I fell into the social media hole a while back and haven't posted any shit here because of that. I am back because of all the political posts that make the hairs on my neck bristle. So...
I haven't seen ALIEN: COVENANT and I am not super excited about seeing it, because of grass. I'll explain. It is my opinion that the XENOMORPH XX121 is so closely tied to technology that, when brought to Earth or an Earth-like planet, completely loses the element of horror which was already intensified by the sense of claustrophobia when trapped inside a spaceship light years away from home. I imagine that creatures like Giger's Alien wouldn't want to come to an Earth-like planet. My worst nightmares of the alien were not of it hiding in bushes and running through grass fields. The alien blends into a spaceship. Pipes, beams, tubes, wires, levers, steam, corrosion, shadows-also, all things that go along with the "used future" type environment-are where the alien hides.
I am also not a fan of how the alien creature is being represented by different artists. I am cool with it's digitigrade movement in Alien³, that made sense and most fans agreed that it made sense that the creature would move in such a fashion, because it was an interesting, dare I say an 'alien' concept. I don't like that my beloved nightmare has been reduced to a "xeno" that walks like a t-rex or something. Cane's "son" had feet like a human being for god's sake! Have you seen the guy (Bolaji Badejo) that wore the suit? They chose him because he was so tall and skinny and they didn't want the "man-in-a-suit" look. The end result is an extremely tall and skinny humanoid covered with odd ribbed textures, wires, tubes, nodules, bone, metal, and shadows, and certainly not, as I have seen them described, insect or reptilian in nature (If you don't know, make something up, I guess). These creatures are-what Giger was drawing was- "biomechanical". Described by the artist in his book "HR Giger ARh+", he describes his style as a representation of "human bodies and machines in a cold, interconnected relationship" (from Wikipedia).
The xenomorph removed from a spaceship's cold, dark corridors, to me isn't scary at all, and with anthropomorphic canine style feet, it just isn't the same creature. Ash mentioned the creature's "structural perfection" which still haunts me. I am sure that this comment is in reference to it's microbiological profile, more so than it's final form, given that this is the aspect of the creature that Ash had the most time to study, but I really can't help feeling this way.
I am not grumbling about the "prequels" because of plot, characters, mistakes or the use of CGI (though I am not a fan at all of it.), it is a little deeper. I think that there has been some copping out somewhere by someone in favor of mass appeal over little details like WHAT MAKES THE MONSTER SCARY IN THE FIRST PLACE. If I am wrong about this, consider if the movie had kept the original title "Starbeast" and instead of using Giger's design they used this guy from Star Wars:
I am not grumbling about the "prequels" because of plot, characters, mistakes or the use of CGI (though I am not a fan at all of it.), it is a little deeper. I think that there has been some copping out somewhere by someone in favor of mass appeal over little details like WHAT MAKES THE MONSTER SCARY IN THE FIRST PLACE. If I am wrong about this, consider if the movie had kept the original title "Starbeast" and instead of using Giger's design they used this guy from Star Wars:
What has happened to my monster is they took it out of the spaceship, amongst the silicon, steel, plastic, rubber, glass and composite materials and made it walk like a t-rex , made lots of them and started giving them names like whatever-'morph' and killing them with guns. Some of the new designs, although awesome artwork, don't look like a biomechanical creature at all to begin with looking more like the concepts that were thrown out in the production process of 1979's Alien. It has been reduced to nothing more than a monster with vague mass appeal because it kinda looks like "the Alien" only new and improved, which is fine, but brings up the question: Why not just make entirely NEW monsters? I've seen the same thing in other contexts as well, it is like the programmers are literally taking an old design skeleton and just re-skinning it with a prefab texture of some sort and giving it whatever movement style looks the coolest, choosing from the movement styles already created for other animals, and more importantly a new product. From this, I hope they get years and years and years of material, really make those bucks and once again prove which species is worse.
Not a perfect movie, but still on my list would be SPECIES. It involved a biomechanical creature that was quite scary and I think it did a better job of emphasizing the unique horror factor of the nature of the creature than any of the sequels did. Like I said, not a perfect movie, but it is on my list.
I think that the main problem stems from Fox being so smug, slow, difficult and secretive. Fans didn't have anything but the movie, so they created their own art, copied other fan art, etc., and eventually created their own universe. Then comes the comic books and video games. If Fox had not been so dumb about things the whole franchise wouldn't be so divided about everything all the time. This is why so many people rolled their eyes at AVP: It isn't what everyone had envisioned in their experience of the alien/aliens universe. If Fox had maybe worked more closely with fans, had artists make excellent Alien artwork for the fans, write up world information that is cannon, license companies to make toys and comics that are also cannon, collectibles, etc., I guess what I'm saying is they just flat out didn't give a crap about how much people liked the movies. Giger isn't with us anymore but he had already seen his creation become twisted, yet he wasn't a douche about it at all, maybe a little frustrated. In closing, here's an interesting quote from a friend of Giger's:
I think that the main problem stems from Fox being so smug, slow, difficult and secretive. Fans didn't have anything but the movie, so they created their own art, copied other fan art, etc., and eventually created their own universe. Then comes the comic books and video games. If Fox had not been so dumb about things the whole franchise wouldn't be so divided about everything all the time. This is why so many people rolled their eyes at AVP: It isn't what everyone had envisioned in their experience of the alien/aliens universe. If Fox had maybe worked more closely with fans, had artists make excellent Alien artwork for the fans, write up world information that is cannon, license companies to make toys and comics that are also cannon, collectibles, etc., I guess what I'm saying is they just flat out didn't give a crap about how much people liked the movies. Giger isn't with us anymore but he had already seen his creation become twisted, yet he wasn't a douche about it at all, maybe a little frustrated. In closing, here's an interesting quote from a friend of Giger's:
I'd like to see someone even vaguely compile how many versions of the Alien are floating around the world in models and stuff; there must be close to 100,000–little toys, things. All the Japanese horror comics just plunder his style.-Christopher Stein (from Wikipedia)
