back up.
 
BearChair said:
Can someone help me with a question about Aliens?

During the mission briefing in Aliens, Hicks asks if this is another bug hunt referring to the xenomorphs, but supposedly the aliens are completely new to these guys. So are there other aliens in the Aliens universe that the marines have been going after?

I hope my question is clear. I've had this question for years but seeing this thread brought it back up.
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There are other alien species in the universe that they've encountered, but the Xenomorphs are new to them.

You also hear them speak of the Arcturian's and how some of the marines have had sex with them 'Yeah, except yours was male' 'Hey, with Arcturian's it don't matter!'
 
Scullibundo said:
There are other alien species in the universe that they've encountered, but the Xenomorphs are new to them.

You also hear them speak of the Arcturian's and how some of the marines have had sex with them 'Yeah, except yours was male' 'Hey, with Arcturian's it don't matter!'
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Huh! What!? I've seen Aliens millions of times and I don't remember this line. At what part was this said?

Edit: Googled it. Yeah, it's there but still don't know which scene. Is it possible they were referring to a human colony and not a species?
 
Darkmakaimura said:
Huh! What!? I've seen Aliens millions of times and I don't remember this line. At what part was this said?

Edit: Googled it. Yeah, it's there but still don't know which scene. Is it possible they were referring to a human colony and not a species?
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its said by frost when they are eating cornbread.
 
You guys could have just spent $15 on Amazon UK and bought the blu quadrilogy which is region free. Then of course, discard the latter two films and keep all the documentaries. Everybody wins!
 
I just re-watched Alien for the first time in about 10 years. A questions:

Are the events in Alien meant to depict mankind's first encounter with alien life (Prometheus aside)? None of the characters really seem sufficiently surprised or in awe of the significance of this.


By the way, the movie is mind blowing. Much better even than I had remembered.
 
It never really says, but I don't think it's meant to be first first contact. Aliens, as just discussed, indicates that as well though I don't really think that says much about what Ridley Scott's vision was. Prometheus will presumably make that more clear.
 
maharg said:
It never really says, but I don't think it's meant to be first first contact. Aliens, as just discussed, indicates that as well though I don't really think that says much about what Ridley Scott's vision was. Prometheus will presumably make that more clear.
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Cameron changed a lot of things about Ridley's vision.

It wouldn't surprise me if he retconned that just because.
 
AdventureRacing said:
Now that it's out i still don't like it that much. Such a massive step down from Camerons previous works.
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I absolutely loved Avatar the first few times I saw it in theaters. I went on opening night and then went back the next two nights.

With every viewing after that, I noticed the flaws a little more and liked it a little less, until it reached the plateau I'm at now. I still like the film as a whole, but there are whole sections I could easily skip over, and the political lines like "fight terror with terror" or "some kind of shock and awe campaign" make me cringe a bit.

I still think that getting that world onto the screen was a huge achievement in itself, but it's probably my least favorite Cameron film overall.

T2 > T1 > Aliens > True Lies > Titanic > The Abyss > Avatar for me.

For Scott, it's something like Alien > Blade Runner > Gladiator > Kingdom of Heaven > Black Hawk Down > Thelma and Louise, and that's all I've really seen from him. I guess I've also seen Legend, but that was just lol-tastic.
 
Nappuccino said:
Cameron changed a lot of things about Ridley's vision.

It wouldn't surprise me if he retconned that just because.
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Well for what its worth, only the marines ever joke about alien lifeforms, the company big wigs that talk with Ripley are vague on the subject and it's not really brought up again until Resurrection.
 
gabbo said:
Well for what its worth, only the marines ever joke about alien lifeforms, the company big wigs that talk with Ripley are vague on the subject and it's not really brought up again until Resurrection.
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Yeah, I thought that was the case... but I don't really know.

It wouldn't surprise me if that was just supposed to be marines talking shit to each other. Kinda like Yo Mamma jokes.
 
For me it'd go:

T1 > True Lies > Aliens > T2 >>> Titanic >>>> The Abyss >>>>>>>> Avatar

But True Lies is so different from the rest that placement could easily change based on my mood at the time. It's just a hell of a lot of fun.

I find most of Ridley Scott's non-SF unimpressive (which is why I'm so excited about Prometheus), so it's just a matter of ordering Alien and Bladerunner, and Alien easily comes out on top for me there.
 
thebaroness said:
Aliens is where Space Marines came from (and Heinlein). How many games borrowed from that? Aliens has inspired so much.
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Halo is so heavy with Aliens inspired stuff. The marines, to the drop ship design, all the way up to the near identical, cigar chomping, bad mouthed, African American sergeant.
 
Heshinsi said:
Halo is so heavy with Aliens inspired stuff. The marines, to the drop ship design, all the way up to the near identical, cigar chomping, bad mouthed, African American sergeant.
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Don't forget that Halo's Jenkins = Hudson.

There are lines straight up ripped from Aliens that cement Sgt. Johnson as Apone. At the start of Truth and Reconciliation he says 'Come on, they ain't paying us by the hour!'
 
I guess if we're listing movies

Cameron

T1 > True Lies >>> The Abyss >>> T2 > Aliens > Avatar >>>Aliens DC > T2 DC > Titanic

Ridley

Alien > Blade Runner (Directors/Final Cut) >> Matchstick Men >>> Gladiator >>> Thelma and Louise
 
Incidentally, I think crediting Aliens with 'space marines' is a little disingenuous. Even if we ignore the large body of written SF that covered that ground a lot (Heinlein's Starship Troopers comes to mind), it's not exactly a big leap forward or an unexpected synthesis.

Not to say that it didn't create a lot of fairly specific influences in itself (ie. the Halo connection above), just that I don't think it deserves credit for inventing the idea or the genre.
 
Aliens > Abyss (DC) > Terminator 2 > Terminator > Avatar (ext) > Titanic > True Lies

SEs for Aliens and T2 dont have any bearing on their placement. DC for Abyss ranks it higher, extended Avatar places it above Titanic.

Alien > Blade Runner > Kingdom of Heaven (DC) > Gladiator > Duellists > Legend > All the rest

All the rest cause well...it kinda all blurs together at that point, and there are a few I havent seen
 
T1 = T2 (SE) > Aliens (SE) > Titanic > Avatar = Tries Lies > The Abyss (DC)

Bladerunner (FC) > Alien > Gladiator > Duellists > KoH (DC) and so on.
 
Its too bad JC didn't direct Strange Days. It surely would have been better than Bigelow's version.
 
Puddles said:
I absolutely loved Avatar the first few times I saw it in theaters. I went on opening night and then went back the next two nights.

With every viewing after that, I noticed the flaws a little more and liked it a little less, until it reached the plateau I'm at now. I still like the film as a whole, but there are whole sections I could easily skip over, and the political lines like "fight terror with terror" or "some kind of shock and awe campaign" make me cringe a bit.

I still think that getting that world onto the screen was a huge achievement in itself, but it's probably my least favorite Cameron film overall.
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It's funny, my appreciation for the film has followed a trajectory that is the exact opposite of your's. During my first viewing I was so distracted by the hackneyed plot, one-dimensional characters, and sometimes absurd dialogue (specifically the political sound bytes) that I couldn't enjoy it. As time has passed and as I have reconsidered it, I now love it and appreciate it for what it is.

Originally I was too distracted by the above points to appreciate the world that Cameron created. I think Avatar is too often praised merely as a technical achievement in this regard, while I most appreciate the work that went into sculpting the dozens of species of flora and fauna as well as the geology of Pandora. When I try to explain the movie to those that haven't seen it (yes, such people exist), I describe it as a movie set over the documentary Planet Earth, yet all of the gorgeous scenery is fictional, yet fully realized.

And as far as plot and dialogue, I have come to consider it almost as a fairy tale. Yes, it is simplistic, but this allows for some fantastic moments. I think of the scenes in which Jake world view evolves all the time- specifically the scene in which Neytiri scolds him for celebrating after she saves him from the viperwolves.
 
Tom_Cody said:
It's funny, my appreciation for the film has followed a trajectory that is the exact opposite of your's. During my first viewing I was so distracted by the hackneyed plot, one-dimensional characters, and sometimes absurd dialogue (specifically the political sound bytes) that I couldn't enjoy it. As time has passed and as I have reconsidered it, I now love it and appreciate it for what it is.

Originally I was too distracted by the above points to appreciate the world that Cameron created. I think Avatar is too often praised merely as a technical achievement in this regard, while I most appreciate the work that went into sculpting the dozens of species of flora and fauna as well as the geology of Pandora. When I try to explain the movie to those that haven't seen it (yes, such people exist), I describe it as a movie set over the documentary Planet Earth, yet all of the gorgeous scenery is fictional, yet fully realized.

And as far as plot and dialogue, I have come to consider it almost as a fairy tale. Yes, it is simplistic, but this allows for some fantastic moments. I think of the scenes in which Jake world view evolves all the time- specifically the scene in which Neytiri scolds him for celebrating after she saves him from the viperwolves.
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I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you think of the narrative in Studio Ghibli terms its pretty good.
 
Scullibundo said:
I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you think of the narrative in Studio Ghibli terms its pretty good.
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What?

Also its Fern Gully/Pocahontas/ Dances with Wolves in space. It is one thing to have a thin story that is rooted in some kind of emotional core. Its another to just rip your main plot from well-trodden territory and just paste some fancy visuals on top of it. It isn't terrible its just... bland and predictable on a story level.
 
Avatar's just missing the darker edge. The scenes where Cameron revels in killing the troops, the bodies stacking, the part where Jake takes a DMT fueled trip, not to mention the darker shades of grey that were originally there (except for Quaritch, who loses his near genocidal edge in the final cut), etc.

Its not that Cameron can't do it, he wrote and shot all of that stuff, but I guess something has to give in a movie that no doubt cost 500+ Million dollars at 160 minutes but was pushing 200+ minutes in the editing room.
 
I never really got the feeling that the 'world' was any more fleshed out than, say, your average video game set on some planet other than Earth. I don't think the ecosystem is particularly well thought out, and is largely focused on making things that look cool rather than would be plausible ecological niches.

Stories that really create strong ecological balances also tend to be quite barren because of the complexity involved (cf. Dune, which is a really well crafted world but deliberately decimated of most of its life to make that possible).
 
Nappuccino said:
What?
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If Avatar were exactly the same frame for frame - only everything was hand drawn animation and you swapped out for a Japanese dub with english subs, it would be one of the most revered movies on GAF. I've always said the film is like a live-action Miyazaki flick.
 
Scullibundo said:
If Avatar were exactly the same frame for frame - only everything was hand drawn animation and you swapped out for a Japanese dub with english subs, it would be one of the most revered movies on GAF. I've always said the film is like a live-action Miyazaki flick.
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eh... I'd be hard pressed to believe that. If true, it would only be because the animations pack more actual emotion than the live actors Cameron got for his movie.
 
Scullibundo said:
You are a bad troll, Nappa.
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I'm not even trolling. For my money, Avatar failed because of the acting and the insanely predictable plot plot points. Any emotional attachment should have been born of the acting and characters but... it just wasn't there for me. Sure its pretty, but if I don't care about any of it why does it matter how pretty it all is?
 
Scullibundo said:
I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you think of the narrative in Studio Ghibli terms its pretty good.
Click to expand...
Scullibundo said:
If Avatar were exactly the same frame for frame - only everything was hand drawn animation and you swapped out for a Japanese dub with english subs, it would be one of the most revered movies on GAF. I've always said the film is like a live-action Miyazaki flick.
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Miyazaki isn't the only director at Ghibli
and not the best one either, Takahata is better
:P

And the dull environmentalist movies are the lesser films of Miyazaki's works. His adventure-y stuff is far better. Comparing Avatar to those is kinda a bad thing.
 
pizzaroll said:
Miyazaki isn't the only director at Ghibli
and not the best one either, Takahata is better
:P

And the dull environmentalist movies are the lesser films of Miyazaki's works. His adventure-y stuff is far better. Comparing Avatar to those is kinda a bad thing.
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Mononoke is easily my favourite Miyazaki/Ghibli film. And yes, I'm a much bigger fan of him than Takahata.
 
Scullibundo said:
I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you think of the narrative in Studio Ghibli terms its pretty good.
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Dude, no. Just no. Princess Mononoke absolutely destroys Avatar. James Cameron is incapable of writing characters as nuanced as Lady Eboshi or Moro. It's an especially bad comparison because Miyazaki almost never does completely two-dimensional villains and that's all Cameron does.
 
Branduil said:
Dude, no. Just no. Princess Mononoke absolutely destroys Avatar. James Cameron is incapable of writing characters as nuanced as Lady Eboshi or Moro. It's an especially bad comparison because Miyazaki almost never does completely two-dimensional villains and that's all Cameron does.
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To be fair, I wasn't comparing it to Mononoke or Nausicaa, but I think that my example holds true. And the villains only seem one dimensional in the theatrical cut. It really is unfortunate how much was cut out of Abatap.

But I don't think this thread should be derailed from Alien/s.
 
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