Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Apr 29, 2021, 11:52:03 AM
I don't really see the Iron Man nano-tech armor as being magic. That's science in the same vein as the T-1000's abilities in Terminator 2: Judgement Day.
I guess so. But what makes the "science" in
T2 acceptable is the careful explanation of the limits governing the T1000's morphing abilities (no complex parts like a gun or a bomb, just stabbing and cutting weapons). Explaining the limits of your futuristic tech is an important part of science fiction storytelling, and Cameron read enough sci-fi as a kid to know the rules.
Re: the pathogen. One of the things that captured my attention with
Alien '79 is how "down-to-earth" the setting is (forgive the contradiction of terms). Truck drivers in space, blue collar workers, steam pipes and relief valves, everyone works in their shirt sleeves etc. This was all very relatable to us in the late 20th Century. The marines fire projectile weapons, not laser guns; there's no "transporter" for teleporting you down to the planet, no "replicator" for magicking up any food you desire. The story 'verse of
Alien (and
Aliens) is not very far from our own. Everything is grounded in a real-world sensibility. I think this was an integral part of the tonal texture of the story world that O'Bannon wrote.
And the same thing applied to the creature itself. There's a quote somewhere in which he says the alien was not a monster gifted with supernatural abilities. Rather, he intended a believable, alien animal that had a logical biology with a decipherable life cycle. Not some creature that if you dismembered it and chucked off your spaceship at 10,000 feet, that its limbs would hit the ground and magically reconstitute itself.
I prefer the O'Bannon take that we saw in
Alien '79.
And as much as i like
Prometheus and
Covenant, for me, they do not play in the same sandbox.
Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Apr 29, 2021, 12:49:20 PM
I am missing the organism (possibly with acidic blood) growing from 50 cm to 2 m in less than 24 hours, not to mention the food source for the already impossible process for a vertebrate organism of that size.
And here we are back to the ole' "scientific inaccuracies in the films" topic. LOL!
The difference is that these cases you bring up, and others besides, are flaws, plain and simple (some knowingly made, others out of ignorance), whereas what I'm talking about is a lack of understanding of the storytelling craft itself, specifically as it pertains to science fiction. You must address the audience's big questions about the capabilities and limitations of your newly author-invented tech.
If the question is only small, i.e. obscure and minor (such as how a chestburster grows into an adult), then the writer will probably choose not to derail the momentum of the story by adding the complexity that the explanation will require. OTOH, if the question is so egregious that it harms the audience's immersion in the entire story, then that explanation is necessary. In the case of
T2, the audience needed to know what the abilities of the T1000 were in order to understand the threat and gauge our heroes' chances of defeating it. That engaged our interest in their plight so much more.
How do you tell one case from the other? Well, as a writer, I guess you would use your artistic sensibilities, based on experience, talent and knowledge. Or maybe just read lots of science fiction and go to the movies so often that the "rules" just trickle into your brain. LOL
In
T2, I bet Cameron simply felt that by the time Arnie and John Conner got to the scene with the street punks that Arnie almost kills, that the audience is craving some kind of explanation as to what the shape-shifting T1000 is. So Arnie tells us. Whereas when Brett is confronted by the adult alien having last seen it as a small chestburster, no-one in the audience was craving an answer as to how it grew so quickly. Were Cameron and O'Bannon right? You tell me.
TC
