Comments | aztecravemonkey: Why Alien Is Awesome (but Prometheus Is Probably Not)

aztecravemonkey

Why Alien Is Awesome (but Prometheus Is Probably Not)

Jun 16, 2012 22:21

Anyway, rounding out my "God I hate everything" period, I'd like to spend a few minutes being annoyingly pretentious again by going "SCI-FI FIIIIIILMS." It's also the launch of my brand-new tag, analysis, which is apparently going to be filled with whatever pretentious writing that can be passed off as critique of some kind on fandom or literature ( Read more... )

!fandom: other, analysis, rant

Comments 8

diddy106 June 17 2012, 15:21:13 UTC

You make a lot of sensible points.

Didn't stop me from watching and thoroughly enjoying Prometheus. Yes there are special effects, I'm pretty sure there was an explosion at some point and yes it reminds you a fair bit that this is THE FUTURE!

Not to the extremes you seem to be implying though. It's not another Avatar, Michael Fassbender was fantastic in his role and it was a very suspenseful film. Even the "gorey" parts don't shove it in your face.

You can't exactly blame Ridley Scott for taking advantage of today's technology to make a more immersive experience. Do you know what I call people who limit themselves by using outdated technology and spurning all modernity? Hipsters.

Yeah.

aztecravemonkey June 17 2012, 19:27:57 UTC

There's a distinct difference between using special effects effectively and going over-the-top with special effects. I mean, Alien's a sci-fi franchise; it'd be rather stupid to say that it never used effects that were modern for the time of each movie. However, the thing is that the original didn't tell the story through special effects but rather through the ambiance created from a combination of elements within the film. The whole point of the story was that perfectly ordinary people (until the questionable third and fourth movies of the original quadrilogy, anyway) were pitted against perfect killing machines. Like I said in the post, the first movie took place on the equivalent of a tow truck in space, so it didn't overload itself on effects for the sake of having effects. The main focus in the Prometheus trailer, meanwhile, is telling the audience exactly what to expect and loading up on shiny, sparkly graphics ( ... )

diddy106 June 17 2012, 23:06:28 UTC

Admittedly I made the hipster jibe just to lol at hipsters. The point still kinda stands though, not using the holographic display effect thingies in the trailer would have hurt the ambience you desire so much. What else could you use instead of it? Computer screens? Making the actors ruin the mood by excessively eplaining stuff? I liked the holo displays.

I will say that the trailer isn't a good advertisement for the film. I think that you're right in saying that the trailer shows a modern trend in film advertisement and making things seem actiony and sparkley and explosiony. I never really saw much of that in the film though.

Didn't you once say that you can't truly judge the Twilight books unless you've read them and understood the inherent problems within it? Wouldn't this kind of judgement fall under the same category?

Didn't Ridley Scott say that (whilst set in the Alien universe) Prometheus isn't supposed to be related to the Alien films? I#m pretty sure I read something like that.

aztecravemonkey June 18 2012, 01:42:45 UTC

Why not? Computer display screens have been effective in science-fiction television and movies for years before the upwards trend of "LOL SHINY DISPLAYS MEANS SCI-FI." In fact, by not overusing displays, you avoid the continuity pit of trying to explain why the original Alien movies seem less futuristic than the movie supposedly taking place years before them. "But Jax!" you might exclaim. "1970's special effects weren't capable of producing mid-air holograms!" At which point I motion to the fact that non-CGed special effects were kinda kickass back in the day, so they actually could have pulled it off with enough creativity. They just didn't because that wasn't really the point.

Also, to go back to something I said earlier, Ridley Scott establishes that this is a prequel that explains where that ship in the original Alien movie came from. So, yeah, it's connected. How closely it's connected to the other movies is up to speculation, but the fact is that it's part of the canon timeline and is, essentially, meant to be part of ( ... )

diddy106 June 18 2012, 08:49:05 UTC

I remember reading that Cracked article and yes you are right that you can achieve some pretty cool stuff without using CG. It's just my opinion that if the technology was there to present these scenes in this manner, there's no point in not doing it. You might say that this presents a continuity problem, well you said it yourself, the ship in Alien was pretty much a Tow Truck. Prometheus is a scientific exploratory vessel, understandable that a ship like that would have better tech than a Tow Truck ( ... )

aztecravemonkey June 18 2012, 17:53:54 UTC

Except that the tow truck came centuries before the Prometheus, so why would the Prometheus show that it's got better tech than the tow truck? Sure, it's a scientific vessel, but saying that it's more advanced than anything that came several centuries later is a lot like saying the labs of the seventeenth century have shinier gadgets than the average house of the twenty-first. Aforementioned tow truck didn't even have a navigation system that's quite as advanced as anything that showed up in the Prometheus, and why wouldn't it have at least one bit of tech that's equal in power ( ... )

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