I loved Pitch Black and all the Riddick back story and lore, but I loved the Necromongers the most. And the lack of Necros in this story greatly dissapoints me. The story that should continue after Chronicles seems obvious to me, and yet they’re trying to recreate Pitch Black instead.
Alien is one of the most important franchises in my long list of fandoms, mostly because of a love for HR Giger’s designs, and partly because of the long running canon that is so incredibly immersive. A simple yet unstoppable life cycle with a simple objective: adapt.
So when it was announced the Alien Prequel was going to happen, I was ecstatic! Ridley Scott coming back to the world he helped to create? I was so ready.
And then I saw the film, and I was in a bit of shock. I wanted to like it, I DID like it, but there was so much “missing” or different from what I was expecting, it was hard to put it into words.
Well enough time has passed, so I’d like to share some of my (and other people’s) thoughts on the subject.
I actually filmed myself crying at 2 am after coming home from this film’s midnight release. I won’t be posting it because it’s absolutely terrifying. I’m delirious and upset in it, barely comprehensible. I’ve had a chance to re-watch it and will try and translate my rambling. Basically there was so much I really REALLY wanted to like, but it wasn’t the prequel I felt we deserved. Number one as a Giger fan, and number two as a Xenomorph fan. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an amazing film and a great ancient aliens themed story, but it’s NOT a suitable Alien prequel in my opinion. There is so much I wish would have been done differently, so much more I was expecting. And bottom line for me, it didn’t bring the Giger elements to life with the epic visuals and visceral realism they deserved. The biomechanical wasn’t alive, it was just limp and squishy. Sorry, but that’s what I got out of it.
I do have to say, the ancient alien theories, space jesus, and replicant/android stories were all great parts of the film for me. The film itself has a epic and grand scale WITH a comprehensible and intelligent script that is rare to see come out of Hollywood these days. BUT… there’s the but… it all falls short for me when trying to apply it to the Alien canon. Even if you never have the Queen life cycle, it still doesn’t fit. The space jockeys are humanoids in space suits? NO no no no! The jockey is fused to the chair, like he was grown into it. It’s not an unexplored idea (Farscape anyone?), and wouldn’t be too far of a stretch to elaborate on.
And the primordial black goo? Sure, it creates life from life. In terms of the Engineers, it takes the basics of them to create us, and the Xenomorph is the amplification of our truest nature and base instinct, to kill and multiply. To survive. It all works for me up to that point.
But then it takes a turn for the worse imo, when the timeline shifts, it’s a different ship, and different planet, and a different type of technology than I’ve always pictured Giger’s art working as.
As you can tell I’m ultimately conflicted. It is an absolutely amazing final product, but you have to understand I have dreams of how Giger’s imagery moves and works, and this film did not represent that. Lets go back. Ridley Scott captured this right away in the first film, and so simply too I might add. The egg feels alive with fiberglass and shadows of rubber gloves, the face hugger looks real with foam rubber and shellfish parts, the chest burster is puppeteers moving it’s arms and beating it’s heart as if it’s alive, and the Alien is an awkward and terrifying new life that wants to simply kill and create new life, played by an awkward and alien looking young man who was cast simply because of his presence (love you Bolaji Badejo, wherever you are). It brought to life Giger’s art in it’s most visceral form.
This movie is beautiful to look at, and completely immerses you in the story. And there’s all the concepts there to make it a great and direct Alien prequel. But then at some point in the process, like he’s done before with Blade Runner (if you haven’t watched the making of documentary on the most recent dvd set, you should), and rightly so since he’s the chosen director, he picked up the pieces and made something he thought would be better.
I can still be in love with production and creature design. The amazing sculptor Dayton Allen over at Sith_fire30 Creations found this gem, a montage of early concept designs by artist Carlos Huante from the early days of preproduction. It’s worth watching just to see what COULD have been.
Also, there’s plenty of resources out there to explain the making of this film, but this is one of my favorites. comicbookgirl19 is really great at explaining things in her vlog, it’s really worth watching;
In short, although this film isn’t what I wanted it to be, it still has me thinking about it as an epic cinematic event in my life. I’ll just keep over analyzing it while enjoying the scenery in my Giger themed bathroom.
(self portrait of me at 19 with Giger art)
After a mostly comic book based summer, and the worst low period in box office history in four years, I’m ready for the new season to start! Already seen Resident Evil: Retribution, it was an “ok” start. So here’s what I’m looking forward to:
9/21
Dredd
9/28
Looper – The first original science fiction we’ve had worth seeing in a looooong time!
10/5
Frankenweenie
Taken 2
10/12
Argo
Sinister
10/19
Paranormal Activity 4 – Probably won’t get a resolution, but looks better then the last “in the 80′s” attempt, bleh.
10/26
Cloud Atlas
Silent Hill: Revelation
11/2
This Must Be the Place
Wreck-It Ralph
11/9
Skyfall
11/16
Anna Karenina
Lincoln
11/21
Red Dawn
11/30
Killing Them Softly
Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning – Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, SIGN ME UP!
12/17
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Les Miserables
12/21
Jack Reacher
12/25
Django Unchained
Like many of my generation, we have been greatly influenced by Tim Burton in SO many ways. I started to type up a facebook status today:
“Ok, so Dark Shadows was beautiful but pointless, Abraham Lincoln VH fell short from the book form, and NO ONE seems to care about Frankenweenie as a Frankenweenie/Vincent combo but me. It’s all right Tim Burton, I still think you’ve got what counts. A beautiful eye, dry and morbid sense of humor, and an understanding of being an outcast. You keep on working sir!”
But it got me thinking, why this attachment? Why this sense of loyalty to someone who probably doesn’t care if he still has a single fan? So let’s take a look at some history from his story as interpreted by me…
Disney Influence
Who doesn’t like Disney?!? Tim Burton liked Disney, since he worked for them at first as an animator. It would be an on again off again relationship throughout his career, but more than that, the influences of live action films like Mary Poppins and animation like Snow White. They were his childhood memories, and he became ours.
Dreams In Color
Tim Burton’s first live action film brought him into the world of family humor. Jokes that were appealing to BOTH children and adults, and a character/comedian we all admired, the perfect beginning for us to truly fall in love with him as a story-teller. It may not be entirely the Gothic Horror we now identify him with, but watch the first 2 min of the movie and tell me you don’t see the same style later in BIG FISH. A fantasy version of our own reality.
Beetlejuice to Nightmare Before Christmas
For 6 years Burton shelled out 5 films that built the fantasy world we came to believe he came from. Decaying stone towers, snow on green grass, skeletons that talk, clowns that kill. All with main characters that just DON’T fit in with everyone else. He put us into places we wanted to live with characters we, the social outcasts, could identify with. The feeling of being alone didn’t seem so lonely anymore when someone else was putting it on screen in such a beautiful context.
Heroes Unappreciated
At this point the world loved Tim Burton, but I don’t think he knew why. He had unintentionally labeled himself as a Gothic Storyteller with darkness and shadows. With a sense of humor hardly anyone got at the time, he took his darkness one step further with the sarcastic tale of film maker Ed Wood. But Burton played a joke on all of us, he was telling us the truth. Ed Wood did two things in his life, he got to meet and honor his idol Bela Lugosi, and he got to make HIS films, even if no one quite understood them (or him). At this point, so had Tim Burton. He got to meet and honor one of his idols Vincent Price with one of the most heart wrenching scenes in his career, and he was making films based almost entirely on his visions. It sounds like this would be where the fairy tale would end, right? The film wasn’t appreciated at the time for what it was, wasn’t even understood by the public much like the film’s subject, and so begins the part of the story where we learn Burton is human just like the rest of us.
Science Fiction Satire Based On Bubblegum Cards
After a stint as Producer for Batman Forever and James and the Giant Peach, Burton got back in the conception and directors chair with Mars Attacks. I’m going to be candid here. IT’S A RIDICULOUS FILM! Just read the wikipedia description please.
Based on the cult trading card series of the same name, the film uses elements of black comedy, surreal humor, and political satire, and is a parody of science fiction B movies. Mars Attacks! stars an ensemble cast, which includes Jack Nicholson, Lukas Haas, Annette Bening, Jim Brown, Pierce Brosnan, Sarah Jessica Parker, Glenn Close, Martin Short, Jack Black, Natalie Portman, Danny DeVito, and Christina Applegate.
Everything about that description is hilarious. So the public ate it up, made it a blockbuster. This film is 100% conceived by Burton. Think about it, if this movie had half the budget, half the star power, and a different writer/director, who the hell would watch a movie based on a now vintage trading card set? So really, he’s been trying this formula ever since, but for various reasons just hasn’t been the same.
Two Outta Three Ain’t Bad
I’ll summarize this period as simply as I can. Sleepy Hollow took us back to that Gothic world we first fell in love with our hero in. Then Planet of the Apes took us somewhere we didn’t really want to be, but once again, this isn’t Burton’s fault. He’d had his versions of OZ (of the Wizard’s sort), Jurassic Park, Mary Reilly, Catwoman, and Superman all taken away from him after some very stupid studios got scared off by bottom lines. So when his version of Apes started getting the “rushed by the studio” treatment, he just accepted it. Then we end this part with Big Fish. I’ve actually read this book, I can’t get through it, I do not like it. But Tim Burton took what was good in it, the parts I couldn’t see, and made it an adult fairy tale in the world he showed us in Pee Wee, he made our back yard beautiful, and he made us fall in love with a fantasy again.
This point in his life also signaled a change that is really none of our business. I will NOT go into his personal life, I’ll just say that this period was the transition from having a muse in Lisa Marie, to a confidant and a colleague in Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp. Two people who would do anything for him, and will stand by him through the rest of his life.
Acceptance For The Things We Can Not Change
Two more Gothic musicals, two re-imaginings of almost forgotten but still beloved tales, and two producers credits with Timur Bekmambetov related films (giving a new visionary director the same chance he once had), as fans we’re left holding our love in our hands and wondering “what should we do with it?” It still feels like the world we love, but we somehow still feel a little lost. But isn’t that why we fell in love with our hero in the first place? Perhaps our expectations are too high, perhaps we’ve misunderstood his intentions as a story-teller? Or perhaps he’s still that visionary with an understanding of being an outcast that helps us feel a little less lonely.
It’s always been his world, but it’s our choice to live in it or not.
I’m not saying I didn’t like TRON: Legacy, but I was sorely disappointed in the story compared to the original film. In the first film Tron was the hero and Flynn was the observer/sidekick of HIS story. So in the second film, why did Tron as a character have to take such a back seat? Where was the legacy? I felt like something was missing, especially since it’s implied that in the grid-years it’s been between 800 and 1000 years, at the very least just change the title of the film to something other than TRON, like THE GRID maybe? Or FLYNN RETURNS? Anyway, enough with the negative, here’s the positive:
So when I heard about an animated series that would bridge the gap between movies with a story about a possible successor of Tron? HELL YEAH I got excited! It has an all star cast AND Bruce Boxleitner as the voice of Tron, AND Peter Chung (Aeon Flux) style character designs. It sounds too good to be true, EXACTLY what I was missing from the film’s story.
So Disney has the first episode available to watch on youtube, and I just watched it. Although it lacks the pace and excitement of the films, it is just as much a feast for the eyes as ever. The story is exactly what I was hoping for, and even a little bit more. Hopefully, like any television series, it will pick up speed. I need everyone to watch this series so they fill in the story this franchise sorely needed. Then, IF we get a third film, it won’t feel quite as defeating when they continue the story but still call it TRON without the Tron ;)
This blog isn’t very science fiction-y yet, so I thought I’d post up my “Predators” film review written circa July 2010:
This isn’t going to happen how you expect…
I consider myself a huge Predator fan. I’m not a fan so much of the Predator itself, but definitely one of the original film. As a science fiction action film, it set the standard for combining hokey with believability. A collection of great characters put up against an alien that lives and breathes killing as much as they do.
I’m personally more of an Alien fan. So when the AVP film series started, I had all my hopes of extending the character and shelf life of the franchise shot down by failed attempts at putting Alien and Predator “culture” into modern teenage audience context. My hopes never really came back to me. Why should I care that the Predators kill innocent normal people? Why would they care. Even Predator 2, through all it’s faults, clearly explained that Predators hunted humans to killed other humans. They didn’t know what side they were on, just that they killed.
Then the announcement of a direct sequel to the Predator film series by director Robert Rodriguez came. Came and went in my opinion, I was so jaded by disappointment in sequels and “reboots” of classic franchises, that I didn’t even think the wonderfully talented director of Sin City couldn’t even help the state of things. So I threw any hope of excitement out the window.
Then came the reviews by others. NOBODY likes this movie. If anybody does, they’re not being very vocal about it. Everyone seems so disappointed, even going as far as to saying the first Alien vs. Predator film was actually better than this.
But I LOVED this movie. I watch the original Predator film at least every 6 months, and could quote it by heart. Most of the other reviews out here say Predators is just a copy of that original. NOT SO. It takes elements from all the incarnations of the creatures: films, comics, books, and rolls makes them into a fun romp in the action genre.
