From: mst@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at (Markus Stumptner)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.movies
Subject: Re: Natives Down the River (was re: ALIEN^3 Eggs on Sulaco)
Date: 14 Aug 92 22:15:02 GMT
Organization: DB and ES Subdivision, TU Vienna

From article <BszpyC.D44@acsu.buffalo.edu>, by v075q5fr@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Scott J Gorcey):
> In article <4723@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP>, seawasp@vm2.cis.pitt.edu (Sea Wasp) writes...
>     my opinion of Cameron's movie has gone
>     WAY down... it just seems like the he dropped the BEST things about
>     the first one in favor of action and Rambo-lina type things; 

I would agree on that.

>      see that Ridley Scott's movie predicted all this: You can't beat
>      the alien; it's the perfect organism.  NOTHING can beat the alien.
>      Not big elephant motherfuckers.  Not humans.  Not Ripley.  And no
>      matter if you think you survive, you won't -- because the alien
>      will always find a way to fuck you up the pooper in the end.
>      You're saying that ALIEN didn't say all this?  It did: Cameron
>      tried to contradict it in his movie and Fincher smacked Cameron
>      in the face with his.  

I like that line of argument, unfortunately I cannot agree about Alien
3.

>      WHY does everything need to be explained?  It seems like your 
>      problem is that you JUST WON'T accept the premise

The premise is unspeakably dumb.  I went into Terminator 2 with a
friend who said he wanted to see the computer graphics and laugh at
all that stupid time machine crap.  I did not agree at all - I had no
problem with suspending disbelief in something as implausible as time
travel, but that?  This film does not have a deus ex machina ending,
it has a deus ex machina premise, and it is excruciatingly clear why -
"lets kill everybody so we can start out with tabula rasa".  You can't
do worse.

> if you
>      did accept the premise, you'd love the movie

This is like saying if you can accept the dialogue of "Plan 9 from
Outer Space" as art, the you can accept that film as art.  Sure, but
nobody stoops to that level.

> Why, in ALIEN, did the one egg - and only one - hatch
>      when Kane entered the ship?

It did not hatch when he entered the ship, it hatched when he stepped
right next to it and bent over it and shone his light onto it.

>  NOTHING EVER moved through that blue
>      mist before he did?  Come on.  That's tenuous at best, but you're
>      not bitching about THAT.

Yeah, sure.  LV 286 was teeming with life, hm?  THE holiday asteroid
of the galaxy.  See the alien eggs in the wreck near the music pavilion.

YES! Nothing ever moved there!  The whole premise of the film is based
on its being a godforsaken place nobody has set foot on before, and it
transport that atmosphere like few films I have seen.  If you think
that is tenuous, well, small wonder you think Alien 3 was the best.
That was a classic scene, and the reason it worked well was that it
had been setup in the manner of "nobody has been here for an awful
long time".

>      What a shitty movie that would make.  That's a cliche - you know?

It pales in comparison with the "deadly monster propagates in an
unexplained manner to pursue the survivors of a wrecked ship (fourth
in a row, btw) stranded on an uncivilized planet" cliche.

-- 
Markus Stumptner                                mst@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at
University of Technology Vienna                 vexpert!mst@relay.eu.net
Paniglg. 16, A-1040 Vienna, Austria             ...mcsun!vexpert!mst
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.movies