Spoilers Alien: Questions

[Jefe Bergenstein]

In my headcanon, the Predators we see in the movies are just the uber-macho ultra-violent toxic-culture types who are hyper-fixated on hunting. It would be one thing if a human defeated a Predator once. But the number of times we've succeded? It's because we're not really seeing the best-of-the-best. We're seeing the Walter Palmer types to pay to go on safari and shoot a trapped lion.

We've never seen the Predator homeworld (in a movie). I want to see the day we first travel there and land in front of huge monolith, only to discover it's basically a giant office building. We are warmly greeted by a Predator secretary, and when we start talking about our first encounter with a Predator the secretary is like "Oh, jeez. Are you talking about Steve? Yeah, we all hated that guy. Never shut up about his tacti-cool toys. Actually, when we heard about that we started a petition to protect your planet as a wildlife preserve until you acheived space flight."

This has always been my thoughts. You have a species capable of interstellar travel and their MO is to go shoot fish in a barrel with cheat codes? Either these guys are the truck nuts of the galaxy or it's some tough guy tourism that has one iron clad liability waiver given like 90% of their clients have died.

 

[Ryujin]

This has always been my thoughts. You have a species capable of interstellar travel and their MO is to go shoot fish in a barrel with cheat codes? Either these guys are the truck nuts of the galaxy or it's some tough guy tourism that has one iron clad liability waiver given like 90% of their clients have died.

Technologically speaking, it's likely on part with a human using a rifle to hunt deer. This might just be their "low tech."

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Technologically speaking, it's likely on part with a human using a rifle to hunt deer. This might just be their "low tech."

Some of the Predators Bass Fishermen use knives and swords, rather than helmets that shoot people on their own or shoulder-mounted guided missiles.

They have low tech -- making them the equivalent of bow hunters* in our world -- but most of them are shooting fish in a barrel.

* And of course, most modern bow hunters are using high-tech bows that would have seemed magical during the heyday of bows as weapons.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Also, thanks, LA Times, for spoiling a surprise in Romulus in a freaking headline in Monday's paper. That feels really gratuitous. You're not ScreenRant or modern CBR.

 

[Clint_L]

The Xenomorphs are so much better without an origin story. I much preferred it when we knew nothing about them, where they came from, how long they'd been around. It's the age-old Vader thing--mystery is scary. Explaining the mystery removes the scary.

(I mean, sure, they're still scary in the same way that a tiger is scary, but not in a horror movie way).

100% this. I just ignore anything post-Aliens in my head canon for the series. Every single movie that comes afterwards actively works to make the preceding ones worse.

Hopefully Romulus bucks that trend. But if there is even one mention of the Engineers or the xenomorphs as bio-weapons, I'm out.

Here's all I need or want: the universe is vast, there some scary sh*t in it, one spaceship unfortunately got infected, and take it from there.

 

[MGibster]

The Xenomorphs are so much better without an origin story. I much preferred it when we knew nothing about them, where they came from, how long they'd been around. It's the age-old Vader thing--mystery is scary. Explaining the mystery removes the scary.

(I mean, sure, they're still scary in the same way that a tiger is scary, but not in a horror movie way).

One of the best things about the original Alien is the director didn't feel the need to spoon feed the audience answers. How much did the company know about the transmission coming from LV-426? Why send a bunch of space truckers instead of scientists? Why was the space jockey transporting so many eggs? We're given some clues but no definitive answers. I think we're better off without an explanation.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Prometheus gets dumped on a lot, but I admire it -- in contrast to Covenant -- for suggesting that there are even bigger mysteries and horrors out there, as compared to how things were aggressively narrowed in Alien3, Resurrection and the two AVP films.

 

[Epic Meepo]

The Xenomorphs are so much better without an origin story. I much preferred it when we knew nothing about them, where they came from, how long they'd been around. It's the age-old Vader thing--mystery is scary. Explaining the mystery removes the scary.

(I mean, sure, they're still scary in the same way that a tiger is scary, but not in a horror movie way).

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.

Based on that, I'd say it's possible to make an effective horror movie about something that's scary like a tiger. Mystery can make a monster more horrific, but lack of mystery doesn't have to make a monster less horrific. That's entirely dependent upon the skills of the horror movie director.

 

[Ryujin]

Prometheus gets dumped on a lot, but I admire it -- in contrast to Covenant -- for suggesting that there are even bigger mysteries and horrors out there, as compared to how things were aggressively narrowed in Alien3, Resurrection and the two AVP films.

"Prometheus", for me, suffers from a lot of issues other than the reveal of "deeper mysteries." Many of them can be chalked up to a director who thought he was smarter than everyone else, including the writers, and removed explanatory scenes from the final cut. (The original script can be found online.) Some of them can be blamed on someone just being stupid. (I run for a kilometre to avoid getting squashed by a crashing alien starship, but am saved by literally rolling 2 metres to the left?)

I would say, however, that the earlier Alien franchise films are in no way ruined in the same way that the original "Star Wars" trilogy aren't ruined by the prequels. They're just a bad thing of their own.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

"Prometheus", for me, suffers from a lot of issues other than the reveal of "deeper mysteries." Many of them can be chalked up to a director who thought he was smarter than everyone else, including the writers, and removed explanatory scenes from the final cut. (The original script can be found online.) Some of them can be blamed on someone just being stupid. (I run for a kilometre to avoid getting squashed by a crashing alien starship, but am saved by literally rolling 2 metres to the left?)

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.