Quote from: steveperry on Oct 22, 2009, 09:37:23 PM
Trying to imbue the xenomorphs with depth came from the comic and novel writers. What they have in the movies is shallow at best, and one-note.
I have to disagree with you entirely there. What the comics and novels have done is introduce the fanciful ideas of individual writers that don't really have a narrative role beyond, "hey, this would be cool". I recall one book trying to tell me that the Xenomorphs were creations of mankind, when the first movie had Alien eggs in a vessel that predated human space travel. One comic had a balls-out retarded Alien-Predator-Human hybrid that shat out facehuggers and threw them.
Another comic had an instance of a Predator, human and Alien Queen teaming up. There was an Alien King in one comic, too, although it served no purpose because it basically just died anyway. Not that it had any place within the life-cycle.
The EU works are - for the most part - ridiculously under-considered on the part of the writer. They do not add any depth to the Alien creature at all and tend to ignore what gives the Alien depth (and it is more considerable than you may think) it has. The Alien doesn't need a culture, a language or anything that makes a human being interesting. Its psychosexuality, necromorphic form and frighteningly savvy psychology give it draw.
Quote from: steveperry on Oct 22, 2009, 09:37:23 PMAll they do is eat and reproduce. I don't see any culture anywhere more complex than an ant hill or a bee hive.
There doesn't need to be a culture. Aliens are avatars of survivalism - anything that doesn't contribute to death, reproduction or survival is pointless, which is the draw of their villainy. They're unrelenting enemies because they don't suffer from human weaknesses or needs.
Quote from: steveperry on Oct 22, 2009, 09:37:23 PMA monster need not be intelligent to be scary. Nor does it need to be invulnerable. The Alien queen had enough sense to realize that an elevator did what it did.
Sure, but dumb enemies are generally either in video games or are interesting because they don't know what they're doing. Having a creature designed as a consummate icon of predatory evolution act unintelligently is just defeating the purpose before you even put pen to paper (or finger to key). Aliens being invulnerable doesn't matter - if their behaviour in EU works was consistent with the movies, then they wouldn't present themselves as targets even half the time we see them in the comics.
As SiL pointed out, the Alien Queen sat on her bottom when the first Alien at least changed location and went somewhere that wasn't exploding. And there didn't seem to be many other Aliens that wanted to stick around.
Quote from: steveperry on Oct 22, 2009, 09:37:23 PMI don't see the drones as anything but ot-nay oot-tay ight-bray. For all I know, they are telepathic and the queens order them around like pawns. I could make a good case for that, and surely enough hints have been dropped that this is possible, even likely. They don't seem to have any language, though maybe it's ultrasonic or based on pheromones.
On the other hand, the Queen made definite physical movements to ward off the Aliens in the egg chamber. In A:R, the Alien that was chosen to be a sacrifice for the sake of escape didn't seem very willing at all. It seems more likely to me that Aliens are instructed by the Queen in extremely general terms but have enough individual intelligence to solve problems and choose proper targets themselves - as is necessary for a such a survivalist.
Quote from: steveperry on Oct 22, 2009, 09:37:23 PMIt doesn't matter. They don't really exist. They are all spun from imaginary cloth, and as real as Sherlock Holmes and Han Solo. Whatever life they have comes from the puppeteers who make them dance. As one of the puppeteers, I got to pull the strings a few times. I did it like I thought it made sense.
Sure thing. I don't blame you for putting your thoughts to paper because it's what any of us would've done given the opportunity you were given. The disparity between the Alien creatures in the series of the same name and the Alien creatures within AvP media is really throwing, however. It's clear that the Alien has been downgraded to make way for the Predator and that just seems unnecessary.
Quote from: steveperry on Oct 22, 2009, 09:37:23 PMAliens, who are cross between lobsters and wasps, with acid for blood and big ole teeth and sharp tails, started out as gotcha-monsters in a movie about space truck drivers. All they needed was to look scary and be able to kill people. And that's all they did.
And all they needed to do.
Still is. Making them "intelligent" serves no purpose. If they were very bright, they'd have won more than they lost, and they didn't. Ipso facto.
Making them intelligent makes them more competent foes. Ergo, more of a threat. Ergo, they produce more narrative and dramatic tension. There's a reason why so many EU comics and novels aren't gripping - portraying the Alien as weak, they set up a sort of safety zone where the reader doesn't feel threatened by the capabilities of the Alien.
As for winning more than they lost:
They did.
In the first film, Ripley threw it out into space, but it caused the destruction of the Nostromo and killed every other crew member. In the second film, there were four survivors out of almost twenty characters and Hadley's Hope was levelled. In Alien 3, one survivor. A:R, an entire military vessel's worth of soldiers was evacuated (and many killed) over the release of seven Aliens before the vessel was smashed into Earth.
The killcount doesn't really lie.
