I love me some xenomorphs!

[Susano]

Re: I love me some xenomorphs!

 

There were more Alien movies after the first two? It can't be. It can't be...

 

**waves hand in front of Old Man**

 

These are not the films you were thinking of. You may go.

[RexMundi]

Re: I love me some xenomorphs!

 

Isn't Alien 4 where they revealed that the Xenomorph is really Hayden Christensen?

 

~Rex....Thinks http://impstherelentless.com/tek9.asp had it right in Chapter 1. If Xenomorphs really were around, since the 2nd movie they would be on the EPA protected species list.

[Old Man]

Re: I love me some xenomorphs!

 

This is clearly an important species we're dealing with, and, I don't think you or I or anybody has the right to arbitrarily... exterminate them.

[Susano]

Re: I love me some xenomorphs!

 

This is clearly an important species we're dealing with' date=' and, I don't think you or I or anybody has the right to arbitrarily... exterminate them.[/quote']

 

Watch me.

[Old Man]

Re: I love me some xenomorphs!

 

Look, this species is worth millions to the bio-weapons division, right? Now if you're smart, we can all come out of this heroes, and we'll be set up for life! We'll be able to get all the Hero 6th books we want!

[Susano]

Re: I love me some xenomorphs!

 

Look' date=' this species is worth millions to the bio-weapons division, right? Now if you're smart, we can all come out of this heroes, and we'll be set up for life! We'll be able to get all the Hero 6th books we want![/quote']

 

All the 6E books?

[Nuclear Fridge]

Re: I love me some xenomorphs!

 

I've barely scanned this thread, so forgive me if this has been mentioned already...

What got to me with the 'classic' Alien movies was the corporate arrogance.

"I don't know which species is worse, Burke. You don't see them &%&$$! each over for a percentage..."

And we saw the 'experts' in Alien3 being utterly dismissive of the Ripley replicant's warnings. "We have it all under control."

History repeats itself.

Perhaps the point being made there is that the real monsters have lab coats and security passes...

[Badger]

Re: I love me some xenomorphs!

 

Look' date=' this species is worth millions to the bio-weapons division, right? Now if you're smart, we can all come out of this heroes, and we'll be set up for life! We'll be able to get all the Hero 6th books we want![/quote']

 

*chucks Old Man towards the nearest xenomorph*

 

 

"What?.....He was talking crazy.....anyway his sacrifice will buy us time.....RUN!!!

[Old Man]

Re: I love me some xenomorphs!

 

Aaaaiieeee! *dies*

[RexMundi]

Re: I love me some xenomorphs!

 

Hmmm.....Tail Death.....or Tongue Death....or is this a PG-13 and it happens off Camera with just a hint of Death and Dismemberment?

 

~Rex

[Old Man]

Re: I love me some xenomorphs!

 

Well, I was kind of hoping for a Bishop-like spectacular dismemberment. Kind of go out with a bang, you know? And much better than chestburster or acid death.

[Egyptoid]

Re: I love me some xenomorphs!

 

Well' date=' I was kind of hoping for a Bishop-like spectacular dismemberment. Kind of go out with a bang, you know? And much better than chestburster or acid death.[/quote']

 

I watched the director's cut. What I saw was Old Man had a dead-man grenade in his hand,

and as the Xenomorph warrior carried him back into the deep nest, he let go as he sighted the queen.

[austenandrews]

Re: I love me some xenomorphs!

 

I still find them rather terrifying. The things are huge and sharp and full of acid' date=' and it takes a heavy caliber full automatic weapon to bring one down... if you see it in time. Just one of them is more fearsome than most modern-day horror movie antagonists. Given the choice of facing a xenomorph or a psychotic, quasi-supernatural axe murderer, I'll take the axe murderer, simply because my inevitable death will be relatively quick compared to what'll happen to me in the xenomorph nest.[/quote']

For me, the missing element is the alienness. As time went on they lost the sense of the terrifying unknown - "That thing bled acid, who knows what it'll do when it's dead!" "How can they cut the power? They're animals!" - to an entry in a Horror Monster Manual. Sure, they've got more hit points and damage classes than most, but by the time someone uses an emerging chestburster as a weapon, we can safely declare that the mysterious element has been abandoned.

 

Again I've not followed any of the games or comics or whatever else is out there, but I certainly hope they've explored more of the alienness in addition to the monsterness. Do these things eat machinery or build themselves out of parts or something? How does that work? What's the evolutionary advantage of their life cycle? If left to grow, does a colony move on to stranger and more complex forms? There are whole realms of weird horror waiting to be explored; yet most of what I've seen is just a shoot-em-up rehash of what we learned twenty-four years ago in Aliens.

[Badger]

Re: I love me some xenomorphs!

 

I watched the director's cut. What I saw was Old Man had a dead-man grenade in his hand,

and as the Xenomorph warrior carried him back into the deep nest, he let go as he sighted the queen.

 

 

 

Dont forget yelling "You'll never take me alive!!!!!!

[Curufea]

Re: I love me some xenomorphs!

 

What's the evolutionary advantage of their life cycle?

 

The simple answer to this is that they aren't an evolved life form - they're created. It's stongly hinted at in the first movie.

 

On a side note, their life cycle is based on insects that evolved on our planet, so if you are looking for evolutionary advantage, look at them.

[austenandrews]

Re: I love me some xenomorphs!

 

The simple answer to this is that they aren't an evolved life form - they're created. It's stongly hinted at in the first movie.

Not really. Nor have I ever liked that interpretation. Too easy and too not-scary.

[Old Man]

Re: I love me some xenomorphs!

 

Dont forget yelling "You'll never take me alive!!!!!!

 

I'm really starting to like Old Man. What a badass.

[Badger]

Re: I love me some xenomorphs!

 

Not really. Nor have I ever liked that interpretation. Too easy and too not-scary.

 

Not necessarily. Even if bio-engineered. I cant see any reason not expect them to eventually evolve in ways unexpected to the creator (especially a hive in an area the creators couldnt keep a close eye on them)

[Nolgroth]

Re: I love me some xenomorphs!

 

I liked the second movie. I think it's just as good as the first. I was pretty neutral on film three (although the deaths of Hicks and Newt pissed me off to no end... that and the lame explanation on how the face hugger got in the ship) and was meh about film four.

I hated the Newt/Hicks deaths too. And when I saw the movie, it was so dark I really didn't see anything that explained how a face hugger got on board. I certainly don't remember any dialog, but then the movie theater had a bad speaker system to boot. Never saw it on DVD or anything.

[Susano]

Re: I love me some xenomorphs!

 

I hated the Newt/Hicks deaths too. And when I saw the movie' date=' it was so dark I really didn't see anything that explained how a face hugger got on board. I certainly don't remember any dialog, but then the movie theater had a bad speaker system to boot. Never saw it on DVD or anything.[/quote']

 

Supposedly the Queen planted it before attacking Bishop.

[Nolgroth]

Re: I love me some xenomorphs!

 

For me' date=' the missing element is the alienness. As time went on they lost the sense of the terrifying unknown - "That thing bled acid, who knows what it'll do when it's dead!" "How can they cut the power? They're animals!" - to an entry in a Horror Monster Manual. Sure, they've got more hit points and damage classes than most, but by the time someone uses an emerging chestburster as a weapon, we can safely declare that the mysterious element has been abandoned.[/quote']I feel this very way about werewolves, vampires, ghosts and a plethora of other things that were frightening once upon a time. Now you have hip, viewer/reader identification monsters. Sexy vampires and angst ridden werewolves trying to control their curse. Sometimes it isn't even a curse at all, but some state of paranatural evolution. Ugh. Everything that I used to see as horrific has been rendered inert due to sheer over exposure.

 

The original Alien movie was really quite frightening. Especially for the time it was released. My brothers, sworn to bully and terrify me, refused to let me watch Alien due to how scary it was. They thought I would never be able to sleep again. These days? I think over exposure to violence in modern movies and other pop culture has rendered us numb to violent things. I doubt my brothers would have any more of a problem letting me watch Alien as they would an episode of Supernatural. Assuming the same essential dynamic of course.

 

My solution is just to switch gears. When I watch a movie, play a video game, or read a book I just try to get inspiration for my games or even day dreams.

 

And for the record, to my just entering teenage brain, clowns were still more terrifying than any space monster.

[DusterBoy]

Re: I love me some xenomorphs!

 

Even the awesome that was Brian Glover (he was an ex-wrestler from Yorkshire, of course he was awesome) couldn't save Alien 3 from suckage. Killing off Hicks and Newt was a cop out.

[Nolgroth]

Re: I love me some xenomorphs!

 

Supposedly the Queen planted it before attacking Bishop.

So the queen, in a fit of rage over her offspring being introduced to a flamethrower, an assault rifle, and a couple of grenades had the foresight to snatch up one of her preciously few remaining eggs and strategically plant it somewhere hidden from Ripley in the minute or two that it took for the crew to get off of the dropship? There are some rational flaws in that story. Namely that Ripley has a borderline psychotic paranoia about the aliens. I just cannot grasp the idea of her not doing a room by room, deck by deck sweep of the whole ship before putting herself into cold sleep. Or maybe that is just something that I would have done.

[RexMundi]

Re: I love me some xenomorphs!

 

Supposedly, Alien 3 didn't suck. At least that's what they told me, heh. Even with what did end up being filmed if they had slowed the pacing down (I still feel Alien 3 ended up being a merging of the first two movies), it would have been good. As for the xenomorph critters themselves.....Their origin gets mucked with every movie. Originally they had a complete life cycle. Egg-Facehugger-chestburster-adult; which then captures prey to make the prey into more eggs. Cameron added the Queen as a left over idea from a previous movie idea, and it's been goofier ever since, heh. The engineered bioweapon thing is left over from one of the original ideas for the space jockey and his ship (that ship was a bomber, the eggs the bombs), and of course the companies wanting to use it for bioweaponry as well. Could have easily just evolved as a sorta "wasp/ant/termite" critter thing....Comics give tons more possibilities but then again, everything new generates a new possibility.

 

~Rex

[austenandrews]

Re: I love me some xenomorphs!

 

Not necessarily. Even if bio-engineered. I cant see any reason not expect them to eventually evolve in ways unexpected to the creator (especially a hive in an area the creators couldnt keep a close eye on them)

It's not that bioengineered aliens aren't scary as such. For me the underlying horror is that something so coldly terrifying evolved naturally out in the dark of space. It's not a weapon, it wasn't designed to be nasty, it's not even evil - it just is. Suddenly the universe is much scarier and we're just a link in the middle of the food chain.

 

Not that I have a problem with them being used as biological weapons, of course. Just that they were manufactured as such.

 

I feel this very way about werewolves' date=' vampires, ghosts and a plethora of other things that were frightening once upon a time.[/quote']

I'm with you. Sometimes I think people subconsciously want to control their horror by slotting it into neat categories. If you know the rules, defeating the monster simply becomes a matter of logistics and execution. That's something you can control, or at least conceive of controlling. If you turn the monster into something that's not really scary, just dangerous and cool, you've defeated the horror before it even happens. I suspect a lot of people prefer their scares on those terms, because let's face it, they're less scary that way. They can giggle about Cthulhu plushies and "zombie walks" without actually giving themselves over to fear.

 

So the queen' date=' in a fit of rage over her offspring being introduced to a flamethrower, an assault rifle, and a couple of grenades had the foresight to snatch up one of her preciously few remaining eggs and strategically plant it somewhere hidden from Ripley in the minute or two that it took for the crew to get off of the dropship?[/quote']

Not eggs. A facehugger or two. They could have crawled onto her when she was checking the damage. It's not really a stretch.

 

Edit: Wait, did they show an egg in the opening of Alien3? Memory fails me.

 

There are some rational flaws in that story. Namely that Ripley has a borderline psychotic paranoia about the aliens. I just cannot grasp the idea of her not doing a room by room, deck by deck sweep of the whole ship before putting herself into cold sleep. Or maybe that is just something that I would have done.

I'm sure she was careful, but those critters are pretty small. I'm sure they can hide like cockroaches in places she can't look, especially in a ship as cluttered and unfamiliar as that one.