Be Excellent To Each Other

Just checking, as you equated it with the tacked-on awful ending of Sunshine which wasn't a piss-take

That's ok. Thanks for keeping me honest

It's not an awful ending. It's just an average one.

It's awful taking into account how good the rest of the film was.

Never seen it and I think it's ruined for me now. Thanks.

Just watch the first 60 minutes of it.

Have you got me on selective ignore, or something?

I have got my facehugger plushie! I gave it to Grimlet, and told him it was called "Zio"*.
He sleeps with it

*Zee-oh or Z-eye-oh?

Aw!

I think.


And it's Zee-oh... probably. Ask Sega.

Z-eye-oh. Like Io, clearly.

That's how I say it.

We've had this discussion before haven't we?

Yeah. I don't think the correct consensus came out of it last time.

Also 'bio'.

You're all still wrong though.

lion
zion

Malc

Yeah - but there's no 'n' on the end of his name, is there.

Rio.

Forrin, innit? That doesn't count.

Ah of course.. and Zio's a good English name.

Malc agrees with you, Belmaster.

Unrelated: Read your emails.

Trio.

As always, I'm truly flattered that you all care enough about me to keep having these arguments about how to pronounce my forum name.

I know someone who has a son called Neo...

Did you tell me that before? If not, I might know someone who knows the same person!

I think I did.

Idiot.

Right, so I watched Alien the other night. Really enjoyed it, it was better than most sci-fi/horror movies including those made recently with presumably higher budgets and more sophisticated special effects.
It suffered from some pretty cheesy plot aspects, like someone going off on their own or just doing something stupid but there weren't too many of these. They seemed to have tried to justify why most actions were taken, so for example
I was pretty scared watching it, it was certainly creepy and tense. I liked that it built the tension well rather than just throwing shocks about. The alien craft was very creepy and I felt like I was willing them to leave.
Got the second, third and I think fourth as well now on the Sky+ box so will hopefully get around to watching the next one sometime soon

Glad you enjoyed it. I think I first saw it when I was 15 ish so it made a big impact and I wasn't able to critically analyse it at all.

I've actually refrained from watching it too much since as I don't want to spoil the good memory

Just the idea of being able to see Alien again with fresh eyes! Have you seen Aliens yet, Gilly?

I can never quite decide if I prefer Alien or Aliens... possibly Alien at a push. They're very different films though. Also: I've always really liked Alien 3, although the Director's Cut is the way to go with that one.

I was suprised how much I liked Alien3, when I finally got around to seeing it.

Further to my post above, one of the few things that stops Alien from being absolutely perfect in my eyes is the bit with Dallas in the ventilation shaft. Every time I see it now, I think JAZZ HANDS!

I've got Aliens waiting but I won't get to watch it until at least the weekend since Jen is on backshift.

The problem most people seemed to have with Alien 3 was the start of the film and the (spoiler)

I'm spoilering this simply because Gilly hasn't seen Aliens and I don't want to ruin it for her:

There was a script for Alien 3 that had the entire film take place on a planet made out of wood.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Empire did an article about this a while back, with some concept art and whatnot. It looked pretty cool actually,

Good god was it a troubled production. Historical context is important here. It had a whole bunch of dumb ass ideas in the various pre-shooting scripts and I don't think the script had been finalised or finished before they entered production. The studios were interfering all the time and Fincher was still pretty much a greenhorn and inexperienced with dealing with this level of interference. You could also say he was over reacting to some of the interference as well.

All of this filtered out before the film was released so even if it had been good it would have been picked apart. As it stands it was alright, but not when viewed against the previous films. I still haven't watched the director's cut yet!

I think it's an excellent film. Just totally different, and also somewhat ruined the story for anyone wanting to make another sequel

How come?

OK, that doesn't prevent a good sequel, but they clearly thought it needed a Ripley, which is where things get a bit silly IMHO.

Spoils man, Gilly's not seen it yet.

Oh wait - you're not talking specifically about the directors cut, are you?
Carry on!

Goodness me.
http://www.empireonline.com/features/al ... en-planet/

How very odd indeed.



Not quite as odd as I thought it might have been though, which was a literal wooden planet, like solid wood rather than constructed

Alien Cubed was weak, and the aforementioned big mistakes made it pretty crap. But the actual concept wasn't a bad one - the setting had some potential, both in terms of location and characters, and it was going back to the 'one alien' format that could have restored the fear/horror factor of the aliens, due to the law of conservation of ninjitsu.

We don't talk about Alien Erection.

Watched Alien and Aliens this week with my nephew. He loved them both but massively preferred Aliens and you know what, watching them back to back again so did I. I think I always did, though. Alien sets up Aliens really well but it isn't particularly scary and one or two of the appearances by the alien itself let things down massively (it actually looks fairly comical a couple of times). People often say that Alien is a horror film and Aliens is an action film, I think that's true to an extent but Aliens does quite a lot of horror as well and does it better than Alien. My nephew was pretty much jumping up and down with nervous excitement by the end, it was brilliant

While I agree with this, I would have loved to have been around in '79 to see Alien at the cinema. I bet I would have shat myself!

I went to see the Alien Directors Cut at the cinema when it came out in 2003. I was dead excited, first chance to see an Alien film on the big screen (I was always too young)

The only cinema showing it in my area was the ODEON in Birmingham. Tickets were booked, trains were checked and I duly went to the cinema for what I was sure would be one of the greatest experiences ever.

There were four other people there for the screening, so not the crowd I was expecting.

The worst thing though was that some bonehead had decided that all of the interior walls of the cinema screen should be painted white, which meant that the claustrophobic feel of the film was utterly destroyed because any tiny flash of light bounced off the walls and lit up the room like it was daylight outside.

First time I saw Alien was the first time it was on telly. My parents let me stay up late specially, it was great. Strange to think back now to just how much of an event it was when big films came on the telly.

I can remember being maybe 10 or 11 when I first attempted to watch either Alien or Aliens (can't remember which), on my little telly in my bedroom at night, hoping my parents wouldn't realise I was still up. Scared the fucking shit out of me, it did.

I remember watching Alien at a friend's house when I was 8 or 9, I think. Terrified me.