Ridley Scott Prometheus: NOT the Alien Prequel Details

[Jeyl]

Re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

And here we go again. Once the first got infected and an alien popped out... it could easily have taken round-about trips to the derelict and put eggs at the processing station and then started snatching one after another to bring to the eggs.

That... doesn't make any sense. How would the alien know where the Derelict is? And even if they did, can you imagine watching an alien carrying an egg from the derelict all the way back to the colony? Just by mentioning it would make the aliens sound ridiculous and phony. I guess if an Alien were to get on Earth, there wouldn't be any problems in containing it since it can't get any eggs from the derelict to produce more aliens.

:rolleyes

Congratulations. You've just eliminated the threat the creatures posed.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

Re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

Makes perfect sense. You just can't see it. Who in their right mind would transport a queen egg with them on a bomber? That's like... recipe for disaster. They are a drop and run, kill all living things and die out kind of weapon. Bringing a queen would kill your plans to take over the planet afterward once the threat had been eliminated.

Doesn't diminish the threat of the beasts one bit. But you seem to think that.

 

[Jeyl]

Re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

Makes perfect sense. You just can't see it. Who in their right mind would transport a queen egg with them on a bomber?

Queen egg? What are you talking about?

 

[Too Much Garlic]

Re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

Queen egg? What are you talking about?

:rolleyes

I thought you had actually had some thoughts about these movies. Guess not.

We see the Queen Hugger in Alien3 (sure, it's in the special edition). That's what I was referring to with Queen egg - an egg holding a queen hugger that would lay a queen in your chest. Makes sense now or do I have to spell it out more?

Having a queen anything destroys the idea of it being a bomber, as that would just negate the whole purpose of using them to bomb other worlds with. You don't want your weapons to be able to reproduce. Which I guess was also why Ridley took out the scene where the other crew members got turned into eggs.

 

[Birdie]

Re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

Well, don't be like that. I've just cued it up, and at 1:51:51 the harpoon is very clearly shown to penetrate the alien's torso. Big ol' splash of acid blood, and everything. And at 1:51:54, after the gun is pulled out of Ripley's hand and the airlock door closes on it, you can clearly see the cable swinging with the alien on the end of it. So, there you go: a pressurized gas gun can throw a metal barb hard enough at close quarters to snag on an alien's rib cage.

So the game's still on, for the people who like to play this one. :lol

Please forgive my tetchiness, it was late :$

You're right, it does swing back in on the cable, so it must have imbedded.

I think Cameron played fast and loose with the acid because he was making an action movie, it's a very different genre from the first one.

My real problem with the movie is the whole 'alien insects' take, which I thought reduced the mystique of the creature that Scott went to such lengths to preserve.

Cameron imposed a familiar and rather b-movie element to the alien life cycle that I thought was kinda meh compared to the impossible self-replicating nightmare that Ridley suggested.

Obviously Cameron wanted to set up the 'two mothers' element to the final battle, but after the initial 'wow' factor of seeing it for the first time, the whole queen sequence just seems cumbersome and overwrought to me.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

Re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

The introduction of the queen turned the alien from a formidable threat to a mindless drone.

 

[Jeyl]

Re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

The introduction of the queen turned the alien from a formidable threat to a mindless drone.

Ripley: They cut the power.
Hudson: What do you mean 'they' cut the power? How could they cut the power man?! They're animals! (i.e. mindless)
--
Ripley: They found a way in. Something we missed. (i.e. formidable threat)

You were saying?

 

[Too Much Garlic]

Re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

Ants.

 

[Jeyl]

Re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

I thought you had actually had some thoughts about these movies. Guess not.

When we're talking about the first two films, I'm keeping the context of the discussion within the first two films.

Having a queen anything destroys the idea of it being a bomber

What is this "it" you are referring to as a bomber? The derelict? You're saying that the derelict is a bomber?! Well, if you're going to use the "Special Editions" to back up your arguments, watch the Director's Cut. It's not a bomber. All those eggs in the derelict were the crew who were captured by the alien and mutated into eggs. I'll even have Sir Ridley Scott back me up on that.

But I don't want to use that argument because since I'm going with the context of the theatrical versions, which is what James Cameron did. You shouldn't be bound by things that weren't put into the movie. As the first film stands, there was nothing about the alien's life cycle that went from the drone back to the egg. So, James Cameron thought of an idea on how that would be possible while still leaving some elements up in the air.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

Re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

Yeah, but it still wasn't necessary to introduce a queen or even a hive structure similar to bees and ants.

And where does either the theatrical or the special edition of ALIEN state that it ISN'T a bomber? And I've never heard that theory about the eggs in the cargo hold being the crew. Not at all what Ridley Scott or any of the others state in the behind the scenes stuff, nor in the commentary, iirc.

 

[Jeyl]

Re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

Ants.

Ants don't capture you, immobilize you, rape you, or kill you with their impregnated embryos.

Also, the alien drones have hands, fingers, a head, legs, feet, toes, a mouth, a tail, a ribcage, a neck, and make a very scream like sound when agitated. That looks and sounds familiar to me.

 

[Jeyl]

Re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

Yeah, but it still wasn't necessary to introduce a queen or even a hive structure similar to bees and ants.

Like how the Director's Cut of the first ALIEN did?

 

[Too Much Garlic]

Re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

Like how the Director's Cut of the first ALIEN did?

When did that movie introduce a queen or even a hive structure similar to bees and ants?

 

[CessnaDriver]

Re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

Wasps I think was one of the models.

Nests, hosts, eggs, all that.

It's a tough job to make something seem sufficiently creepy and alien to us these days.

Not sure they can weird us out again to that level, also they will be somewhat constrained by the previous films to make it fit them.
They really gotta think out of the box one more time.
Perhaps no longer limited by actors in rubber suits will help.
Giger's stuff can get pretty wild if they go that direction again.

 

[Larry Young]

Re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

Please forgive my tetchiness, it was late

Aw, no worries; don't even give it another thought.

 

[Jeyl]

Re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

Wasps I think was one of the models.

Nests, hosts, eggs, all that.

Dang, I forgot about that one. Ridley Scott even said it himself in both the commentaries and documentaries.

 

[Birdie]

Re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

I always thought the cocoon cut scene in Alien was implying that Brett and Dallas were somehow being converted into more eggs. Seems pretty darn alien to me.

 

[CessnaDriver]

Re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

I always thought the cocoon cut scene in Alien was implying that Brett and Dallas were somehow being converted into more eggs. Seems pretty darn alien to me.

Yeah, that also closed up the entire life cycle. We've seen the whole process for the most part, though how do they get so big so fast without food? We are not even sure they eat food.
I remember reading once maybe the tubes on it's back sucked in gasses that made it grow.

Aliens of course introduced another step with the queen.

Which begs are there mating drones or a "king" somewhere that fight for the right to mate with the queen.

Maybe it becomes too familiar at that point with the insect world.

So perhaps the queen was a mistake though granted one of the best creatures I have ever seen on screen.

Assimilating the victims into the life cycle process for genetic diversity is creepier then them having some conventional mating deal like insects.


And something else I think was disturbing is yes, Giger has a thing about genitalia, his art is obsessed with it at times. The Alien effectively had a freekin' phallic symbol with teeth for a head. LOL
That is psychologically disturbing when it is out to force you into it's reproductive process.



I think this was supposed to be used as hieroglyphic in the film showing the cycle, but it still doesn't show where the egg should come from really. Out of the alien's body I guess.

 

[moffeaton]

Re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

I love the wall glyph/illustration. Very evocative of the Egyptian Goddess Nut, up at the top.

I disliked the Queen when I first heard the idea in '86. Even as a kid, I knew the captured crew was becoming new eggs - and THAT was awesome. And I too felt that Aliens cheapened the terror of the Alien itself... they DID become drones. I like to think the smooth headed original Alien is far more intelligent than the Aliens versions...

I still love Aliens, but ALIEN is king.

 

[JunkSabers1138]

Re: Ridley Scott: Alien Prequel Details

Hmmm.... seems that the eggs would start small like seeds and then progressively grow over a short period of time. Still dont understand the Jockey's being in the image.... unless of course they venerate the creature as some sort of Holy animal and worship it as a sort of god, and thus offer sacrifices to it as some sort of ritual...... then again, my guess is as good as anyones until Giger himself explained it somewhere.

then again... this image COULD invoke a "queen" theory in a sense that they harvested the eggs from one and the creature in the film, if the egg making was to be taken seriously, could have been a "queen" itself... or that a very select number of creatures in the hive are born with the ability to generate eggs. I dont really know, but the more I look into the original film and look at Giger's other artwork, I'm liking the idea of the creature's asexual reproduction (well, as in mating with it's own kind.... it rapes the hell out of anything else it can impregnate or convert into more offspring) more and more. Also makes it even creepier to me in that each of those eggs, and thus the facehuggers or even the alien itself, were once former individuals who became "assimilated" if you will. Thus if the crew were converted and allowed to fully mature, the next batch of creatures would have been the former crew themselves! I also wondered why some of the crew were impregnated by the creature to turn into eggs and the rest are just killed..... maybe the dead are a food source? Think about it... the creature rapes Lambert, thus injecting her with the "sperm" to turn her into an egg, and simply kills Parker and leaves his body beside her.... hmmmmm.... maybe I'm just looking too hard into things.