News of an Alien: Isolation animated series leaked last week, with an official trailer release and announcement yesterday. As promised, the seven episode Alien: Isolation Digital Series is now available to binge via IGN!
Fifteen years after her mother disappeared on the deep space towing ship Nostromo, Amanda Ripley travels to a remote space station that may hold clues to her mother’s fate. But disaster strikes as she arrives at her destination.
The Digital Series marks the end of Fox’s #ReadPlayWatch campaign but Amanda Ripley’s adventures are continuing in Dark Horse Comics’ Aliens: Resistance. The series is currently due to conclude with its fourth issue on the 24th of April, just before Alien Day. Amazon (UK/US) currently has the collected edition available for pre-order with release on the 20th of August.
What did you think of the Alien: Isolation Digital Series? Sound off in the comments section below!
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I was really surprised when realised that he was android at moment when Waits was sending player to trap Stompy. I mean, it was not clearly pointed till that.
I twigged he was a synthetic from that line at the start, and I kept waiting for him to turn out as the villain, especially when he battered that Joe to death. Was pleasantly surprised when they didn't go down that route.
One of the things I loved about Isolation was how much it didn't focus on Samuels being a 'droid. I wasn't truly sure until later on.
The definition of in media res is starting somewhere in the middle of the story before flashing back to the events leading up to it.
If it started with Samuels and Ripley meeting, that's the start of the story, so by definition it's not in media res.
Yeah, but quite late on.
In the game it's obvious from his comment about "not needing as much sleep" (or something along those lines) as soon as you wake up on the Torrens. The series omitted that conversation entirely.
That's nice to hear.
Impatience on our part. "Where's the #Watch component?!" Then the leak happened, set some expectations that weren't accurate to what they were actually doing.
For what it's worth, Fox actually considers our community to be the most honest and genuine - but more importantly to me, civil - of the Alien/Predator groups out there. Even in our criticism and dislike of this series. So for that, I am proud of everyone who takes part in this community. That's exactly the kind of environment I'm trying to foster with my draconian laws.
During my first watch through all I could focus on was "what's missing" and that kind of ruined it for me as it made everything feel rushed and choppy. On my second watch through I tried to only focus on the narrative given and "forget" about the full experience, this ultimately gave me an appreciation for this adaptation and made it more enjoyable.
Of course the animation could've and should've been more polished and that unfortunately detracts from the overall presentation. I'm secretly hoping that this project is an indication that the future of Alien can include a live action 7-12 episode series. Looking forward to the novelization coming out in July.
Ya Waits says he's an android so it'd be easier for him to access Apollo.
If it was extended to give it a bit more pacing, and had more care and attention paid to the new animations, it could've been really good.
To each their own, but I disagree that "in media res" constitutes being dropped into a room with two people talking and no context. If we began the story when Ripley awakens aboard the Torrens, that would've been better than the opening scene we have now.
And I'm basically saying they could've dropped some hint of where Amanda was, what she was doing, and the fact that Samuels is an android. I don't find that we gain anything as an audience by those details being withheld.
The "rawness" of it comes off to me as unfinished.
Hell yeah. This is all I want to see of the new footage.
When you think about it, Amanda's been through a lot of trauma just counting Sevastopol and this epilogue. And if we take what's going to happen to her in Resistance and Rescue, she might be the greatest survivor in the Alien universe yet.
Missing the point.
The point isn't that
you couldn't but you shouldn't.
As for it being yanked... Who knows? It's mainly content from the video game, and there are enough clips on YouTube of the A:I cutscenes. If you don't mention 'The Digital Series' you might get away with it.
Yes, the new game engine footage reminds me a lot of iClone, an increasingly popular real-time game engine package that Hollywood has taken to as a preproduction tool for scene planning (basically a quick way of creating an animated storyboard with 3D assets).
I also seem to recall that Creative Assembly created their own game engine for Isolation, rather than use UE or Unity (the traditional standards). That being the case, it could be that there was something non-standard about the assets that made them difficult to import/export/translate, and therefore difficult to repurpose for close-up lipsync animation. (The head models were in dire need of many, many more shape targets to create even a passing semblance of lipsync phonemes.)
I can only assume they didn't want to work with CA's hi-rez assets that were used for the game's cinematic cut scenes, because their workflow was built around the expediency of a real-time game engine.
TC
Lot of effort. I'm just starting with stitching everything together and putting Sigourney's voice back. I also re-inserted the beacon shutdown.
Rendering now. I'll put it on YouTube soon, but I assume it'll get yanked.
Look another way: Let's say it's 1979 and we went to the theater to watch Alien. And the viewing was fine until we got to the climax of the movie and the projector breaks. So Ripley is running through the ship, the alien is lurking around every corner, and somewhere in there, the screen fills with that reddish-brown melting film color before going white. And we're sitting there for 20 minutes while they get it going again. Or say the film has been in the theater for a while and the reels are all full of scratches. The picture quality is naff the whole way through. None of that is how Ridley Scott intended for us to watch the movie. But that happened a lot.
Then people watched on TV, watched VHS tapes, watched DVDs, and on 'til this summer when we can ideally watch the 4k version on a large 4K TV with surround sound in our living room (assuming we buy all that). Or on our phones.
Spoiler
Nice!
You'd think. Accept very great artists have made the point over and over again that speed matters for affect. Case in point: John Baldesaari's famous work titled "I will not make anymore boring art."
https://vimeo.com/25452374
Im sure you will fast forward to the 11:00 minute mark to not have to sit through the wait to find out what happens at the 11 minute mark. Or perhaps you will just choose not to watch because you find the entire exercise to be boring. Needless to say as this work proves the experience of sitting through the boredom commands you to feel far more frustration and humor at the 11:00 min mark than someone possibly could experience by rushing to "the point." You will not have experienced the hope that feeling of wanting it to be over necessary to achieve the same feeling in the audience of those who waited it out. The point is: to make the audience experience things they cannot without the time taken to build up to them ( this is true in life as well millenials ). Its one very important part of suspense. You cant achieve it if youre rushing through things. This, I would argue, is also why Alien and Aliens are the only scary Alien films because theyre the only ones allowed to not show you the creature and build up tension. The exceptions prove the rule.
https://youtu.be/30W5qfm84BI
You can just call me Oasis, I mainly add the last name on websites so people will be able to find my articles and artistic work on Google instead of a bunch of landscapes, sodas and boyzbands.
https://oranginasuntoryfrance.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Capture-d%E2%80%99e%CC%81cran-2018-06-01-a%CC%80-16.36.45-1024x443.png
https://farm1.staticflickr.com/907/42254580391_421321206a_b.jpg
https://ds1.static.rtbf.be/image/media/object/default/16x9/1248x702/4/9/7/497d6254fa2289aca9f58854642b79f1.jpg
He's correct and I imagine the "1.5x" philosophy's indistinguishable.
Crazy. This is what happens when generations of people think they watched a movie on a f**king telephone. - to quote David Lynch - get real!
I dont mean to attack anyone really, just to point out that there needs to be some assessment as to what platform somehing is meant to be seen on. Filmmakers make films to be seen in the theatre, but youtubers donmake movies to be seen across platforms. This is an interesting kind of narrative expression. Its a computer generated version of a cartoon made to be presented episodically like a vlog, made from cut scenes which are elaborating on story elements of a video game which is trying to recreate the world created by a specific sequel of a film franchise, and its narrative continues in the form of graphic comics. It should be noted hat all roads lead back to the immersion / transportation created by the original film. Film is still the kickstarter - the model the game tries to achieve, here. And all modeling and judgement therefore is in how it relates to a film, which is meant to be experienced a certain way (in a theatre) as opposed to another, and inferior way. Everyone should see Alien in a theatre IMO. Its easy to see why someone would say that is the ideal setting even if you fell in live woth it otherwise. Likewise, you shouod consider tbat you are missing something watching anything at an accelerated speed.
That said I loved the series, could see it was rushed but think the story should be a film but it would likely be very expenisive.
About the ending, I feel you. It's nice to have some kind of conclusion, yes, and it is actually superior to the weird experimental cut that "concludes" the game.
But about the beginning... Well, the series (and the game for that matter) could have just started with the Samuels/Amanda dialogue. It's a nice dialogue, in media res, quick to get to the point, with great industrial atmosphere, nothing is missing from this beginning.
It's kinda raw, but I like it raw.
@Voodoo Magic: Obviously, at the movie theater, I watch at normal speed. I don't watch TV. When I watch with the family, normal speed. Watching alone? Faster, please. The mind can process speech that's faster than normal cadence. 1.5x is the sweet spot, I think. 2x is usually unintelligible, unless it's a Lynda class. Some of those instructors speak very slowly. I've been watching movies faster for years. If I watch the movie in less time, that frees me to watch something else or go back for highlights. I don't feel like I've missed anything. Sometimes, I do like to watch more than once. And when I'm watching, I want to watch as much as I can stuff into the time. I prefer subtitles. I have the backup if I miss something. But I like subtitles at normal speed, too. That's fun with foreign movies, where the subtitles are a bit different from the dubbed speech. Thanks for asking
https://media.giphy.com/media/l2YWqU7ev0l5nfYTC/giphy.gif
Spoiler
I thought it was a much better way to frame the narrative than merely opening with the ending dialogue from Alien as a voiceover to clumsily transition us into the story, and literally just cutting the thing off to end it. I preferred both the beginning and ending of The Digital Series to what we get in the game.
But a lot of it doesn't make sense and I'm skeptical that someone unfamiliar with the game's story is going to fully understand what's happening here.
Spoiler
Now that it's been out for a day, I'm wondering if the low-poly, poorly-animated-mouth scenes were originally just animatics, and not intended to be the final product? But then the studio was like, "c'mon, we have to release this," and they had to just run with the animatics instead of fully animating them.
I'm not sure why they were in such a rush to get this up online. Alien Day would've made a lot more sense, and they could've had more time to polish it.
I get that it was free, but it is still subject to criticism. Venom is unnecessary though.
But that might not be the case with XenoHunter99. Let's be nice because I'm genuinely interested in what XH has to say. No judgments!
*edited generally to genuinely - need coffee
This is really fascinating. I've never heard of this before. You said you "watch most everything at 1.5x or faster." Does this include films and television series?
At least your rage made me laugh.
I'm so disappointed and depressed by The Digital Series that I really needed that kind of laugh. Thank you very much.