Prometheus 2 - “Alien: Paradise Lost�!

[Shin Mefilas]

I always liked Alien 3, despite its sad ending (actually, that still worked for me, and the score is smegging beautiful https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1bd9L5Tw7k&list=PLCF78A6D4F54F01DA ), and knowing from what troubled origins it came makes me appreciate it even more. I do remember that Sigourney Weaver said it felt like God was giving her the role of Queen Isabella in 1492: Conquest of Paradise to make up for the sheer hell of shooting Alien 3.

 

Now, Alien Resurrection on the other hand...

 

There is one thing that does not, and never will belong in an Alien movie, and that is humor.

 

I agree to an extent, I don't think its that humor doesn't belong but it has to be used appropriately. The first three movies all had some humor and all of them were used appropriately. in 1 and 2 it was for character development and for 3 its used to give us an emotional break from what is a very depressing, tense and dark experience. 

 

For example the best use of humour in any of the films is this (in my opinion)

 

Alien Resurrections problem is that its too self aware and at times is bordering on self parody which never works. Their was a time that I liked the film but now day I cant even watch it. If I did it the only thing that would get me through it would be Ron Perlman, who while fun to watch doesn't belong in this film (or at least the characters he's playing doesn't) and Sigourney Weaver's performance as Number 8. 

 

And I just hate the Newborn, even as a concept it doesn't work. The standards Xenos are far superior to this abomination and had she not been defenceless at the the queen would have crushed it. If I want to see human/xeno hybrids I'll go watch Species.

 

  

Edited December 13, 2015 by Prometheus Guyver

[Mirabilis]

I still disagree. I have nothing but contempt for Prometheus and Alien 3 (unless it's the Assembly Cut, which makes more sense and adds to the franchise). It was a horrible film that got everything wrong. And that's the thing about the origins. I love how they're so many theories and ideas. Xenoprime, a natural predator born on a distant home world in the deepest darkest corners of space. Created by the Engineers as biological weapons. Created by the Yautja for sport. And a few other theories. You never have to tell an origin story to keep audiences entertained. That's just like time travel stuff. Lazy. Complacent. Poor story plotting. Just unimaginative. All you have to do is get creative, use your imagination. You can add to a franchise without having to retcon something or go make something that contradicts with already established lore (the same problem I have with Blizzard and Warcraft). I mean sometimes it's appropriate to cover something from the past. Example, say you're writing a story and in the story there is a reference to an older war that had great significance in the events of the current story. Well going back and revealing the events of that war would be appropriate for readers, in order to put things in context and perspective for them. An origin story of Aliens? It's not necessary. It's not needed. Sure it might appeal to some fans; but again it will completely erode all the mystery surrounding the species. It will dissolve all the previous theories. It forces it into a small box and will establish limitations for future stories. Like I said, you can create more stories of anything without having to tell an origins. You just have to be creative and use your imagination. I've been doing that my whole life. Fan fictions and all sorts of stuff. I mean, heck, not to sound arrogant, but I know some of my own alien fan fictions are much better than Prometheus, Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection. Not to mention the abominable AVP films. But that's just the massive critic coming out of me. Family and friends hate watching movies and animes with me because I'll tear em to shreds. I'm a harsh critic haha.

Edited December 13, 2015 by Mirabilis

[*Jess♥]

I can respect your view but at the same time I have to keep in mind where they were going with the extra movies. those alien vs predator movies were absolutely awful.

Even if I didn't like the idea of making an origin story, truth is it was ridley scott the original creator of the franchise and prometheus was actually a decent movie.

if we are going to get more movies in this franchise, I am so glad they won't be continuations of AvP.

[Salkafar]

I kind of liked the first Alien versus Predator movie (the original comic was pretty brilliant) although the timeframe was complete nonsense. But the sight of a properly animated queen...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sE-YwK6_PI

 

The second one was horrific.

[Shin Mefilas]

Have to agree, as a concept its awesome (the comics and games have proven that) but the movies were just in the wrong hands. But there were some good moments, few and far between as they were!

 

 

But yes that Queen is amazing!

Edited December 14, 2015 by Prometheus Guyver

[Mirabilis]

    AvP I's concept was fairly entertaining, and I liked the idea. The film itself, however, was laughable. It was too fast paced, it lacked a significant amount of character development. Throughout the entire film it felt like a lot of the dialogue and conversation were forced. I remember thinking to myself, "am I supposed to like this person?" I mean, there was no character likability in it at all. I cared about no one in the entire film. Even at moments where you're supposed to feel sympathy and sadness for the individuals, I felt nothing. There was no macho manly stuff from say the Predator films, and there was no awesome female heroines either. One potential female died immediately, the other, the one I really liked, proved to be a failure. She survived but she sure as heck was no Ripley. They're cardboard characters just in the film to die so we can see the aliens. The pg-13 rating? Don't even get me started. AvP is NOT an action sci-fi. It's a horror survival. I think many people have lost sight of that. It's humans pinned between two incredibly hostile, overwhelming and horrific super-predators. One with advanced technology that loves to toy with it's prey, hunting them down one by one. Easily capable of killing them all at any moment. And the other, a natural hunter. Problem solving intelligence, ambushing, sneaking around and unstoppable. AvP did not deliver this.

 

    Again, the concept was great, but there were too many problems with the film. The AvP 2010 game, was a better story in my opinion. It captured everything right. It had colonist in the hundreds, corrupt corporations, a whole battalion of marines, about ten-twenty predators and a massive hive of aliens. It was all about surviving the epidemic and getting the heck off the planet. It had the same concept and synopsis as the film too. But it was done the right way. In the future, on a distant planet, a yautja pyramid and city ruins are discovered. A team of scientist are sent to explore it. Throughout their exploration they find an imprisoned Queen. They capture the Queen and start using colonist, from the nearby prospecting colony, to birth xenomorphs. When the scientist open a secret chamber in the pyramid a massive pulse of energy bursts forth from the building and it fries all the circuits within the nearby laboratory containing the xenomorphs. The xenomorphs break out and begin to harvest people within the laboratory. On a distant planet, the yautja are informed that for some unknown reason their ruins have been activated. Upon further investigation the yautja discover a xenomorph infestation has begun. A large hunting party is sent out to contain the situation, recapture the Queen and kill all the trespassing humans. The party is led by three Elites and is overseen by an Elder. By now, the xenomorphs have spread so great in number, they have begun to attack the prospecting colony, and harvesting the colonist. During the panic of the xenomorph infestation the colony sends out an S.O.S. to which the Colonial Marines respond. Some time later, never specified, the marines arrive before the yautja and send a large portion of their battalion to the planet. However, when the yautja ship enters the planets space, it immediately destroys the marine cruiser. Wiping out the remaining marines on the ship and destroying their ride home. Now the marines are stranded on the planet, surrounded and many companies are separated. Throughout the story you find more and more bodies of the marines and it quickly becomes apparent the mission is a mitigated disaster. The situation quickly turns from a rescue mission to survival and escape. In which that becomes the main goal. 

 

   Now, I made a really LONG story very short here. But this, this would've been a much better flick than the first AvP film. Mind you it would've been difficult to pull off, but it got so much right. I mean, as Sal pointed out, even the timeline of the first AvP film was off. And don't even get me started on the second. With the whole Pred-alien Queen hybrid. UUUUUUGGGHHHHH!!!!!

[Super Existence]

Getting the impression after the critical failure of Prometheus and the success of the Martian Ridley is forcing this remake as some weird apology for the first.

Hopefully the science will be more realistic as it was in the Martian.

[Shin Mefilas]

At first they were going to follow the storyline of the original AVP comic but it got scrapped for budgetary reasons I think. Shame because that would have been cool to.

 

I never liked that Pred-Queen hybrid idea, it had already been done in AVP Extinction as the Final boss of the Predator Campaign. Plus that queens backstory was that she was a bio-weapon created by a mad scientist along with the yellow K-Series Aliens. I'm also not a fan of that Predalien design, personally I prefer something like this.

 

 

Pred-Queen Boss

 

 

 

 

K-Series Aliens

 

 

Bonus Berserker Alien - Super Predator Host

 

Edited December 15, 2015 by Prometheus Guyver

[Mirabilis]

That's exactly right. I completely agree with you. The Queen Hybrid was a genetic mutation, not a natural phenomenon. Queens carry the Royal Jelly line, they always look the same. They're the only "pure" xeno's. No matter the host, they always look the same, that's what makes them so deadly. I also agree with the concept of the Predalien, I've always felt that way. The idea of a xeno having dreadlocks from a predator, would be like a xeno having the hair from a human. I always though they'd look so much cooler if they had the long crest like head, without the locks; and had a darker slimmy color to them, like the others do. But again, I'm being a critic lol. This by the way is nothing. I could go on for hours on the predalien alone and really rip into it. 

[*Jess♥]

or we could just realise that ridley scott created it and only the films he makes are canon.

 

my own personal opinion.,

[Salkafar]

Aliens was too good to ignore.

 

And again, that theme... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-jGrL7U09Y

[*Jess♥]

I would have to watch aliens in a different light. it is a very different type of movie.  I am sure it is an excellent film in many ways. but i feel like it is more of an action film and I'm not so much a fan of action.  tried watching the expendables, got bored.

[Shin Mefilas]

I would have to watch aliens in a different light. it is a very different type of movie.  I am sure it is an excellent film in many ways. but i feel like it is more of an action film and I'm not so much a fan of action.  tried watching the expendables, got bored.

 

Well it is and it isent. It start out like 80s action movies, the soldiers make big talk about wiping out bugs but the Xenos prove to be a far more intelligent, resourceful, unstoppable and deadly foes then they bargained for. They are easily force out of the hive by the Xenos and are constantly being out smarted and outmaneuvered at every turn. It still has action element but at its core its horror. 

 

That's actually something very few writers have ever gotten right in books or comics. They tend to treat the aliens like bugs or at best like the raptors from jurassic park but I don't think that dose them justice. I've always felt that the Xenomorphs level of intelligence is impossible for us to understand because its well alien. They are in a sense like insects in terms of savagery but they sometimes display incredible intelligence beyond that of JP raptors or intelligent mammals. As I've often described it, its a whole other kind of intellect, one we will likely never full understand.

 

Another aspect to them that is downplayed in other media is their power. They can easily over power humans and sometimes predators with pure strength alone. The worst offence in this area was in my most hated alien book Cauldron where a Xenos are somehow taken down by common earth animals like a bear or a cloned smilodon. Don't get me wrong Xenos fighting animals is a nice change of pace but I find it hard to believe that they would go down that easily. Compare that to one of my favorite books Music of the Spears where the worst a Xeno gets is a minor wound from a charging Bull but then rips its head of with a little help from its tail and a few minor, superficial scratches and bites from a panther, Also somehow in Cauldron said bear and and sabertooth seem hardly put out when they get splashed with acid! You know the stuff we've seen eat through metal in second!

 

An a side note more alien types

 

Gorilla Alien!

 

Shark Alien!

 

Ox Alien!

 

T. Rex Alien!

 

Na'vi Alien!

 

Engineer/Jockey Alien 

Edited December 17, 2015 by Prometheus Guyver

[Salkafar]

Hah. In the original novelization by Alan Dean Foster the alien was insanely strong, ripping through bulkheads at walking speed.

[H222G981]

I thought the Kadinsky Aliens were especially pretty cool from the Weyland's weapons division. However they were pretty much a failed experiment because they were probably hard to control due to the fact they were still subject to a hive mind. 

Edited December 23, 2015 by Jupiter

[Mirabilis]

I know this isn't the subject of this forum, but I wish they made a TV series on Fox about the Aliens. New characters, new stories and somewhat like the Walking Dead. Funded that much I mean. The story revolving around a paradise world with billions of people and an infestation occurs. It would be post-infestation on a massive scale. We could finally see the scenario Ripley was so afraid of, that would happen to Earth. The plot would be about various groups fighting for resources, whole battalions of C.M.'s would've already arrived but were wiped out. So the survivors could be scavenging their supplies. I mean total destruction. The whole thing would be trying to get off the planet, rather than reclaiming it. The intro to the show would be Cameron's awesome horror theme. So great and it definitely tops the W.D.'s in my opinion lol. Sorry for the hijack though. 

[Super Existence]

I have no idea why a Navi alien would be blue when human aliens aren't pink, same goes for the pred alien, why did that crappy design have dreads and the predators mottled skin

when a human born alien only carries over its humanoid shape as a base.

 

Dumb designing.

[Shin Mefilas]

I know this isn't the subject of this forum, but I wish they made a TV series on Fox about the Aliens. New characters, new stories and somewhat like the Walking Dead. Funded that much I mean. The story revolving around a paradise world with billions of people and an infestation occurs. It would be post-infestation on a massive scale. We could finally see the scenario Ripley was so afraid of, that would happen to Earth. The plot would be about various groups fighting for resources, whole battalions of C.M.'s would've already arrived but were wiped out. So the survivors could be scavenging their supplies. I mean total destruction. The whole thing would be trying to get off the planet, rather than reclaiming it. The intro to the show would be Cameron's awesome horror theme. So great and it definitely tops the W.D.'s in my opinion lol. Sorry for the hijack though. 

 Honestly that sounds like an awesome idea. We have an Evil Dead tv series and the possibility of a Friday the 13th one. While you may not like were the movies are going if they do well we may get something like this.

 

 

I have no idea why a Navi alien would be blue when human aliens aren't pink, same goes for the pred alien, why did that crappy design have dreads and the predators mottled skin

when a human born alien only carries over its humanoid shape as a base.

 

Dumb designing.

As I've pointed out I'm no fan of AVP:R's Predalien and agree with you all the way. As for the Na'vi one well you could argue that it linked to the natural bio-luminescence found in all lifeforms found on Pandora and would come in handy as camouflage in the colorful jungles of that planet. Plus xeno's have been shown to come in more then one color. The Runner is a brass/copper color and the mutant strain from Genocide were bright red in the comic. But on that same score some people do take the alien hybridization to far, hence most predalien designs.  

 

You want bad hybrids look no further then Batman vs Aliens 2. It has a team of super solders created using xeno dna and the dna from Arkham Asylum inmates. Cant see that going wrong!

Its made worst by the fact that the first comic had a really good alien design. The Croc Alien.

Edited December 24, 2015 by Prometheus Guyver

[Shin Mefilas]

We are DOOMED!

 

[Salkafar]

Hybridization doesn't work for me. I mean it looked pretty good, IMHO...

 

 

Many people have denounced it, but remember it was only the equivalent to this...

 

 

Imagine if it had had the chance to mature. In the novel, it was already changing...

 

Hmmm. Perhaps hybridization works after all.

Edited December 24, 2015 by Salkafar

[Shin Mefilas]

Not gonna lye never liked the newborn but if he grew into something cool I'd forgive him. Hybridization really docent work because as Ash once said the xenomorph is perfect. It's natural hybridization is awesome on its own, theirs no need to go splicing DNA. Optimize and upgrading them is ok but dont going around making them well less alien.

 

OH no you have reminded me of the single worst Alien related thing ever. AVP Deadliest of the Species. Yes worse the Resurrection or AVP:R, their just stupid, this thing is horrible. So bad infact I have to purge my memory every time I think of it in the vain hope I'll forget it exists.

 

Forget everything  else we've talked about this comic has the worst hybridization!

 

Edited December 24, 2015 by Prometheus Guyver

[Salkafar]

"ASH...PAR...NALL!"

 

Still have no clue what it means.

 

Do you guys like Aliens comics in general?

 

 

Some of them were pretty awesome. Others, less so.

[Mirabilis]

It depends for me on the comic. I have some of the older ones from the 80's packed away. I don't like it when they get too far out there with stuff that's just weird. But I like it when they add new characteristics to the Xeno's. And thanks Prometheus! Yeah, that's sort of a fan fic I thought of some time ago. And Super that's one of my biggest grievances! Xeno's just use basic aspects of their hosts, they don't take traits like hair particles. I mean the Predalien design would be great if it's skin color was darker like every other fricken xeno! And the hair? I mean, it would be like a xeno born from a cow having cow hair, or that gorilla born xeno having gorilla hair. It's dumb.

[Shin Mefilas]

"ASH...PAR...NALL!"

Still have no clue what it means.

Do you guys like Aliens comics in general?

Some of them were pretty awesome. Others, less so.

Oh I love the comics, have the full dark horse omnibus collection plus other stuff I've collected. Some stories are better then others most are a good read in spite of their flaws. Destroying Angels is one of the best, and I say that in spite of my liking of Prometheus.

It depends for me on the comic. I have some of the older ones from the 80's packed away. I don't like it when they get too far out there with stuff that's just weird. But I like it when they add new characteristics to the Xeno's. And thanks Prometheus! Yeah, that's sort of a fan fic I thought of some time ago. And Super that's one of my biggest grievances! Xeno's just use basic aspects of their hosts, they don't take traits like hair particles. I mean the Predalien design would be great if it's skin color was darker like every other fricken xeno! And the hair? I mean, it would be like a xeno born from a cow having cow hair, or that gorilla born xeno having gorilla hair. It's dumb.[/quote.]

I look at it this way, the entire concept of the aliens hybridisation is to allow them to adapt to a planet they arrive on by combining their genetic traits with those of the creatures of the planet they infect. Their basic biology is effectively perfect but by adding the fundimantal traits from their host they are able to adapt and over come the environment of that world even more effectively. But they do this without compromising themselfs, only taking the basic evolutionary traits of the host. That's why the drones and warriors we see in the movies are able to out think and take down humans so effectively. They combine their natural focus and savagery with the humans genetic potential for advanced intelligence. This is why the are so dangerous, they take our strength and add it to their own. They don't need our hair because their physiology is superior to ours.

Edited December 24, 2015 by Prometheus Guyver

[Salkafar]

I just envisioned a Xenomorph with human hair...