Quote from: Blacklabel on Aug 03, 2012, 10:14:26 AM
eh The Deacon > all the fleshy ADI designs.
When ADI are given the right direction, they can do amazing work. Some of their very best stuff never even made it to the screen: The Superfacehugger ('
Alien 3') and unused Green Goblin ('
Spiderman') are cases in point.
Quote from: Blacklabel on Aug 03, 2012, 11:55:30 AM
if Jeunet, Anderson or the Strause brothers wanted more biomechanical elements in the movie... they would surely have asked specifically for that..
alas.. they didnt seem to care.
The brothers had some odd ideas about biomechanical aesthetics, if what they espoused in interviews and posted in this forum are anything to go by. While Jeunet deliberately wanted a fleshy look.
Anderson, though, was unfortunately stuck with existing props to hand. From what I remember, they didn't have the money to make up lots of new Alien suits and that meant they had to work with the ones from '
Alien Resurrection'.
Quote from: Space Sweeper on Aug 03, 2012, 07:20:48 PM
What's being referred to is that the creature just isn't scary anymore. It's been so over-played and put out in the open that nobody finds it frightening or its presence to feel 'alien' anymore.
That's more to do with it being handled badly on screen, ever since after 1986. There are some parts of '
Alien 3' and '
Alien Versus Predator' where you can see glimmers of inspiration, but... The things never come close to the menace they conveyed in the first two films (not helped terribly much by the relatively unconvincing special effects) - as proven by how people can watch those, to this very day and
still be chilled for the first time. Something I tested with a friend of mine, just recently, who had never seen any of them and experienced that very result.
Ironically, the most Alien-like portrayal in '
Alien Resurrection' didn't even come from anyone wearing the costumes. It was Sigourney Weaver's primal, instinctive turn as the part-Alien Ripley clone.
Quote from: Blacklabel on Aug 03, 2012, 10:26:02 PM
i think SIL said it best.. paraphrased:
Quoteit's a huge, acid bleeding, freudian monstruosity.. if you cant make it scary, you are a shit filmmaker.
Hah, yes!
Essentially, what made the original two films so effective in their portrayal of the creatures are timeless themes which will never be exhausted. They just need to be executed right.
Same goes for other iconic examples, like Terminators and Daleks. Both of which exist in properties which have become rife with parody, but can
easily return to their original status of dread and foreboding if the right people are involved. These things remain classics for a reason and that reason is usually that they have yet to be bettered.
Quote from: Darth Vile on Aug 03, 2012, 10:53:43 PM
And if the creature has been used in virtually every scenario, it's time to do something new.
By the same token, simply putting a new creature design on screen will encounter
precisely the same problems. That's not how you remedy a situation like that. You find ways to make the old stuff more
effective and, in the case of this series, more disturbing. Think up new situational ideas. You don't solve it by taking away your star and deciding a giant starfish would somehow make it refreshing.