Spoilers Alien: Earth Spoiler Thread

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I like this focus on other aliens. I kinda wish now the Alien series had featured a different alien in each movie, rather than the xenomorphs over and over. It would work well as the creepy body horror in space franchise. Like, the universe is teeming with life.... but it's all horrific.

That was what I mostly took away from Prometheus: There's a lot of stuff out there in the universe but you don't actually want to meet any of it.

 

[Stalker0]

I like this focus on other aliens. I kinda wish now the Alien series had featured a different alien in each movie, rather than the xenomorphs over and over. It would work well as the creepy body horror in space franchise. Like, the universe is teeming with life.... but it's all horrific.

Life in its infinite complexity is beautiful....and horrible. For at its core, the purpose of most life remains....the consumption of other life.

 

[Voadam]

ETA- there's also the extreme creepy sapience of Octo-eye... err, the eye midge.

Octo-eye works better for me than eye midge.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Octo-eye works better for me than eye midge.

I think they were using Midge as a personal name, not a species name.

A long long time ago there were children’s stories and a TV series about Mary, Mungo and Midge. Mary was a human child, Mungo was a dog and Midge was a mouse.

 

[Voadam]

I think they were using Midge as a personal name, not a species name.

A long long time ago there were children’s stories and a TV series about Mary, Mungo and Midge. Mary was a human child, Mungo was a dog and Midge was a mouse.

There is also

 

[Clint_L]

K, I'm caught up. I'm quite enjoying this series, except that the writing consistently falls back on the lazy, if very typically Alien, trope of scientists behaving incredibly stupidly, which takes me out of my suspension of disbelief.

Like, "here's a lab containing a number of horrifically deadly, even extinction threat level alien lifeforms, and we'll leave it in the care of children without so much as an actively monitored security camera." Or in the most recent episode, "Oh no, one of the children has been partially destroyed by extraordinarily deadly aliens. I'd better leave the door wide open and get right in there with him. What could go wrong?" It's "I'd better go down to the basement alone to check the fusebox" levels of horror movie idiocy, except worse because these are supposed to be extremely intelligent adults.

The acting is great, the visuals are spectacular, and there are some wonderful thematic elements. But the plotting is consistently lazy.

Edit: also, why was the cyberkid having so much trouble dragging the body of the prone scientist with the facehugger? The series has been very explicit about how incredibly strong the cyberkids are (e.g. Wendy easily hanging all of the human kids off her extended arms and so on). Again, seems like lazy writing: "okay, we need dramatic tension, like he's struggling to get the body into the vent before the alien gets him." "Why can't he just pick the guy up and trot over there?" "Because it needs to be scary, so for this scene he no longer has super strength."

 

[Paul Farquhar]

K, I'm caught up. I'm quite enjoying this series, except that the writing consistently falls back on the lazy, if very typically Alien, trope of scientists behaving incredibly stupidly, which takes me out of my suspension of disbelief.

The series justifies that by pointing out that the Maginot crew are cheap and expendable, and the hybrids are kids, with the lack of sense that goes with that.

 

[Voadam]

Poor Issac. I liked the actor in Shadow and Bone and was looking forward to seeing more of him here.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Like, "here's a lab containing a number of horrifically deadly, even extinction threat level alien lifeforms, and we'll leave it in the care of children without so much as an actively monitored security camera."

Kirsh appears to be doing this on purpose, per the most recent episode.

Or in the most recent episode, "Oh no, one of the children has been partially destroyed by extraordinarily deadly aliens. I'd better leave the door wide open and get right in there with him. What could go wrong?" It's "I'd better go down to the basement alone to check the fusebox" levels of horror movie idiocy, except worse because these are supposed to be extremely intelligent adults.

Well, the human adult in question is a robotics engineer, not a biologist, and he's just been fired and has just taken action to conspire against one of the galaxy's richest men. I don't think he's thinking clearly.

But overall, I agree that everyone has the usual Alien universe IQ drop in effect.

 

[Clint_L]

The series justifies that by pointing out that the Maginot crew are cheap and expendable, and the hybrids are kids, with the lack of sense that goes with that.

I understand that's their attempt at justifying bad writing.

The reality is that following basic safety protocols in any situation is a lot cheaper than wasting crews and spaceships, let alone labs next to where you live that are handling anything dangerous.

They don't even follow the basic protocols of a high school lab. Okay, you've left (multi-billion dollar) kids in charge. Maybe monitor them closely? Most of the time, they are unmonitored, or being monitored by a clearly and openly hostile synth.

It's the lazy horror trope of people doing dumb things because the plot requires it.

How hard would it be to write that final scene, for example, without having the hybrid kid forget that he has super strength and still put him in jeopardy?