Alien: Harvest - Alien: 40th Anniversary Short Films

Started by Corporal Hicks, Apr 23, 2019, 07:20:15 PM

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Alien: Harvest - Alien: 40th Anniversary Short Films (Read 20,591 times)

Highland

I thought this was pretty good actually. The droid got me on this one unlike the others. For 10 minutes I thought it was pretty well rounded , another solid 7 for me. It's a 10 minute short guys...

Huggs

That ending is just delicious.

SiL

Their goal was to try to capture the feel of the original Alien, and out of all them, this is the only one that didn't get anywhere close to the mark. As disappointing as Containment's lack of monster or Night Shift's bungled ending are, they at least felt like attempts to make an Alien movie. Imagine if Alien had been made with this style -- we wouldn't be talking about it 40 years later :D

I'm not seeing what's great about the ending. It doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.

Huggs

Quote from: SiL on Apr 27, 2019, 05:31:17 AM
Their goal was to try to capture the feel of the original Alien, and out of all them, this is the only one that didn't get anywhere close to the mark. As disappointing as Containment's lack of monster or Night Shift's bungled ending are, they at least felt like attempts to make an Alien movie. Imagine if Alien had been made with this style -- we wouldn't be talking about it 40 years later :D

Alone was the farthest thing we got from the original, like covenant meets driving miss daisy.

Night shift tried to be too much like aliens with its colony and ending that implied everyone getting overrun.

Specimen had a synthetic dog and a face hugger loose in the garden.

At least Harvest was a group of presumably human survivors getting towards a shuttle, with a unknown hostile android in the mix and and mature alien running amuck. Sounds pretty darn closer to the original upon close inspection.

SiL

Quote from: Huggs on Apr 27, 2019, 05:36:27 AM
Alone was the farthest thing we got from the original, like covenant meets driving miss daisy.
Stylistically, no. Story, yes. It kept the creepy haunted house vibe, it kept the music and aesthetic, it kept the working class environment and synthetics. It took familiar concepts and presented them in a unique way.

QuoteAt least Harvest was a group of presumably human survivors getting towards a shuttle, with a unknown hostile android in the mix and and mature alien running amuck. Sounds pretty darn closer to the original upon close inspection.
In the story, yes. In the style, no. The ending is straight out of Covenant.

Huggs

Quote from: SiL on Apr 27, 2019, 05:40:34 AM
Quote from: Huggs on Apr 27, 2019, 05:36:27 AM
Alone was the farthest thing we got from the original, like covenant meets driving miss daisy.
Stylistically, no. Story, yes. It kept the creepy haunted house vibe, it kept the music and aesthetic, it kept the working class environment and synthetics. It took familiar concepts and presented them in a unique way.

QuoteAt least Harvest was a group of presumably human survivors getting towards a shuttle, with a unknown hostile android in the mix and and mature alien running amuck. Sounds pretty darn closer to the original upon close inspection.
In the story, yes. In the style, no. The ending is straight out of Covenant.

There was no threat to the character in Alone.

Harvest feels nothing like covenant. Alone is just covenant 2.0, with the added bonus of cute little pet facehuggers. It's not originality, it's laziness trying to disguise itself as originality. Much easier to film than chase scenes and aliens killing people. Sub-par effort.

Harvest is hardly the first alien story with a dirty android.

Unlike Covenant, the Alien won here, not the android.

The company will be overrun, and the Android is dead.

SiL

Quote from: Huggs on Apr 27, 2019, 05:51:47 AM
There was no threat to the character in Alone.
That's true, it's not much of a horror. But I was much more invested in that story than anyone in Harvest.

QuoteHarvest feels nothing like covenant.
Again, feels? No. But it's still the same "Oh you thought you were with someone safe but now they've trapped you on a ship full of Aliens" ending.

QuoteAlone is just covenant 2.0, with the added bonus of cute little pet facehuggers.
Covenant isn't about a lonely android making a friend last I checked, it was about a psychopathic robot obsessed with creation and the destruction of his creators making a biological weapon to destroy things. The only similarity is an affinity between the android and alien monsters -- and even then Alone leaves the result ambiguous.

QuoteIt's not originality, it's laziness trying to disguise itself as originality. Much easier to film than chase scenes and aliens killing people.
Considering how poorly Harvest handled both those things I'd rather they stick to their limits and come up with an interesting story, than try to overstretch and create confused, terribly filmed and edited "action" sequences.

There's not an original thought in Harvest either -- it has every lazy trope people complained about the last few entries, but replaced any kind of Alien style with something trying much too hard to be slick and early 2000s.

The Old One

The Old One

#52
SiL's correct.

HuDaFuK

Quote from: SiL on Apr 27, 2019, 05:31:17 AMI'm not seeing what's great about the ending. It doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.

It didn't. I appreciated it because it was darkly hilarious.

Still Collating...

I love how they paired up this one and Alone. Both are completely opposite of each other. Harvest has the best visual execution (until the end that is) and by far the weakest story, while Alone has the most interesting story, but a very poor execution, IMO.

This one doesn't have bad camerawork like Alone does, but has the worst choppy action editing by far. The story was uninspired, not horrible, but meh. Some of the character decisions were weird.
The facehugger and egg are the worst things I have ever seen. Unforgivably bad. So sad, since it ruined the previous great visuals.
The final "Muahaha, I was the real android bad guy all a long" stare was pure cheese.

The visuals in Harvest are the best for the most part. The alien looked so much better than I thought it was going to. Not perfect, but really good. The lighting, costume design and space scenes were brilliant. It's "look" didn't feel cheap at all, until the bloody hugger/egg... I'm a very visual type of guy, so I appreciated this effort a lot. The final scene ruined the consistency.
The pregnant lady's acting was very nice, liked her.
Liked the idea of a horrific ending, but the execution failed to be dark and serious. Instead, it as dark and ridiculous.

Overall, these shorts have been fantastic. I did not expect them to be as good as they were. This was a great idea by Fox. I'm so glad we got these additions to the Alien universe. Some were better than others, but all were a decent effort. I'm proud to be a part of such a dedicated fanbase. Considering these were fan projects with a modest budget, all of this is amazing.
Not bad for a human...

My ranking goes like this:

Ore - 9.8/10
Specimen - 9.7/10
Alone - 7/10
Harvest - 6.9/10
Containment - 5.2/10
Night Shift - 5/10
   

Glaive

Style over substance...not a fan...

The Old One

The Old One

#56
Completely agree.

Huggs

Huggs

#57
Only so much substance you can cram into a short about an ongoing event.

This utilized the mature alien well.

The Old One

The Old One

#58
I disagree.

TC

Quote from: SiL on Apr 27, 2019, 05:31:17 AM
Their goal was to try to capture the feel of the original Alien, and out of all them, this is the only one that didn't get anywhere close to the mark.
...

Surely Alone better fits what you are describing. Alone didn't even feel like a horror until Paxton shows up.

Maybe you could describe Alone as a "perversity of mind" horror, rather than a "tension/thriller" horror.

TC

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