ALIEN RESURRECTION Newborn Design Concepts 20th Anniversary BTS

Started by Corporal Hicks, Nov 27, 2017, 09:57:36 AM

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ALIEN RESURRECTION Newborn Design Concepts 20th Anniversary BTS (Read 2,549 times)

Scorpio

You mean like that random dialogue setup in Aliens "maybe it's like an ant hive"?

Gediman:  If these things came from human dna, then maybe one can grow a human reproductive system and can give birth.  To a New... born [emphasis added].
Wren:  These things ain't got wombs, Gediman.

:P

Corporal Hicks

Quote from: Omegamorph on Dec 04, 2017, 06:11:02 AM
The real problem with the newborn lies in how it is positioned structurally, narratively in the film. It appears at the end with no previous set-up. You may interpret the Ripley clones as a sort of foreshadowing of where the finale goes, but there's never a clear visual or dialogue-based set-up that specifically points to the newborn.

SM previously mentioned an idea that I always liked the sounds of - that the characters have come across the Queen, already dead.

OmegaZilla

OmegaZilla

#17
Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Dec 04, 2017, 09:23:36 AM
SM previously mentioned an idea that I always liked the sounds of - that the characters have come across the Queen, already dead.
That would deprive the film of the birth scene -- a wonderfully morbid sequence -- however we could have got quick glimpses of the Queen's growing "womb-sac" or something akin, sort of like a visual time bomb. There were plenty of ways to do it

OpenMaw

There was dialogue in the script that actually pretty much told us things were going wrong with the queen, or rather, that Gediman pretty much knew things were going to go wrong after a certain amount of time. He makes mention of the "second cycle"

Quote from: Kane's other son on Dec 01, 2017, 03:39:34 PM
Alien Resurrection is a first draft. There's a very interesting subtext about those outside the norm looking for their place in the world: Call, Ripley 8, the newborn.

Unfortunately it is never coherently developed and is buried under an avalanche of slapstick, weird tone shifts and half-baked 90s action cliches.

The Newborn reflects the above confusion. They were going for a tragic character that doesn't fit anywhere. They ended up with a goofy behemoth that could barely move.

That depends on who "they" is because Whedon very clearly was not going for a tragic character in his script. The Newborn was a monster, through and through. It was supposed to be something even worse than the queen because it was the byproduct of the genetic mix, just like Ripley. It was stronger, faster, and more resilient than the adult aliens, and likely even the queen itself. There was even some lip service to the idea that it could breed in some fashion.

Kane's other son

Whedon's version of the newborn was nonsensical: A bone white spider alien that sucked blood. It had no narrative justification and was there just to up the ante and give us a new monster. Just a big bad that looked cool.

OmegaZilla

Quote from: Scorpio on Dec 04, 2017, 09:15:19 AM
You mean like that random dialogue setup in Aliens "maybe it's like an ant hive"?
Aliens carefully sets up the queen with another dialogue sequence that is well implemented into the story -- when Ripley asks what lays the eggs. The movie poses the question in the beginning of the second act and answers it later in the third.

Scorpio

Quote from: Omegamorph on Dec 04, 2017, 03:44:14 PM
Quote from: Scorpio on Dec 04, 2017, 09:15:19 AM
You mean like that random dialogue setup in Aliens "maybe it's like an ant hive"?
Aliens carefully sets up the queen with another dialogue sequence that is well implemented into the story -- when Ripley asks what lays the eggs. The movie poses the question in the beginning of the second act and answers it later in the third.

I don't mind that but the rest of the discussion is cheesy when they compare them to ants and bees.  So they're mutated bugs now.

OpenMaw

Quote from: Kane's other son on Dec 04, 2017, 03:08:58 PM
Whedon's version of the newborn was nonsensical: A bone white spider alien that sucked blood. It had no narrative justification and was there just to up the ante and give us a new monster. Just a big bad that looked cool.

It did have narrative justification thanks to dialogue earlier in the script. Gediman makes remarks about the queen's next breeding cycle being different. So it's setup. Which is more than can be said for the final film where the newborn is setup and introduced in the same scene with no setup prior.

Quote from: Scorpio on Dec 05, 2017, 09:42:07 PM
I don't mind that but the rest of the discussion is cheesy when they compare them to ants and bees.  So they're mutated bugs now.

The scene actually does the exact opposite.

"These things ain't ants, stupido!"

The comparison is a thin one.

Every time they try to box the alien into a definition in the first two films, the alien subverts belief.

"What do you mean they cut the power. How could they cut the power man, they're animals!"

Think they're going to get off the planet, a lone warrior acts like a sapper and traps them. They think they have the colony secured and barricaded, the aliens find a way in. Ripley thinks she's gotten away from the queen, it takes the elevator up.


I would point out that, although later media made it clear, it was never made clear in the first film that fire was going to do anything to the Alien at all. Nothing in the film suggests that it does either. Doesn't save or help Dallas one bit in the vent.

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