Script in the works for PROM Seq

Started by draken161, Feb 27, 2013, 06:59:15 AM

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Script in the works for PROM Seq (Read 63,177 times)

OmegaZilla

OmegaZilla

#270
Dallas says "alien lifeform"; he doesn't say "hm, this looks like a biomechanical suit of sorts" or anything along the lines thereof. The film doesn't show, visually or in any other way, anything that implies or even suggests that that thing is a suit. The thing is presented as a mummified/fossilized lifeform.

That's what you call a retcon -- alteration of previously estabilished facts.


And the reason the Derelict crashed is not the mystery people think has been ruined.



StrangeShape

Quote from: OmegaZilla on Mar 10, 2013, 05:54:23 PM
Dallas says "alien lifeform"; he doesn't say "hm, this looks like a biomechanical suit of sorts" or anything along the lines thereof. The film doesn't show, visually or in any other way, anything that implies or even suggests that that thing is a suit. The thing is presented as a mummified/fossilized lifeform.

That's what you call a retcon -- alteration of previously estabilished facts.


And the reason the Derelict crashed is not the mystery people think has been ruined.

It also has teeth and nostrils and every script described it as remains/skeleton of an alien lifeform (except the drafts where theyre remains of human pilots)

Valaquen

Valaquen

#272
Quote from: OmegaZilla on Mar 10, 2013, 05:54:23 PM
Dallas says "alien lifeform"; he doesn't say "hm, this looks like a biomechanical suit of sorts" or anything along the lines thereof. The film doesn't show, visually or in any other way, anything that implies or even suggests that that thing is a suit. The thing is presented as a mummified/fossilized lifeform.

That's what you call a retcon -- alteration of previously estabilished facts.

To play devil's advocate, he also says it's fossilised, which it isn't. If we look at the Alien as a living biomechanical thing, and the Jockey technology as being biological and technological, then it doesn't seem a stretch to think the 'suit' has teeth, nostrils, what-have-you.

Saying that, there's no visible corpse in that chest cavity. Dallas got close and personal and even ran his hand around it and saw nothing. How Scott missed that, I don't know.

wmmvrrvrrmm

wmmvrrvrrmm

#273
Quote from: OmegaZilla on Mar 10, 2013, 05:54:23 PM
Dallas says "alien lifeform"; he doesn't say "hm, this looks like a biomechanical suit of sorts" or anything along the lines thereof. The film doesn't show, visually or in any other way, anything that implies or even suggests that that thing is a suit. The thing is presented as a mummified/fossilized lifeform.

well it seems that Giger did design everything below the head as part of a biomechanical suit and he originally had the idea of putting a transparent dome space helmet over the head. So the head apart from I suppose the nose pipe and the ear area wasn't part of the suit . And then in Giger's hieroglyphs, the depiction  of these space beings might allow for some other things to be imagined about the nature of the skuil.

Once we get into Giger's biomechanics, how much of anything is prosthetics is another question.

OmegaZilla

OmegaZilla

#274
Quote from: StrangeShape on Mar 10, 2013, 06:05:18 PM
It also has teeth and nostrils and every script described it as remains/skeleton of an alien lifeform (except the drafts where theyre remains of human pilots)
Yup!

Quote from: Valaquen on Mar 10, 2013, 06:20:37 PM
To play devil's advocate, he also says it's fossilised, which it isn't.
Well yes. He didn't use the best of terms [this is probably a scientific goof more than anything else, IMHO], but had the film wanted to say "it's a suit", stating it or implying it, it would have. All it says, and wants to say, is "alien lifeform".

Quote from: wmmvrrvrrmm on Mar 10, 2013, 06:25:11 PM
and he originally had the idea of putting a transparent dome space helmet over the head.
I remember that too:

wmmvrrvrrmm

wmmvrrvrrmm

#275
I'm not too keen on how Prometheus attempted to close the mystery though.

Without Giger's own biomechanics in the Prometheus, it's as if the enigmatic question had been taken away

Valaquen

Valaquen

#276
Quote from: OmegaZilla on Mar 10, 2013, 06:30:20 PM
Well yes. He didn't use the best of terms [this is probably a scientific goof more than anything else, IMHO], but had the film wanted to say "it's a suit", stating it or implying it, it would have. All it says, and wants to say, is "alien lifeform".
I think it's a goof too, since Ridley et al called it a fossil too. But talking in-universe, Dallas isn't an authority.

But as you know, overall I agree with you.

SpaceMarines

Quote from: OmegaZilla on Mar 10, 2013, 05:54:23 PM
Dallas says "alien lifeform"; he doesn't say "hm, this looks like a biomechanical suit of sorts" or anything along the lines thereof. The film doesn't show, visually or in any other way, anything that implies or even suggests that that thing is a suit. The thing is presented as a mummified/fossilized lifeform.

That's what you call a retcon -- alteration of previously estabilished facts.

But there's nothing established about the SJ in Alien. Nothing at all. It's hard to retcon something which has no firm basis to begin with.

Add to the fact that Dallas doesn't have the proper training to really say anything definitive about the specimen, there's nothing really contradictory. Aesthetic differences, yes, but there's aesthetic differences between a suit of armour from the 11th century to a suit of armour now. It's just how the designs and technology of the race change over the ages.

Alien³

Alien³

#278
As Alien shows us, the Space Jockey looks very different to the Engineers seen in Prometheus. It looks like a dead organism rather than a suit. So who's to say they're the same race?

I love both the Space Jockey and the Engineers, and the differences between them intrigues me. I see no contradiction or retconning in Prometheus to our beloved Space Jockey.

The mystery of who the Space Jockey is still stands. 

OmegaZilla

OmegaZilla

#279
Quote from: SpaceMarines on Mar 10, 2013, 07:34:37 PM
But there's nothing established about the SJ in Alien. Nothing at all. It's hard to retcon something which has no firm basis to begin with.
The film estabilished that it was an alien lifeform. Dialogue. Had the film wanted to say it was a suit, it would have -- there are countless ways to do that, visually or via dialogue. It wanted to estabilish that the thing was an alien, and it did.

Quote from: SpaceMarines on Mar 10, 2013, 07:34:37 PM
Add to the fact that Dallas doesn't have the proper training to really say anything definitive about the specimen, there's nothing really contradictory. Aesthetic differences, yes, but there's aesthetic differences between a suit of armour from the 11th century to a suit of armour now. It's just how the designs and technology of the race change over the ages.
A retcon is something that alters a previously estabilished fact without breaking continuity. It's not a contradiction; it's an alteration. It's different; the latter is confined in continuity.

It's kind of smoother going if I make a practical example. Let's say I make a new Alien film, and decide to make Jones the cat a synthetic cat. Does it break continuity? No, because there is not anything against this concept actually featured in the film. Is it a retcon? Absolutely! Nothing had set up to it, nothing implied or even suggested it. Jones was of course estabilished as a simple pet cat in Alien, but my new film would retcon him into a synthetic cat.

Gazz

Gazz

#280
Quote from: OmegaZilla on Mar 10, 2013, 05:54:23 PM
Dallas says "alien lifeform"; he doesn't say "hm, this looks like a biomechanical suit of sorts" or anything along the lines thereof.

Neither do the characters in Prometheus, that is until they have it under an x-ray during later examination. And the decapitated head in Prometheus certainly looks Alien enough before being revealed to be a bio-mech suit.

Nonetheless, I agree that the Engineer is certainly removed from the original Space jockey, however the original creature is left so ambiguous and unexplored that the retcon doesn't bother me all that much at all. The Space Jockey is a skeleton. The Engineer was almost a character (whose best scenes were left on the cutting room floor  :-[). I want to see more of them and I certainly see space for the appearance Engineers more befitting of the remains of the creature we have seen in Alien, though that's simply a fan dream as of now.

Quote from: Valaquen on Mar 10, 2013, 06:20:37 PM
Quote from: OmegaZilla on Mar 10, 2013, 05:54:23 PM
Dallas says "alien lifeform"; he doesn't say "hm, this looks like a biomechanical suit of sorts" or anything along the lines thereof. The film doesn't show, visually or in any other way, anything that implies or even suggests that that thing is a suit. The thing is presented as a mummified/fossilized lifeform.

That's what you call a retcon -- alteration of previously estabilished facts.


Saying that, there's no visible corpse in that chest cavity. Dallas got close and personal and even ran his hand around it and saw nothing. How Scott missed that, I don't know.

There isn't much left of the Engineer victims Milburn & Fifield found or the remains of the first Engineer Shaw, David and Holloway find on the other side of the ampule room. In both instances only the suits remain and none of the characters make mention of a corpse beneath or within the cavities, just like Dallas. At least according to my memory.

Gash

Gash

#281
I'm not seeing the problem here. Of course ALIEN didn't suggest the Space Jockey was a suit, and it's pretty clear watching Prometheus that when Shaw and Ford first find the severed head they assume it to be just that. It's only once they get it back aboard the ship that they realise it's a helmet. That's the point, it's supposed to be a revelation.

However I'd agree that the original Jockey can still be taken as something separate, being larger and structured differently. Those differences could be evolution, or as others have suggested Engineer tech might be based on ancient original Space Jockey biotech. Either way there's no reason to see it as a retcon. In fact, you could be glad of the smoothed out more mechanical aesthetic because it creates an obvious disconnection between the two.

Valaquen

Valaquen

#282
Is the Alien Queen a retcon... ? ;)

OmegaZilla

OmegaZilla

#283
Quote from: Gazz on Mar 10, 2013, 09:04:20 PM
Neither do the characters in Prometheus, that is until they have it under an x-ray during later examination.
Indeed. Nothing would have forbidden Alien to show the 'helmet' to crumble away and reveal a face/skull, or what have you, however.

Curious to note that they aren't all that surprised to find out it's a helmet (in Prometheus)... it's as if they expected it. No 'gasp!' or whatever.

Gazz

Gazz

#284
Quote from: OmegaZilla on Mar 10, 2013, 10:12:34 PM
Quote from: Gazz on Mar 10, 2013, 09:04:20 PM
Neither do the characters in Prometheus, that is until they have it under an x-ray during later examination.

Curious to note that they aren't all that surprised to find out it's a helmet (in Prometheus)... it's as if they expected it. No 'gasp!' or whatever.

Yeah, that bothers me every time. The most reaction we get is out of Shaw but it's muted at best. Everyone else seems rather non-plussed by the discovery, as if dealing with preserved alien heads is their bread and butter (well it kinda is here, but you know what I mean  :P) .

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