Queen,Egg Morphing, or other?

[Scorpio]

That's his opinion, if it looked stupid it wouldn't have made it into the Assembly Cut.  The dog in the alien suit looked stupid.  Technically the scene is well done, there are no faults to it. 

[SM]

That doesn't makes any sense.  The special edition was an assembly of footage that Fincher had nothing to do with.  The scene where they argue in the mess hall then run off to the furnace is stupid too, but that's in there.

The reason they completely reshot it with a dog is because it looked stupid, and when it was removed the test audience didn't know where the Alien came from.  They needed several hundred thousand dollars to do it properly and only had sixty thousand.

[OpenMaw]

This is the reason I think they changed the host from a dog to an ox. It is asinine to think that a dog-alien wouldn't fetch and retrieve humans and glue them to the wall. Plus dogs are smart, ox's are dumb, hence the runner is a dumb alien and dosen't realize it's killing it's Queen's xeno-birthing body bags.

I don't know if the adaption of the alien to it's host is that nuanced. I'd assume that an alien is going to be as smart as an alien can be, regardless of it's host. The host is just meat.

[whiterabbit]

Gee whiz I was just trying to excuse the runner for being a mindless killer while at the same time justifying the ridiculous change from dog to ox. I mean how often does someone make such a huge change after a movie has been released? The movie I watched in theater and vhs has a dog in it. But then they released the assembly cut and holy shit changing the host is a rather huge edit. I didn't think the dog alien was that stupid looking. Well I mean what we had in movie. The dog wearing the xeno-suit was adorable.

This is the reason I think they changed the host from a dog to an ox. It is asinine to think that a dog-alien wouldn't fetch and retrieve humans and glue them to the wall. Plus dogs are smart, ox's are dumb, hence the runner is a dumb alien and dosen't realize it's killing it's Queen's xeno-birthing body bags.

I don't know if the adaption of the alien to it's host is that nuanced. I'd assume that an alien is going to be as smart as an alien can be, regardless of it's host. The host is just meat.

Well I wasn't being all to serious about it but since we're on it. I think the alien does take a little bit of the host consciousness or knowledge. Especially with black goo dna now in the mix. Before that I would have said no. However an alien has fingers and limbs, and resembles the host to some degree so acclimating the knowledge to use those appendages has to be gained from somewhere. So yea, smarter the creature, more civilized the xenomorph.

[SiL]

I'm confused, do you genuinely not get that the special edition was put together as more of a novelty with the deleted footage? The ox was only in there to show people what had been cut, not because anyone thought it was better

[Scorpio]

That doesn't makes any sense.  The special edition was an assembly of footage that Fincher had nothing to do with.  The scene where they argue in the mess hall then run off to the furnace is stupid too, but that's in there.

The reason they completely reshot it with a dog is because it looked stupid, and when it was removed the test audience didn't know where the Alien came from.  They needed several hundred thousand dollars to do it properly and only had sixty thousand.

They used Fincher's notes to edit the Assembly Cut, and again if it "looked stupid" they would have left it out, but they didn't.

If it's yours or David Fincher's opinion that it "looks stupid", then that's fine, I have nothing against that.

But answer me this critical question, if it "looks stupid" then why is it included in the Assembly Cut and included with almost every release of the film?

[Huggs]

"So yea, smarter the creature, more civilized the xenomorph"

Then Kane must've been dumber than shite.    Sorry, I couldn't resist. 

[Scorpio]

I'm confused, do you genuinely not get that the special edition was put together as more of a novelty with the deleted footage? The ox was only in there to show people what had been cut, not because anyone thought it was better

That doesn't make any sense either, because they didn't include all the deleted footage in the AC.  So if it was just a novelty as you say, they would have included all the deleted footage, but they didn't.

[SM]

Gee whiz I was just trying to excuse the runner for being a mindless killer while at the same time justifying the ridiculous change from dog to ox.

I find it easier to justify the mindless killer thing by saying it was removing threats to both Ripley and the Queen she was carrying.  The Queen doesn't actually need hosts ready in order to produce thousands of eggs that will then hang around and wait for some poor sap to stick their face in one.

I mean how often does someone make such a huge change after a movie has been released? The movie I watched in theater and vhs has a dog in it. But then they released the assembly cut and holy shit changing the host is a rather huge edit.

Every directors cut/ special edition/ extended cut etc. has changes - some major - after the film is released.

The dog wearing the xeno-suit was adorable.

That wasn't in any version of the film.

But answer me this critical question, if it "looks stupid" then why is it included in the Assembly Cut and included with almost every release of the film?

To provide fans with an alternate version of the film in order to entice them to buy the DVD set.

It really is, as SiL said, a novelty.  Same as any extended version of a film that the director isn't involved with.

[Scorpio]

It was first released in 2003 in the Alien Anthology dvd set.  Yes, it may have been included to entice fans to buy the set, back in 2003.  However, it has been included in almost every subsequent release since then.  They even brought back actors to re-record dialogue to fix up audio issues they had.  That to me does not scream 'novelty'.

[SiL]

The notes that came with it literally said it wasn't an improvement or an update, just a look into what the film could have been.

[SM]

It was first released in 2003 in the Alien Anthology dvd set.  Yes, it may have been included to entice fans to buy the set, back in 2003.  However, it has been included in almost every subsequent release since then.  They even brought back actors to re-record dialogue to fix up audio issues they had.  That to me does not scream 'novelty'.

It's been included in some other sets because it was popular.

Still doesn't change the fact that it was created as a novelty.

[Still Collating...]

Seeing first the theatrical cut, then the assembly cut, I naturally thought they changed the host from dog to ox because of the difficulty of that big of a chestburster fitting inside that dog. And I just speculated they maybe did it because they didn't want to show the dog getting destroyed. Silly me, this is Alien 3 we're talking about.
Never knew the change was the other way around and what was the reason for it.

And the dog in the xeno suit was so cute! But I'm glad that wasn't in the final cut.

Well I wasn't being all to serious about it but since we're on it. I think the alien does take a little bit of the host consciousness or knowledge. Especially with black goo dna now in the mix. Before that I would have said no. However an alien has fingers and limbs, and resembles the host to some degree so acclimating the knowledge to use those appendages has to be gained from somewhere. So yea, smarter the creature, more civilized the xenomorph.

I would agree on the smarter the host, smarter the xenomorph part, but civilized? That's a way I'd never describe the alien IMO, though I am getting flashbacks of O'Bannon's original idea for the species.
Yeah, it has been argued that the dog alien was more vicious, aggressive, lacking tactical thinking than other xenomorphs. So could that mean if they impregnated a greatly more intelligent species than ourselves and one that is incredibly pacifistic, that you could basically sit next to a very intelligent and calm alien? 

Just speculating... We now know that David made the alien specifically for humans and for them to kill us, but I'm wondering if aggression varies from host species, could that aggression be bred out of them basically?     

[SM]

An idea that was toyed with in Rogue.

[whiterabbit]

I'm confused, do you genuinely not get that the special edition was put together as more of a novelty with the deleted footage? The ox was only in there to show people what had been cut, not because anyone thought it was better

Well yea but it seems to now be the go to cut of the movie that is sold. I never watch alien³ much. Once in theater and once on video. It was on tv every now and then but I remember buying the dvd boxset and watching alien³ and thinking to myself that I had early onset dementia. So from my perspective that is the official cut.

@SM, i was talking about the cut test footage of the dog running with that xeno suit.