Is The Beast Cooked? (And Alien and Predator Under The House That Mickey Built) - AvPGalaxy Podcast #58

[tleilaxu]

The only other director I'd trust is David Cronenberg.

[426Buddy]

Good podcast, i mostly agree. I enjoyed covenant but with Scott saying the beast is cooked again it is upsetting. I want to see one more film to end the prequels but i dont think Ridley should be directing anymore.

On another note i have to disagree with Ridgetop regarding Harbinger Down. That movie was aweful in every department. I didnt see any merit in the effects or the direction in that film and i usually enjoy a lot of ADI's work.

[Darkness]

It was okay from what I remember but very direct to dvd quality. I wouldn't want ADI as directors. Sure they're fans but so was the Strauses with very little experience in the field.

[skhellter]

On another note i have to disagree with Ridgetop regarding Harbinger Down. That movie was awful in every department. I didnt see any merit in the effects or the direction in that film and i usually enjoy a lot of ADI's work.

Straight up unintenionally funny.

[Nostromo]

Wow...great episode..really agree with everything..if I could rant...that's exactly what I'd say. Thanks guys. Xenomorphine hit a home run in tgis one great job.

[Dabaus]

No I don't believe the beast is cooked but a good alien movie is more than a cast of expendable humans sharing screen time with a big black steel dragon monster.
     I think that fox and to a lesser extent Ridley have absolutely no idea why fans love the franchise. The alien engineers script would have alleviated almost all of the backlash from Prometheus and rumors about what Prometheus 2 were supposed to have originally been before it became covenant show to me that fox a son a studio is responsible for the demise of this franchise. I'm all for disny buying fox, you couldnt do worse than we are currently. David the creator of the alien, I refuse to accept that.

[Dabaus]

Double posting here, sorry if it's not allowed, my first post was more of see if this works thing...

The problem with the 2 prequel films, from what I've gathered, isn't so much who the director is but more about what mood fox producers and executives are in. Sure Ridley has some batshit ideas but why is it that in interviews he says all the right things about the lore but then come movie time none of it's there? Did he just forget or did someone force his hand? I know lindlelof gets a lot of flak for Prometheus turning out the way it did but it was the fox CEO, not Ridley, from my understanding, that took the xenomorphs from the movie. I blame lindelof and Ridley for making it intentionally vague on plot though.
      What I'm getting at is that if fox is going to override  a well respected director like Ridley  what makes you think they wouldn't reign over a say blomkamp film with an iron fist? Maybe I'm putting too much blame on fox producers here and Ridley does share responsibility for where we currently are but no the beast is not cooked.
      Fox producers are cooked, Ridleys vision Ian cooked,'fans faith in fox and Ridley to salvage this mess are cooked. But no the beast isn't cooked.

[skhellter]

The alien engineers script would ha

stop right there.

that script was straight trash, son.

[Dabaus]

@skhellter: I admit the alien engineers had its problems, mainly the unnecessary inclusion of the traditional xenomorph shoe horned in, but why do you think it's "trash"? Do you like the current direction the franchise is going?

@skhellter: I admit the alien engineers had its problems, mainly the unnecessary inclusion of the traditional xenomorph shoe horned in, but why do you think it's "trash"? Do you like the current direction the franchise is going?

[tleilaxu]

The alien engineers script would ha

stop right there.

that script was straight trash, son.

Isn't it pretty similar to Prometheus' script?

[Dabaus]

I had a thought today. Is it possible Ridley purposely undermined the xenomorph in this film to spite the studio for forcing him to change direction and so he can say "haha I was right."? I know that's going out on a very long limb. Idk just a thought.

[kant]

I believe this franchise is cursed. No matter what they do, it turns to shit. Could you ever  imagine that the director of the first movie would talk like that?? It's like a hater of a franchise is hired to make a movie for it.


Seriously, this guy could die before the next movie is finished and I wouldn't be sad anymore.

[Still Collating...]

I had a thought today. Is it possible Ridley purposely undermined the xenomorph in this film to spite the studio for forcing him to change direction and so he can say "haha I was right."? I know that's going out on a very long limb. Idk just a thought.

I get where you're coming from. Always possible but I doubt it, mainly because as Ridley said himself, he is first a businessman, so I can't imagine him doing anything on purpose to hurt his film and chances of maximum profit. As said many times before, Alien was great because it was a team effort of talented people working together, but now nobody questions Ridley on his creative decisions.
On the other hand, we have Fox who doesn't understand the reasons why a film doesn't perform that well, so they meddle and change a movies direction for all the wrong reasons.
What mostly hurts the weaker movies in the franchise is the script. We need good writers who care about the details. If this doesn't change, we get giant logic problems like: How does a 5 second facehug and a fully developed chestburster predate the modern alien without making the Big Chap look inferior? (It's possible to come up with a convoluted solution, but it gets a bit ridiculous when fans jump through hoops to make things fit while the movie gives no hint to an answer.)

[skhellter]

Ridley "undermined" the xenomorph?


With David as its creator now we have a character
with the active motivation
to spread these creatures throughout the universe..
as far as he can.
They are no longer just parasites, given David's fixation with sexual reproduction in this film
he pretty much created the xeno's to "f**k" mankind.
I give it a Big Thumbs up due to how f**ked up that is.

As far as we know, David might still be alive in a post Alien Resurrection universe)

They are most definitely not just in LV426 anymore... like the 4 Ripley films suggested.

And with the Engineers and Neomorphs filmmakers can now literally point at any far away star in the galaxy,
set an Alien movie there and still have cool creatures and experiments with an infinite variety of shapes...

Prometheus was a bad movie but Covenant was decent and i dug the sadism of David's character.


But i guess the prototype chestburster had arms and legs so everything's ruined now. 

[Scorpio]

They are no longer just parasites, given David's fixation with sexual reproduction in this film
he pretty much created the xeno's to "f**k" mankind.
I give it a Big Thumbs up due to how f**ked up that is.

Agreed.  Much better origin than random space bug.  It also fits with the themes of Alien.  Androids are a big part of the Alien mythos, it's not just about humans vs space bugs.