Movie/film thread: resurrected

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Re: Movie/film thread: resurrected
« Reply #2160 on: July 07, 2017, 03:28:25 PM »
More Spoilers and Speculation. agagagagag

Alien: Covenant & Alien: Prometheus

*spoilers* & speculation


So yeah, I guess it makes sense. From the stuff he's given - the pathogen, the population of the planet, and Shaw - he crafts a particular version of the pathogen's results. He uses some dose of the pathogen that's more than is needed for evolutionary development and less than is needed for genocide, and the stable version he gets has eggs and facehuggers. How he got the eggs is another question. Did they come from a queen or did he craft them himself? If the narrative is going to fall apart, it'll be there, I guess.

Chicken (alien) and egg conundrum.

In Covenant, we can see that David had a sketch of a facehugger.  He'd evidently spent some time on his project.  Whether he back-bred the airborne version to something strongly resembling an earlier form or the egg and faceghugger version was completely new (thus wrecking the AVP timeline), I think it's reasonable to say if he can create, swallow, and barf up (literally) a couple of Alien embryos, he's got the situation well under control.  My guess is that the 2 embryos David had would be the equivalent of what a facehugger would implant into a host.  One's a queen and one's a drone (assuming Alien reproduction isn't asexual).  He just needs to select 2 victims, shove an embryo down each of their throats, and wait for their chests to burst. . .

OH - Just thought of a complication.  The ship carrying all those eggs in the first Alien movie had an Engineer with a burst chest.  This means that in the space between Alien Covenant and Alien, somehow the eggs laid by David's queen (or, perhaps a daughter of David's queen) have to not just get on an Engineer ship, but have to get on one with a live Engineer sitting in a crew position on the bridge.

Yes, I think we definitely have enough here for one more Alien prequel. agagagagag

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Re: Movie/film thread: resurrected
« Reply #2161 on: July 07, 2017, 04:35:44 PM »
My instinct is David's original queen was Shaw. I have no particular basis for saying so other than wild imagining based on her one, brief (and dead) appearance in Covenant. And because he said he loved her.

We do know that David lies, and that possibly he believes some of his own lies. But all that mimicry he does is totally not just his way off the planet, it is emblematic of who and what he is - a copy. So while he does lie, his lies - his performances - are meant to be real in themselves. Thus, when he said he loved her, he did mean it, although perhaps not in any conventional sense. Probably, the sense is in how she worked out as a tool in his creation program.

Or so goes my made up reconstruction.


Alien: Covenant could have been substantially meatier then if perhaps they had taken the time to tell all that properly. Seems a bit to me like Covenant kind of takes place after all the good stuff happened.
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Re: Movie/film thread: resurrected
« Reply #2162 on: July 08, 2017, 12:04:59 AM »
STILL DOING ALIEN COVENANT SPOILERS!

On that point I'll have to agree.  A couple of momentary flashbacks just doesn't quite fill all the gaps in a fully satisfactory way.  At the end of Prometheus, David needed to be rebuilt.  Then he and Shaw had to figure out how to fly an Engineer ship.  Plus, David had to do a lot of sneaking around in the background to be ready for bombing the Engineer city, declaring his love and then turning around to murder her for a science experiment, etc. (Was the Engineer city on their homeworld?  Maybe, but I'd think the homeworld of an advanced starfaring race would have had some cities visible from orbit even if the inhabitants had all been turned into Aliens or used as snack food.)

It's possible that more of the "between movies" story was filmed, but got cut.  Ridley Scott isn't known for brevity in his films, so there's probably a significant number of unused scenes.  I guess we'll have to wait for the blue ray or the director's cut.

Even if Shaw was used to incubate a queen (or proto-queen), David didn't bring anything as big as a queen along with him when he left on the Covenant.  So unless this trip goes in circles, I'd say one of those embryos David puked up is the queen who is the mother or grandmother of the eggs discovered by the crew of the Nostromo.

One small nit to pick.  Covenant is a colony ship.  It's not designed for easy take offs and landings, but it evidently capable of landing at least once to unload all the passengers and cargo.  Even so, a ship that size where there's the possibility of checking out an alternate destination planet (and also possible an alternate site to set up the colony on the original destination planet seems to be sadly short of landing ability.  They had ONE lander and a flying crane which could be mis-used as a lander.  The Covenant should have been equipped with more than a single certified landing craft.  I can forgive this for the Nostromo.  It was a cargo tug with zero intention of any side trips and probably seldom ever had to do anything but orbital rendezvous.




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Re: Movie/film thread: resurrected
« Reply #2163 on: July 08, 2017, 12:59:05 AM »
Alien: Covenant and the Elizabeth Shaw Problem

Alien: Covenant is a sequel to Prometheus, but what it does to Noomi Rapace's Elizabeth Shaw underscores huge fundamental problems.

We’ve been here before. Following the ending of a popular (or at least widely viewed) entry in the universe of facehuggers and chestbursters, major decisions were made behind the scenes by the studio and filmmakers. As a consequence, the next movie was different, darker, and devoid of one or more of the central characters who just survived the last picture. The fact that I could be describing Alien 3 or Alien: Covenant is a testament to how uninhibited by fan expectation this franchise continues to be....

Alien: Covenant - deleted prologue
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Re: Movie/film thread: resurrected
« Reply #2164 on: July 08, 2017, 01:26:21 AM »
How Alien: Covenant fits in the larger Alien timeline, and what comes next

The latest installment of Ridley Scott’s space-horror franchise, Alien: Covenant, hits theaters today. The series is coming up on its 40th anniversary, and over the course of its lifetime, it’s taken some interesting turns — and some downright unfortunate ones.

The franchise is already in a strange place, with the latest films sitting somewhere between prequels and sequels. And as with any long-running franchise, numerous entries can led to a complicated timeline. With the latest film coming out, it’s a good time to look back at the scope of the series, where it started, and where it’s currently landed....



Covenant appears to be a standalone entry. It's (probably) part of the universe, but not really a sequel to Prometheus. And in fact there is some (very iffy) intimation that there is (or was) an actual planned sequel to Prometheus and it would (have) take(n) place between Prometheus and Covenant. Another intimation has it that wherever the Covenant story takes place, it is indeed not the homeworld - and that some sequel/prequel or other in the future will go there, perhaps before Covenant happens or (maybe more likely) after.

Basically, Alien:Covenant is another Alien 3 - not a bad movie (necessarily), but not the movie that was expected. I can probably cope with that. I'm basically okay with both Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection. The relative tonal weirdness of Resurrection was much easier to accept initially than what happens right at the beginning of 3, but as movies by themselves, in the end, they're okay. Probably Covenant will work out like that too. Meaning I guess all along we're looking at an anthology series, not at a collection of movies with one overarching story.
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Re: Movie/film thread: resurrected
« Reply #2165 on: July 10, 2017, 03:04:02 PM »
I'm ok with Prometheus/Covenant being stand-alones, but still think they could be linked in as an Alien prequel with one more film.

If we got to an array of movies not all fitting in the same time line, that's ok, as long as it doesn't get as wide-ranging as X-Men.  I haven't checked, but I'll bet someone's had to create serial numbers for all the different timelines in those films.

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Re: Movie/film thread: resurrected
« Reply #2166 on: July 10, 2017, 05:02:17 PM »
Assuming Alan Dean Foster's novelization is canon, then

Alien: Covenant

*Spoilers: Movie & Book*

In the book, before David and Captain Oram go downstairs to the "successes"...

David shows Captain Oram a large leathery "egg". It has to be opened by hand. Inside is a dead face-hugger. Of this, David says:

“This one was a true survivor. Not unlike myself, I suppose, although my survival stems from intelligence, and its from inherent instinct. It can evolve and reproduce very quickly under a wide variety of situations.” His expression fell. “Sadly, it became aggressive, so I had to euthanize it. Such a shame. I place no blame on something with motivations that are purely primal.”

Captain Oram is encouraged to look inside. He does. Nothing happens. The Captain backs away and expressed horror and/or disgust.

“Oh, Captain.” David shook his head sadly. “Acknowledge beauty when you see it. Even if its appearance disturbs you, surely you can admire the skill that went into its design. In case you are wondering, I had nothing to do with it. It lies as I found it, a supreme example of the Engineers’ skill. And also, I suppose, of their hubris.


or tldr:

In the book, David says he did not create the face huggers. Neither it seems did he create the more familiar big black aliens
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Re: Movie/film thread: resurrected
« Reply #2167 on: July 10, 2017, 05:46:46 PM »
SPOILERS!  Covenant.

Yet he made claims to having created them.  So now we've got 3 major possibilities (and a bunch of other possible variants)

1.  Book is totally wrong and David's skill at genetic manipulation is right up there with the Engineers.

2.  Book's version is somewhat wrong.  Infectious version was an Engineer variant on a pre-existing designer (or even natural life form the Engineers discovered).  David had to do some manipulation to get this line of Aliens going again - could have been as easy as cloning from the embryo the facehugger was carrying all the way up to breeding back from the infectious version).

3.  Book is totally right and David is stealing 100% of the credit for "creating" something he found ready and waiting for use.  Of course, David hasn't exactly proven himself to be a paragon of honesty in other areas. uuuuuuuuuu

My operating theory is that the exact origins of the egg and facehugger versions weren't fixed at the time the script and novel were begun, so we may have to wait for official word on what's canon - possibly until the sequel I hope can bridge from Covenant to Alien.
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Re: Movie/film thread: resurrected
« Reply #2168 on: July 10, 2017, 07:04:57 PM »
The book isn't particularly clear on exactly what David did, and of course David lies, but based on his various speeches, which are more or less the same as in the movie but with more, and sometimes new, details, David was indeed experimenting, cross breeding and so on. He seems to have imagined himself drawing out the best of the pathogen. But he does say:

“Would that I could create something so perfect in its function,” he added. “I try, but I don’t have thousands of years of practice at biological and genetic engineering. I have only my pitiable programming on which to draw. That, and ten years of earnest effort on my own behalf. I have learned only a little, yet I soldier on, hoping always to achieve something like this, always striving to do better, to improve. That’s what the Engineers did, I suppose. That is what someone playing God should do.”

My own understanding finds that David was acting as a host. Whereas a human (or any other item of fauna) would provide dna and a warm squishy environment for one iteration of pathogen's imperatives, David managed a whole world-wide (or as near to world-wide as was possible) chain of iterations.

And as it happened, among his bestiary, and not shown in the movie:

Oram found himself filing past a row of tall, menacing bipeds. Their tough exoskeletons gleamed like black steel. Though there were slight individual variations, all had in common the same threatening aspect—long tails ending in scorpion-like points, curving elongated skulls devoid of visible eyes, and jaws filled with teeth shining like chromed chisels.

The movie only shows the weird pale deformed versions. In the book, those come after these more properly "Alien" forms in david's display.


Everything is based on the "parasites" David discovers as having come from the egg sacs. (I still don't know what that means - which egg sacs? Which eggs? It's not at all clear.) They're in the movie too. Those black dots that come, seemingly, out of plants to infect the first two red shirts. In the book, and in the movie, David has them preserved in amber in their various development stages. So, the book might be making things up, trying to preserve a legacy that Ridley Scott was trying to undo, but the book seems to fit over the top of the movie version quite well, adding detail rather than subtracting. And the idea of David as glorified host rather than Engineer-equal seems suitably gothic Romantic.

In any case, there does need to be another movie, if only to find out whether or not we're truly heading down the gothic horror path or this is just a detour in a larger industrial horror story. One may well accept the former, indeed eventually come to acknowledge its beauty even as the outward appearance disturbs, but from the first movie the Alien legacy has been the latter, so........
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Re: Movie/film thread: resurrected
« Reply #2169 on: July 28, 2017, 08:59:52 PM »
Shot Caller (2017)

Jamie of Thrones gets sent to the pokey, and he.... likes it? He goes in a cleanskin businessman and ten years later he's muled drugs, shivved dudes, sprouted tatts, and gotten parole? We never really know why any of this happens. The whole way through he seems entirely too cultured for any of this so the movie is one long wut?! Enjoyable, I suppose, but it doesn't really make any sense. "Jon" Bernthal makes a whole lot more sense as a wildly over-tattooed Aryan Brotherhood dude, but still.

Okay, I don't want to poop on the parade too much. The movie is okay. For this kind of thing though, the French movie from 2009, Un Prophete, is better.

One star: 🌟
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Re: Movie/film thread: resurrected
« Reply #2170 on: August 03, 2017, 11:47:39 PM »
Cyborg 2 - Glass Shadow (1993)

A very - very - low-rent Bladerunner clone without much in the way of dramatic tension but by jingo it provides us with Angelina Jolie's first starring role and somehow not Jack Palance's last and is still chock full of ideas. Don't get me wrong, this is not a good movie - the acting is portentous, the pacing leaves everyone stranded, and the actors frequently get in each other's way - but darn it, Harrison Ford and Sean Young hated each other and Bladerunner is still considered some kind of masterpiece so this one is too!

As a movie:  mmmmmmmmmm awawawawaw awawawawaw   But if measured on the cult-o-meter:  bfbfbfbfbf bfbfbfbfbf bfbfbfbfbf
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Re: Movie/film thread: resurrected
« Reply #2171 on: August 05, 2017, 12:05:57 AM »


(1995)
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Re: Movie/film thread: resurrected
« Reply #2172 on: August 10, 2017, 04:23:15 PM »
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol.2 (2017)

The cynical might call this a lengthy advertisement for Baby Groot merchandise. It's not nearly as charming as Vol 1. But the spectacle is very pretty to look at anyway. Should be watched in hidef on a big screen, or, if you're old skool like that, in a cinema. Dramatically speaking there seems to me one very big mistake undermining the execution of the father-son story, but I suppose it has moments anyway because it is as mentioned very pretty.

 bfbfbfbfbf bfbfbfbfbf
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Re: Movie/film thread: resurrected
« Reply #2173 on: August 13, 2017, 07:02:53 PM »
Kill Switch (2017)

Very attractive to look at. Super-dumb to listen to. This is a movie quite literally rendered as a first-person shooter video game. The main character has a HUD, you see through his eyes, in lieu of on-going drama he says dumb things over and over, like "no no!" or "don't do that" or "just wait a minute" meanwhile finding  guns, ammo, information posted to walls, and later, squad members who stomp around his area of operation following his lead. he takes hits along the way and gets medical attention and he has a cube. That's right, he has a cube. If you've played Half-Life or Call of Duty, you'll get this movie, and might even see it through to the end. I did.

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Re: Movie/film thread: resurrected
« Reply #2174 on: August 14, 2017, 12:22:15 AM »
So Young (c. 2013)

Very accurate glimpse of college life in China. The campus, the classrooms, the classes, the dorms and the dorm drama.

And the afterlife of their college experience. Rings very true to my almost 19 years of experience teaching in various Chinese universities.

Not much to do with teaching English in China, but lots to do with the straum and derge (sp?) of Chinese college student life.

Spoilers, I guess, and this is a reaction post rather than a review but.... My goodness, this movie... it's excellent, of course, and I've just watched it. By the end it's so wildly messed up. I've not had so visceral a reaction in watching a movie that, yes, it's the real deal. They could have done it as a 90-minute university story or a 3-hour pre- and post-graduation story, and it would have been easier to bear, I think. As it is, it is complete though, so....

 bfbfbfbfbf bfbfbfbfbf bfbfbfbfbf

So Young - Wang Faye
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