Cracker -- I felt the same way. I actually did also enjoy how they treated the faith/non-faith stuff. Like you pointed out, it's like real life. There are varied individuals with varied beliefs, approaches, and responses. The spice of life...and drama and cinema. I appreciate how they ask some of those big questions, put those dialogues on the table, and leave it all open and up in the air --which we all know sci-fi is often good at. I only have some trepidation about where they might take it. But if they keep it on the same course, that'll be awesome.
I like your point about seeing it as just a big allegory, not getting too hooked up on the details.
Yeah, I have mixed feelings about their going to Olympus. I'm not sure I want that either. Did some of that spoiler stuff you posted, Scoopicman, say something about her indeed going to the Engineer home world and stealing their technology? I'm not sure I want that to happen either, that is, maybe you're right, Cracker, it might be better to go in a direction that maintains more mystery than that. Guess we'll see, God willing. But wherever they're headed, I think the ending in which, like Ripley, Elizabeth finds her badass, gutsy, survivor-self, grabs the thoroughly amoral android whom she can probably never trust, and, what the hell, gets in the scary alien spaceship and takes off into the great unknown...is kinda exhilarating...ish. Kinda like what Buzz Lightyear might do.
Is there a nerdy debate raging about the planet? Hahah, I like that. I think it likely is and ought to be the same. I think it can fit nicely, if that's what Scott and his writers want. There are differences. But I think they could be explained. The planetoid in Prometheus seems to be to some extent more hospitable than the one in Alien...in some respects. But how about this? We haven't been given many details about the star or the planetoid in either movie. Perhaps the planetoid's orbit is unstable. Perhaps the star is unstable. Perhaps the solar system is unstable. Maybe in the time between the Prometheus's visit and the Nostromo's visit, the planetoid's orbit has decayed or been altered in some way...just enough to make the bad weather more continual and unstable. Maybe its rotation has speeded up. Etc.
[Edit] As I thought about the above speculation, I realized that of course maybe none of it is necessary. Maybe the Nostromo visited the planet in a different season. Or, even more simply, maybe the weather was just non-stop dreadful when the Nostromo visited it 'cause that's just how weather sometimes is. [/Edit]
?
When the crew of the Nostromo arrives, they have no idea that there's a major alien military installation there. The wind storms are terrible and constant. The other alien spaceships are probably buried/parked in hollow mountains like the one in Prometheus, or they're otherwise and similarly hidden, stored, docked. In those conditions, it's natural for the Nostromo crew to only find the crashed/derelict alien spaceship. Elizabeth even mentions leaving a warning signal broadcasting.
So, I think it all fits rather neatly...if that's the creators' intentions.
I agree with Knightly and others that the 3D was pretty spectacular. I don’t' think you'll regret seeing it that way, Cracker.
Don -- Those mixing questions are some of the really interesting questions brought up by the whole franchise. When I asked if Elizabeth was, like, the xenomorph-aliens' mother, I was thinking of those mixing questions, but I was afraid of being too explicit, in case we're not all familiar with the birds and the bees. But since you bring it up, I'll try to be delicate.
When Elizabeth and Charlie are...together, Biblically speaking, did...um...Charlie's contribution...mix with Elizabeth's contribution? Well, she's not supposed to be able to bear children. I guess if that's because she's barren, then the answer is a no..not with her...absent contribution, anyhow. Or did he simply deposit an alien egg? Probably so, since that's apparently what face-huggers do...deposit an egg in the victim's chest.
Still, as you've pointed out, the Alien sequels seem to have suggested that the xenomorph parasites borrow (somehow) some of its genetics from its host. The alien in Alien III grows within a dog and seems to consequently come out with some characteristics of a dog, or a quadruped. In the extended version, a restored cut scene has it victimizing a cow, I guess. But I can't say it seemed to be bovine-like when it came out. =P
And of course in Alien IV, the scientists are apparently but unintentionally mixing human and alien DNA. They're not interested in doing so. Well, I guess it's already mixed. They want to unmix it. What they really want is to extract the alien DNA from Ripley as far as possible. The Ripely hybrids which they create from that process seem to be, for them, merely collateral...a bit of a nuisance. Still, there it is --that thread that seems to have been running throughout the series. Ridley has distanced himself from the Alien sequels all these years, but perhaps his writers aren't quite following suit. They're not writing in a vacuum. Or, perhaps, they all, all of the storytellers that have been involved in the series, both the old and the new franchises, have simply and naturally been drawn to exploring the same or similar territory. And, I'm unfamiliar with them, but maybe the spin-off comic books and graphic novels (including the Terminator crossing-over stuff) have covered every corner of this territory? But then, those aren't the films.
I like your point about seeing it as just a big allegory, not getting too hooked up on the details.
Yeah, I have mixed feelings about their going to Olympus. I'm not sure I want that either. Did some of that spoiler stuff you posted, Scoopicman, say something about her indeed going to the Engineer home world and stealing their technology? I'm not sure I want that to happen either, that is, maybe you're right, Cracker, it might be better to go in a direction that maintains more mystery than that. Guess we'll see, God willing. But wherever they're headed, I think the ending in which, like Ripley, Elizabeth finds her badass, gutsy, survivor-self, grabs the thoroughly amoral android whom she can probably never trust, and, what the hell, gets in the scary alien spaceship and takes off into the great unknown...is kinda exhilarating...ish. Kinda like what Buzz Lightyear might do.
Is there a nerdy debate raging about the planet? Hahah, I like that. I think it likely is and ought to be the same. I think it can fit nicely, if that's what Scott and his writers want. There are differences. But I think they could be explained. The planetoid in Prometheus seems to be to some extent more hospitable than the one in Alien...in some respects. But how about this? We haven't been given many details about the star or the planetoid in either movie. Perhaps the planetoid's orbit is unstable. Perhaps the star is unstable. Perhaps the solar system is unstable. Maybe in the time between the Prometheus's visit and the Nostromo's visit, the planetoid's orbit has decayed or been altered in some way...just enough to make the bad weather more continual and unstable. Maybe its rotation has speeded up. Etc.
[Edit] As I thought about the above speculation, I realized that of course maybe none of it is necessary. Maybe the Nostromo visited the planet in a different season. Or, even more simply, maybe the weather was just non-stop dreadful when the Nostromo visited it 'cause that's just how weather sometimes is. [/Edit]
?
When the crew of the Nostromo arrives, they have no idea that there's a major alien military installation there. The wind storms are terrible and constant. The other alien spaceships are probably buried/parked in hollow mountains like the one in Prometheus, or they're otherwise and similarly hidden, stored, docked. In those conditions, it's natural for the Nostromo crew to only find the crashed/derelict alien spaceship. Elizabeth even mentions leaving a warning signal broadcasting.
So, I think it all fits rather neatly...if that's the creators' intentions.
I agree with Knightly and others that the 3D was pretty spectacular. I don’t' think you'll regret seeing it that way, Cracker.
Don -- Those mixing questions are some of the really interesting questions brought up by the whole franchise. When I asked if Elizabeth was, like, the xenomorph-aliens' mother, I was thinking of those mixing questions, but I was afraid of being too explicit, in case we're not all familiar with the birds and the bees. But since you bring it up, I'll try to be delicate.
When Elizabeth and Charlie are...together, Biblically speaking, did...um...Charlie's contribution...mix with Elizabeth's contribution? Well, she's not supposed to be able to bear children. I guess if that's because she's barren, then the answer is a no..not with her...absent contribution, anyhow. Or did he simply deposit an alien egg? Probably so, since that's apparently what face-huggers do...deposit an egg in the victim's chest.
Still, as you've pointed out, the Alien sequels seem to have suggested that the xenomorph parasites borrow (somehow) some of its genetics from its host. The alien in Alien III grows within a dog and seems to consequently come out with some characteristics of a dog, or a quadruped. In the extended version, a restored cut scene has it victimizing a cow, I guess. But I can't say it seemed to be bovine-like when it came out. =P
And of course in Alien IV, the scientists are apparently but unintentionally mixing human and alien DNA. They're not interested in doing so. Well, I guess it's already mixed. They want to unmix it. What they really want is to extract the alien DNA from Ripley as far as possible. The Ripely hybrids which they create from that process seem to be, for them, merely collateral...a bit of a nuisance. Still, there it is --that thread that seems to have been running throughout the series. Ridley has distanced himself from the Alien sequels all these years, but perhaps his writers aren't quite following suit. They're not writing in a vacuum. Or, perhaps, they all, all of the storytellers that have been involved in the series, both the old and the new franchises, have simply and naturally been drawn to exploring the same or similar territory. And, I'm unfamiliar with them, but maybe the spin-off comic books and graphic novels (including the Terminator crossing-over stuff) have covered every corner of this territory? But then, those aren't the films.
Interesting nerdy sci-fi speculative fun!
Scoopicman, have you seen it yet?
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I'm going today.
