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Posted by Necronomicon II
 - Jan 30, 2019, 06:27:42 AM
I'm glad then that Logan brought it back to outright sext, er, text. ;D
Who knows if this is followed through for the 3rd prequel (I hope so).
:-*

https://www.dailydot.com/parsec/alien-covenant-disturbing-sexuality/
Posted by Xenomrph
 - Jan 30, 2019, 06:08:03 AM
I think the psycho-sexual focus of the 'Alien' works best in isolation of the movie 'Alien' itself, it starts to dilute substantially over the course of the series as a whole (especially once you start rolling in EU stuff). While looping it back around to involve David is an interesting interpretation of his implied sexual hang-ups, I'm still super duper hesitant to conclude that it's part of some kind of "grand design". :P

That and I ultimately think the Alien is more fascinating as, as you put it, a malleable "shoggoth", a star-beast that exists outside of humanity's scope but can still act as a dark mirror of it.
To go on a mild tangent, I've liked the idea that the Alien sometimes exhibits what could be primal, instinctual behaviors of its host creature - I think it's an interesting way to explain why, say, the Dog Alien appeared to "play with its food", or why (via deleted scenes), the Predalien from 'AvPR' skinned the dead Predators on the crashed ship. If the Alien is doing these things out of unavoidable instinct, what does it say about humanity when the Alien does.... whatever it does to Lambert?

Again, this gets diluted a bit when you factor in 'Aliens', which relegates the sexual themes to more subtext than outright text. :P
Posted by Necronomicon II
 - Jan 29, 2019, 11:17:46 PM
 :D ;D ;D
I got it from Curb Your Enthusiasm, Leon says it after he's screwed a yoga teacher in Larry's house.
Posted by Huggs
 - Jan 29, 2019, 11:15:49 PM
Quote from: Necronomicon II on Jan 29, 2019, 11:03:16 PM
It stinks alright, it has the scent of f**k all over it.  :D

I wonder how many times these words have led to divorce court?
Posted by Immortan Jonesy
 - Jan 29, 2019, 11:05:34 PM
Quote from: Samhain13 on Jan 29, 2019, 10:49:36 PM
Quote from: The Old One on Jan 29, 2019, 10:18:12 PM
I agree, humanity being the centre is egotistical and incorrect.

Welcome to Ridley's madness.

Fixed  ;)
Posted by Necronomicon II
 - Jan 29, 2019, 11:03:16 PM
 ;D
To be honest, I've been steel-manning the David as creator angle in this thread and others as it's an interesting discussion and I can see where John Logan et al. were driving at thematically. Which is good!

Personally, all David did was pour perversions of human sexuality into the primordial shoggoth-like pathogen; shoggoths are amorphous and can reflect a myriad of forms, in this case peeny and vagins. It stinks alright, it has the scent of f**k all over it.  :D

As an explanation for the penis-y head and other references to human sex anatomy it works.

I know David as the creator or more accurately "sculptor" of the classical beast and life cycle is controversial among many fans, but it nonetheless remains consistent with Giger's aesthetic of perverse human sexuality and transfiguration; Giger's aesthetic wasn't so much predicated on "mystery" than perversion and transfiguration of human sexuality and machine. Genetically and by its nature the Alien is still Alien; its shoggoth-esque origins are primordial, the revelation is only that its phenotypic expression is a perversion and mockery of human sexuality/reproduction moulded by a sterile machine going mad.

tl;dr

He just gave an alien organism a more penis-y makeover.  ;D

Here's a great article that goes in depth analysing the Alien as a perversion of human sexuality -

https://www.google.com/amp/s/plotandtheme.com/2016/05/18/the-xenomorph-and-the-perversion-of-sex-in-alien/amp/

"A completely foreign monster inspires fear, as we have no way of knowing what it can or will do.  But, a monster which contains a kernel of our own humanity is far worse:  it suggests not only that the creature may deprive us of life (and violently at that), but that it may deprive our soul of its cleanliness by reflecting our basest and most primal desires in its atavistic quest.  These shades of humanity exist throughout the life of the Xenomorph, and are a critical component of its ability to dominate our nightmares with its disturbing and familiar sexuality.

The Xenomorph is a fundamentally sexual horror villain that exists on a biological continuum between the female and the male.  Each aspect of its life cycle is punctuated by sexual aggression and forced penetration of its victim – ultimately culminating in a literal unprotected rape.  And yet, each aspect of the Xenomorph contains a kernel of humanity which allows it to ascend from a monster-of-the-week to a primordial representation of human terror and insecurity."


Posted by Huggs
 - Jan 29, 2019, 10:53:09 PM
Posted by Samhain13
 - Jan 29, 2019, 10:49:36 PM
Quote from: The Old One on Jan 29, 2019, 10:18:12 PM
I agree, humanity being the centre is egotistical and incorrect.

Welcome to Ridley's mind.
Posted by Necronomicon II
 - Jan 29, 2019, 10:43:48 PM
 :D
Should I bite?
Posted by JokersWarPig
 - Jan 29, 2019, 10:28:35 PM
Quote from: The Old One on Jan 29, 2019, 08:03:30 PM
Solid argument, totally understandable POV in comparison to the pages of excellent stuff that, Muthur 9000, Necronomicon, Evanus and others have written on why it isn't stupid. Regardless, not liking it is one thing, I don't outside of Covenant's specific context but calling it stupid is another, a statement that's been proven invalid at this point.

C'mon, engage with the discussion about what works for you and what doesn't, blanket statements aren't all that.

I was being purposfully difficult lol.

Like some others have said though it removes the "Alien" component that makes it Alien. Alien is scary because we have no idea what it really is, where it came from, or what purpose it serves. All we know is that it exists, everything about it is dangerous and that's what makes it horrifying.  It removes the mystery and that's always been something I loved about the Alien.

The Alien being something that was created by something else that was created by man turns it into something lame imo. It just becomes "Generic movie monster #384" at this point. The Alien should have no relation to humanity other than it can use them as hosts.
Posted by The Old One
 - Jan 29, 2019, 10:18:12 PM
Quote from: Huggs on Jan 29, 2019, 10:07:36 PM
I was most disappointed at first because David's actions directly tie the creature back to humanity. It is a creation of our creation. It's not some natural evil that we stumbled across in the cosmos. Some awful ancient thing that destroys everything it comes into contact with.

Fair enough-
my interpretation is that's only what Covenant defines it as, for me it doesn't ruin The Alien.

I agree, humanity being the centre is egotistical and incorrect.
But all it would take to change that is show that the Pathogen- always eventually creates the Alien.
And that there's a legitimate Space Jockey out there, it's not ruined- IMO it's salvageable.
Posted by Samhain13
 - Jan 29, 2019, 10:09:47 PM
I just don't like this:

Quote from: Samhain13 on Nov 16, 2018, 07:44:27 PM
the ALIEN being just a creation of a sexually frustrated android with daddy issues that mixed space goo with wasps.

What Huggs said too. It takes the alien out of the alien for me. I don't like the crashing of the LV-426's derelict to be a recent event as well. I hate scifi series where humanity is the center of everything, which is where Ridley went since Prometheus. I don't like all the events of the franchise revolving around humanity.
Posted by Huggs
 - Jan 29, 2019, 10:07:36 PM
I was most disappointed at first because David's actions directly tie the creature back to humanity. It is a creation of our creation. It's not some natural evil that we stumbled across in the cosmos. Some awful ancient thing that destroys everything it comes into contact with.
Posted by The Old One
 - Jan 29, 2019, 09:41:06 PM
Posted by Samhain13
 - Jan 29, 2019, 09:32:37 PM
Quote from: The Old One on Jan 29, 2019, 09:15:10 PM
Spoiler

Let's leave aside for the moment that the other things you've mentioned are much,
much worse
[close]

In your opinion sure.

Quote from: The Old One on Jan 29, 2019, 09:15:10 PM
What did it ruin?

The way I saw the ALIEN.

Quote from: The Old One on Jan 29, 2019, 09:15:10 PM
You can't divorce Covenant's context from the context of the original films?

Never said that. It ruined that specific movie and any other future material that follows such idea. And since we are stuck with Ridley for a while, that means any next movies until he is done with whatever he thinks he is doing.
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