Spoilers Alien: Questions

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don't know. Does Jaws count as a horror movie? That film can elicit a sense of heightened anxiety entirely unjustified by any factual information viewers know about sharks.

I recently watched this with my kids. I got into sharks because of Jaws as a kid myself and it's very obvious today that it's scientifically very silly (as even Bencheley has argued), but it's still incredibly effective.

The science issues are 99% on the side of what the 1970s characters mistakenly believe, not how the shark behaves, which is fine, as far as it goes. It's not like this is Deep Blue Sea or Jaws 3 or 4.

 

[jhallum]

The last Alien RPG hardcover, Building Better Worlds has a sandbox space explorer campaign around a bunch of these questions (specifically ones around how Aliens might get around). It's a neat take. Worth reading, and IMO, the book is maybe the least interesting of the five books/box sets in the game system, which might tell you how good the others are.

 

[Ryujin]

Having rewatched Prometheus recently, for most of the time the two women are running, there appear to be rock obstructions or rifts that keep them running where they are. But you have to be looking for it. I suspect there were alternate shots that made that more clear that weren't used in the final cut, making them look stupider than they needed to.

Still, it seemed that turning around and taking two steps to the left would have saved them a lot of running.

Everyone but Space Stringer Bell being excited to take off their helmets on an alien world and put their faces next to alien snakes can't be explained that way, though. My head canon is that these were all reckless contractors specifically hired by Weyland because they wouldn't ask too many relevant questions that might prevent him meeting an Engineer.

The difference between a bunch of academics, who play around with theory, and people who've actually put feet on the ground of an alien world before?

Though still stupid, some of the business between Fifield and Millburn is explained in the original script. Millburn painfully wanted to impress Fifield, so he was extra stupid.

 

[Epic Meepo]

Having rewatched Prometheus recently, for most of the time the two women are running, there appear to be rock obstructions or rifts that keep them running where they are. But you have to be looking for it. I suspect there were alternate shots that made that more clear that weren't used in the final cut, making them look stupider than they needed to.

Everyone but Space Stringer Bell being excited to take off their helmets on an alien world and put their faces next to alien snakes can't be explained that way, though. My head canon is that these were all reckless contractors specifically hired by Weyland because they wouldn't ask too many relevant questions that might prevent him meeting an Engineer.

Did "Prometheus" ever explain how two characters got lost while wandering around underground... after their drone uploaded a 3d map of the entire tunnel system?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Still, it seemed that turning around and taking two steps to the left would have saved them a lot of running.

The difference between a bunch of academics, who play around with theory, and people who've actually put feet on the ground of an alien world before?

Though still stupid, some of the business between Fifield and Millburn is explained in the original script. Millburn painfully wanted to impress Fifield, so he was extra stupid.

Prometheus feels, to me, like a movie that could be largely improved with an alternate take with some new/restored scenes. (As opposed to Aliens, where the directors cut scenes, other than the autogun, actively make the movie worse.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Did "Prometheus" ever explain how two characters got lost while wandering around underground... after their drone uploaded a 3d map of the entire tunnel system?

No, but I would assume the radio interference probably was responsible. I can't get my cell phone to give me directions when I hit cell tower dead spots.

 

[TiQuinn]

Though still stupid, some of the business between Fifield and Millburn is explained in the original script. Millburn painfully wanted to impress Fifield, so he was extra stupid.

I think it was that scene that had me fully checked out of Prometheus in the theater. I was hoping for something a little better than goofball slasher movie characters doing stupid things and dying.

 

[MGibster]

The difference between a bunch of academics, who play around with theory, and people who've actually put feet on the ground of an alien world before?

I gotta think even an academic pencil neck is going to know better than to stick his face in some alien that clearly looks threatening. If I was being charitable, maybe he was so excited about that alien lifeform that he forgot what senses God gave him. If I was being charitable.

 

[Ryujin]

I gotta think even an academic pencil neck is going to know better than to stick his face in some alien that clearly looks threatening. If I was being charitable, maybe he was so excited about that alien lifeform that he forgot what senses God gave him. If I was being charitable.

That part is the "trying to impress" thing that I mentioned but, even with that, it's monumentally stupid.

 

[Epic Meepo]

No, but I would assume the radio interference probably was responsible. I can't get my cell phone to give me directions when I hit cell tower dead spots.

That's probably the excuse the movies uses, but it seems kind of silly to launch a survey drone and then not save the drone data to the computer you're lugging around alongside the survey drone. Those characters shouldn't need to rely on wifi to access a map file they created themselves.

Then again, these are the same guys who are exposing their faces to alien lifeforms, so at least they're being consistently useless.