GazChap wrote:
If Ridley Scott had left in the scene with Dallas and Brett metamorphosing into eggs in the Alien theatrical cut, Aliens could have been very, very different.
Had no idea about that!
I think Ash is a trustworthy source. It's just when his killswitch was engaged that he became somewhat problematic. Also, for me, I think Ash going psycho is probably THE most fucking scary bit in the entire Alien run. Surprised nobody ever cast him as a killer again.
GazChap wrote:
If Ridley Scott had left in the scene with Dallas and Brett metamorphosing into eggs in the Alien theatrical cut, Aliens could have been very, very different.
Ooh that's interesting. I always took the Brett/Dallas thing to mean they got coccooned up, Burke/Newt style, and somehow impregnated by the alien (it didn't make sense but then I only just worked out the 3ltrs/5ltrs problem from Die Hard 3 yesterday).
Metamorphosing into eggs is a bit of an odd concept. I don't quite know what Scott was intending by that but it's a different take on it.
I've read those scenes in the first novel plenty of times as well. Hmph!
NervousPete wrote:
Also, for me, I think Ash going psycho is probably THE most fucking scary bit in the entire Alien run.
Over time the scene has lost the impact for me but thinking about it, it is a scary scene indeed. Especially the weird high pitch sound he makes.
NervousPete wrote:
I think Ash is a trustworthy source.
It's niggling in my head that he lied about something while he was in bits, but I can't think what it was.
NervousPete wrote:
I think Ash is a trustworthy source. It's just when his killswitch was engaged that he became somewhat problematic.
Only in the sense that his secret was out, so he had to nullify it.
He was, right from the start - before he even set foot on the Nostromo - programmed to bring back that Alien lifeform with all other considerations secondary, crew expendable. I don't think anything he says can be trusted (from the point of view of the other crew) because of that.
It's also curious (to me) that Ash's model of android clearly didn't have Asimov's laws programmed into him, whereas Bishop in Aliens did. I don't know for sure, but the implication is that the same company manufactured both Bishop and Ash (not Weyland-Yutani, but Hyperdyne Systems) and fitted behavioural inhibitors to the later models. I'm surprised the Company went along with Bishop being on-board knowing that.
Grim... wrote:
NervousPete wrote:
I think Ash is a trustworthy source.
It's niggling in my head that he lied about something while he was in bits, but I can't think what it was.
Not "lie" as such, more make a sarcastic remark that "You have my sympathies." when he clearly didn't.
GazChap wrote:
It's also curious (to me) that Ash's model of android clearly didn't have Asimov's laws programmed into him, whereas Bishop in Aliens did. I don't know for sure, but the implication is that the same company manufactured both Bishop and Ash (not Weyland-Yutani, but Hyperdyne Systems) and fitted behavioural inhibitors to the later models. .
Bishop refers to issues with the Ash series "being twitchy" or something, and the implication was that that was why they added in the Asimov's laws since then.
Quote:
I'm surprised the Company went along with Bishop being on-board knowing that
Quite. Then again, they had a load of marines there who were supposed to do as they were told.
Mr Kissyfur wrote:
Bishop refers to issues with the Ash series "being twitchy" or something, and the implication was that that was why they added in the Asimov's laws since then.
Yeah, that's why I'm surprised that the Company allowed it. You'd think they'd have the influence to tell Hyperdyne "Don't put inhibitors into any of the androids we order.".
But then, I guess Bishop was a Colonial Marine android rather than a Company one. I dunno.
There's the scene in Aliens where Bishop is busy dissecting one of the dead facehuggers, and Spunkmeyer wheels in a trolley full of stuff for him, and Bishop looks around at Spunkmeyer with this really weird, cold, dead stare on his face. I've never quite worked out whether Cameron intended that to be like a "red herring" that Bishop was a bad guy too or not, but it certainly seemed like it to me.
I've always found Bishop to be a deeply unnerving character.
GazChap wrote:
Mr Kissyfur wrote:
Bishop refers to issues with the Ash series "being twitchy" or something, and the implication was that that was why they added in the Asimov's laws since then.
Yeah, that's why I'm surprised that the Company allowed it. You'd think they'd have the influence to tell Hyperdyne "Don't put inhibitors into any of the androids we order.".
I'd quite like my androids not to be able to shove magazines in my mouth, to be fair.
Quote:
But then, I guess Bishop was a Colonial Marine android rather than a Company one. I dunno.
Yurp.
Quote:
There's the scene in Aliens where Bishop is busy dissecting one of the dead facehuggers, and Spunkmeyer wheels in a trolley full of stuff for him, and Bishop looks around at Spunkmeyer with this really weird, cold, dead stare on his face. I've never quite worked out whether Cameron intended that to be like a "red herring" that Bishop was a bad guy too or not, but it certainly seemed like it to me.
[/quote]
Yeah, I thought that too. Spunkmeyer definitely looks a bit taken aback at it.
GazChap wrote:
There's the scene in Aliens where Bishop is busy dissecting one of the dead facehuggers, and Spunkmeyer wheels in a trolley full of stuff for him, and Bishop looks around at Spunkmeyer with this really weird, cold, dead stare on his face. I've never quite worked out whether Cameron intended that to be like a "red herring" that Bishop was a bad guy too or not, but it certainly seemed like it to me.
I always was creeped out by Bishop, especially when I watched this in my early teens.
Apparently they were gonna do wierd stuff with his eyes to make the irises vertical or somesuch but decided against it.
LaceSensor wrote:
Apparently they were gonna do wierd stuff with his eyes to make the irises vertical or somesuch but decided against it.
Lance wanted to have double-pupil contacts IIRC. That would have been a bit much! He was going to be the T-800 before Arnie got the role. That could have been interesting. It wouldn't have been such a big success though.
GazChap wrote:
Mr Kissyfur wrote:
Bishop refers to issues with the Ash series "being twitchy" or something, and the implication was that that was why they added in the Asimov's laws since then.
Yeah, that's why I'm surprised that the Company allowed it. You'd think they'd have the influence to tell Hyperdyne "Don't put inhibitors into any of the androids we order.".
Hyperdyne Systems was part of the Company.
Grim... wrote:
GazChap wrote:
Mr Kissyfur wrote:
Bishop refers to issues with the Ash series "being twitchy" or something, and the implication was that that was why they added in the Asimov's laws since then.
Yeah, that's why I'm surprised that the Company allowed it. You'd think they'd have the influence to tell Hyperdyne "Don't put inhibitors into any of the androids we order.".
Hyperdyne Systems was part of the Company.
I always heard the line as being something like 'weren't the hyperdyne systems set to [whatever it was]?' as if it was a component rather than a supplier. I assume I'm way wrong though.
Blucey wrote:
LaceSensor wrote:
Apparently they were gonna do wierd stuff with his eyes to make the irises vertical or somesuch but decided against it.
Lance wanted to have double-pupil contacts IIRC. That would have been a bit much! He was going to be the T-800 before Arnie got the role. That could have been interesting. It wouldn't have been such a big success though.
Which is why Cameron harked back to his original idea by having the baddy in T2 be such a normal looking bloke. Only with slicey-arms, obv.
Lance Henrikson's face is normally like that, I think. I can imagine him at Parent-Teachers meetings, dead staring eyes and a mild smile on his face creeping the fuck out of everyone, when really all he's thinking about is watching the game later.
NervousPete wrote:
Lance Henrikson's face is normally like that, I think. I can imagine him at Parent-Teachers meetings, dead staring eyes and a mild smile on his face creeping the fuck out of everyone, when really all he's thinking about is watching the game later.
Although he's looking very old now :-(
(He was one of the guests in Castle a few weeks ago and I didnt recognise him until he spoke - this might have just been the character and make up , or could be the fact he's 70)
NervousPete wrote:
Which is why Cameron harked back to his original idea by having the baddy in T2 be such a normal looking bloke.
And he picked Robert Patrick!? In full on Menace Mode?
Alarm wrote:
Am I the only person who refers to Alien³ as Alien Cubed? I've always done so, and someone recently commented that he's never heard anyone refer to it as that.
I do that, because it obviously is. See also "Sesevenen" for twattish film naming fun.
sinister agent wrote:
Alarm wrote:
Am I the only person who refers to Alien³ as Alien Cubed? I've always done so, and someone recently commented that he's never heard anyone refer to it as that.
I do that, because it obviously is. See also "Sesevenen" for twattish film naming fun.
Oh yes, all of this. I thought it was only me!
Also, stupid personalised number plates.
GazChap wrote:
NervousPete wrote:
I think Ash is a trustworthy source. It's just when his killswitch was engaged that he became somewhat problematic.
Only in the sense that his secret was out, so he had to nullify it.
He was, right from the start - before he even set foot on the Nostromo - programmed to bring back that Alien lifeform with all other considerations secondary, crew expendable. I don't think anything he says can be trusted (from the point of view of the other crew) because of that.
It's also curious (to me) that Ash's model of android clearly didn't have Asimov's laws programmed into him, whereas Bishop in Aliens did. I don't know for sure, but the implication is that the same company manufactured both Bishop and Ash (not Weyland-Yutani, but Hyperdyne Systems) and fitted behavioural inhibitors to the later models. I'm surprised the Company went along with Bishop being on-board knowing that.
Isn't the more likely conclusion that the company had various androids they can programme with various things, and in Ash's case they programmed him to get the alien back to earth, whereas Bishop was just on a standard marine escort routine? Ash was planted on board the Nostromo, after all. There may have even been a handful of Ash-like androids planted on other ships travelling around the arse end of space.
Mr Kissyfur wrote:
GazChap wrote:
It's also curious (to me) that Ash's model of android clearly didn't have Asimov's laws programmed into him, whereas Bishop in Aliens did. I don't know for sure, but the implication is that the same company manufactured both Bishop and Ash (not Weyland-Yutani, but Hyperdyne Systems) and fitted behavioural inhibitors to the later models. .
Bishop refers to issues with the Ash series "being twitchy" or something, and the implication was that that was why they added in the Asimov's laws since then.
Quote:
I'm surprised the Company went along with Bishop being on-board knowing that
Quite. Then again, they had a load of marines there who were supposed to do as they were told.
Also, it's unlikely they expected to see a colony of aliens with a queen and all - nobody did. Their plan was probably to get the marines to see what was going on, then secure the site, and then the company could come in later and made a fucking huge omelette. Bishop being there probably just didn't occur to them as a significant factor, plus he was obviously happy to obey Burke as a company rep (and the marines were obviously happy to go along with orders until the survivors essentially mutinied). Plus tampering with him at the last minute specifically for the trip with Ripley would have been a blatantly obvious ploy - if there'd been a change of androids at the last minute, she'd have found out from the others and probably blown it in two with a rifle.
Or, alternatively, Bishop could have been lying / unaware that his "GET THE ALIEN" routine would override his "DO NOT HURT SOFT PATHETIC HUMANS" one. How do we know he didn't pick up the queen on purpose? You'd think that kind of extra weight would have been noticed by a pilot, especially a robot. And, y'know, Alien 3 reveals that there was somehow a facehugger on board the drop ship after all....
LaceSensor wrote:
GazChap wrote:
There's the scene in Aliens where Bishop is busy dissecting one of the dead facehuggers, and Spunkmeyer wheels in a trolley full of stuff for him, and Bishop looks around at Spunkmeyer with this really weird, cold, dead stare on his face. I've never quite worked out whether Cameron intended that to be like a "red herring" that Bishop was a bad guy too or not, but it certainly seemed like it to me.
I always was creeped out by Bishop, especially when I watched this in my early teens.
He looks friggin' scary when he's shunting along the tiny little access tunnel thing with a torch under his chin.
The queen could have laid the eggs on Suloco. There's a sound effect at the end of Aliens that suggests something was loose on the ship.
Oh, except the eggs were in the cryo section, weren't they?
Oh, except the eggs were in the cryo section, weren't they?
Grim... wrote:
The queen could have laid the eggs on Suloco. There's a sound effect at the end of Aliens that suggests something was loose on the ship.
Oh, except the eggs were in the cryo section, weren't they?
Oh, except the eggs were in the cryo section, weren't they?
Sulaco's the marine ship, right? I can't say I've ever noticed the sound effect, will have to pay attention next time I watch it, but I dunno, I'd imagine it's more likely that the facehugger was shoehorned into Alien 3 in one of the million hasty rewrites. The queen's egg sac was knackered to buggery, surely (which always annoyed me about Aliens, actually - don't waste all your grenades on the egg sac! The whole place will be vapour in five minutes anyway! You crazy fool)?
Although at least they're consistent with her character in Alien 4, when she wastes fuckloads of scarce ammunition on blowing up corpses. On a ship that's crashing. Also, what the hell possessed her to put the woman out of her suffering with a fucking flamethrower? RAarrfgh caffeine needed.
It's right at the end of the credits. Jim Cameron said it was meant to be a face hugger at a T2 q&a session. There must have been two though, one for Spike and a (nngh) ' queen' one for Ripley.
sinister agent wrote:
Alarm wrote:
Am I the only person who refers to Alien³ as Alien Cubed? I've always done so, and someone recently commented that he's never heard anyone refer to it as that.
I do that, because it obviously is. See also "Sesevenen" for twattish film naming fun.
I liked Mark & Lard called the band "B-asterisk-witched"
As far as I know there is no "official" explanation for how the eggs got onto the Sulaco, it was just bad writing.
Time for a record, this one starts a bit quietly...
kalmar wrote:
sinister agent wrote:
Alarm wrote:
Am I the only person who refers to Alien³ as Alien Cubed? I've always done so, and someone recently commented that he's never heard anyone refer to it as that.
I do that, because it obviously is. See also "Sesevenen" for twattish film naming fun.
Oh yes, all of this. I thought it was only me!
Huzzah!
sinister agent wrote:
Also, what the hell possessed her to put the woman out of her suffering with a fucking flamethrower? RAarrfgh caffeine needed.
Yeah that was always a bit of an odd choice.
This sound effect at the end of Aliens. I've watched that movie so many times - too many times probably - and never got onto that.
Also, this thread is amazing. Well done, chaps.
How could the queen have laid eggs on Sulaco? Where was she keeping them? Her spindly body would barely contain one egg if you scooped out all the yellow glop that she would otherwise have in there pretending to be organs.
Without the big egg-maturing egg sac she's laying nothing, surely?
Without the big egg-maturing egg sac she's laying nothing, surely?
GazChap wrote:
As far as I know there is no "official" explanation for how the eggs got onto the Sulaco, it was just bad writing.
We shall fetch Cameron and give him a Chinese burn until he tells us.
The eggs rolled in. Downhill.
Mr Kissyfur wrote:
Without the big egg-maturing egg sac she's laying nothing, surely?
Keep Craster out of this.
Egg basket?
Zardoz wrote:
Egg basket?
Was it easter?
We see one egg in Alien3 and one facehugger but that doesn't mean there was only one egg - after all that'd kill the twist of the film (although one of the taglines for Cubed was 'This time it's in the most terrifying place of all').
So assuming two eggs. The queen would have had to bring them with her from her chamber - after all we don't know that Ripley destroyed them all.
Getting them to the cryo chamber would be kind of impossible given that queenie doesn't leave the dock area. So here's an odd question...
Could the sound effect facehugger have carried an egg to the cryo chamber? It's certainly strong enough but it'd be awkward! And you'd notice an egg scurrying off I guess.
Either way I'm still amazed that I didn't know about that sound effect. Fucking hell.
I got my Alien geek points in at the expense of any kind of cool last week. Fridays are dress down here at work. I was wearing a t-shirt with the sentry gun on in. Got asked about it and had to say 'you know the movie Alien? Well did you ever see the sequel Aliens? This is from that. But it's only from the special edition that came out after with 18 extra minutes.'
Xenonerdlinger.
So assuming two eggs. The queen would have had to bring them with her from her chamber - after all we don't know that Ripley destroyed them all.
Getting them to the cryo chamber would be kind of impossible given that queenie doesn't leave the dock area. So here's an odd question...
Could the sound effect facehugger have carried an egg to the cryo chamber? It's certainly strong enough but it'd be awkward! And you'd notice an egg scurrying off I guess.
Either way I'm still amazed that I didn't know about that sound effect. Fucking hell.
I got my Alien geek points in at the expense of any kind of cool last week. Fridays are dress down here at work. I was wearing a t-shirt with the sentry gun on in. Got asked about it and had to say 'you know the movie Alien? Well did you ever see the sequel Aliens? This is from that. But it's only from the special edition that came out after with 18 extra minutes.'
Xenonerdlinger.
One factoid I like about the Alien series... Weyland-Yutani was originally supposed to be Leyland-Toyota. As a joint British-Japanese alliance. Kinda dates the whole thing.
Grim... wrote:
We shall fetch Cameron and give him a Chinese burn until he tells us.
Surely you mean Vincent Ward? Cameron didn't write Alien 3
GazChap wrote:
Grim... wrote:
We shall fetch Cameron and give him a Chinese burn until he tells us.
Surely you mean Vincent Ward? Cameron didn't write Alien 3
He put a facehugger on Suloco first, though.
When? (or do you mean that sound effect?)
Alarm wrote:
kalmar wrote:
sinister agent wrote:
Alarm wrote:
Am I the only person who refers to Alien³ as Alien Cubed? I've always done so, and someone recently commented that he's never heard anyone refer to it as that.
I do that, because it obviously is. See also "Sesevenen" for twattish film naming fun.
Oh yes, all of this. I thought it was only me!
Huzzah!
HC was Picture Editor on Empire when Alien Cubed was released and the entire editorial department referred to it as such, as did most of the movie reviewers at the time. Don't know whether it ever made it into the mag' as such, but I've always referred to it as Alien Cubed.
Aye.
Here he is chatting about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQn8E3iWlLo&t=6m13s
Here he is chatting about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQn8E3iWlLo&t=6m13s
"Alien" cubed would just be "Alien", surely?
I've not watched Aliens in hi-def. How does it look? Cameron filmed it to look gritty, like a documentary. Does hi-def enhance it?
Embarrassingly I've not even seen the Alienses on DVD yet. I do plan to correct this.
Blucey wrote:
Did any of youse bother with the Dark Horse comics?
I've got the Stronghold one, somewhere around here. All I remember about it is that it features a talking alien called Charlie or something, who is forced to smoke cigars by a fat scientist to whom the sight is a great source of amusement.
Grim... wrote:
GazChap wrote:
As far as I know there is no "official" explanation for how the eggs got onto the Sulaco, it was just bad writing.
We shall fetch Cameron and give him a Chinese burn until he tells us.
He's too busy increasing VAT.
Klatrymadon wrote:
I've got the Stronghold one, somewhere around here. All I remember about it is that it features a talking alien called Charlie or something, who is forced to smoke cigars by a fat scientist to whom the sight is a great source of amusement.
Yay, my Sulaco T-shirt, Nostromo hoodie and WY baseball cap have just arrived! Thanks, Last Exit to Nowhere!
