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No, really, the message of Covenant is that David made the initial eggs. That’s what Ridley Scott was trying to convey - somehow, through the magic of science and the black goo, he made the first Alien eggs to ever exist. There were original eggs, and he made them, 20 years before ‘Alien’. That’s the part I don’t like. If you disagree with that, then we are at an impasse. I understood the narrative just fine - I don’t care for the narrative as Ridley Scott has presented it, and as he spelled it out within interviews. I disagree with his narrative and have constructed my own head canon, just as you’ve done. My head canon differs from yours, and that’s okay. 
Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Mar 31, 2021 |
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Mar 31, 2021 20:28
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Your "head canon" doesn't actually differ from mine. We agree that the xenomorph isn't actually a specific creature, but an underlying essence that persists across generations of hybridization and mutation. The egg and facehugger and drone are the same creature - even the drone that came out of Kane and the drone that came out of a dog in the third movie are the same creature or at least the same class of creature - because what the xenomorph is is something that persists despite constant, repeated amalgamation with non-xenomorphs. Right? Is anything I wrote there off? If it's not, then you understand that the eggs on LV-426 were also properly described in the above terms, right? They didn't just flash into existence in an act of God. They must have come from the amalgamation of the xenomorph-essence with non xenomorphs, just like the xenomorph itself did, just like the queen at Hadley's Hope did, etc. I am speaking here strictly of the narrative developed by the first two movies, ignoring Prometheus and Covenant entirely. Am I right or wrong here?
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Mar 31, 2021 20:40
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Yeah, sure. There are some underlying semantics I’m not sure we fully agree on, but I’m phone posting. I think we agree on the gist of it. I don’t see the Alien as an “underlying essence” but a creature with multiple life stages that form a loop. Just for the sake of understanding, you acknowledge that Ridley Scott tried to change that narrative in Covenant, right? He tried to give the Alien a definitive starting point. He spelled it out in interviews. They did in fact “flash into existence in an act of god”, and that god was David. You can see how one might dislike how that was handled, yes? Honestly it feels like we’re so close to seeing eye to eye.
Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 21:03 on Mar 31, 2021 |
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Mar 31, 2021 20:53
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Canon doesn't matter, David made the eggs in Covenant and he also didn't make them in Alien. This isn't a real universe we get to peer at. It's fiction.
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Mar 31, 2021 20:57
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MonsieurChoc posted:Canon doesn't matter, David made the eggs in Covenant and he also didn't make them in Alien. 
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Mar 31, 2021 21:00
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Xenomrph posted:I’ve been trying to convey this to Alien fans for *years*. Need a hug? We could all use one in these trying times.
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Mar 31, 2021 21:06
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As long as it’s not a facehug 
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Mar 31, 2021 21:07
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Xenomrph posted:Yeah, sure. There are some underlying semantics I’m not sure we fully agree on, but I’m phone posting. I think we agree on the gist of it. I don’t see the Alien as an “underlying essence” but a creature with multiple life stages that form a loop. One problem here: they don't form a loop, they form a spiral. That is to say, a loop implies an original or default to return to... but every single stage of the xenomorph life cycle is an amalgamation of the xenomorph with something not the xenomorph. Presumably, just based off the movie Alien itself, it was the space jockey or some other alien being that those eggs came from. Crucially, if the xenomorph that burst out of Kane was able to successfully reproduce by turning Dallas and Brett into eggs, those eggs would not be the same as the eggs on LV-426. Because the LV-426 eggs were xeno-essence + some other unknown alien, while the eggs in the Nostromo's hold would be xeno-essence + human. It's actually even messier than that, because the pedigree of the Kane-xenomorph is like... whatever alien the LV-426 eggs were made out of + Kane himself + the egg Dallas turns into, so that new egg would actually be a hybridization of humans, whatever non-humans originally became the LV-426 egg clutch, whatever non-humans the xenomorph that made those eggs popped out of, etc etc. There is no "initial" egg or xenomorph, no pure form to loop back to. Because of the very nature of the xenomorph's life cycle, it's constantly changing, constantly picking up bits and pieces of DNA or DNA-equivalent from its victims. quote:Just for the sake of understanding, you acknowledge that Ridley Scott tried to change that narrative in Covenant, right? He tried to give the Alien a definitive starting point. They did in fact “flash into existence in an act of god”, and that god was David. But this is like saying that the Kane-xenomorph flashed into existence in an act of God, and that God was Mother. In fact, while Mother is what caused Kane and the change-essence to combine, thereby giving birth to the Kane-xenomorph that Ripley eventually blasts into space, there was a xeno-essence that preceded but also prefigured all of these mutations, recombinations, and emergent life-forms.
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Mar 31, 2021 21:09
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You lost me again, you’re coming at it from an entirely different direction that I don’t agree with, sorry. Edit— to clarify, the problem isn’t that the Alien is a continuous organism that persists through parasitic reproduction. I agree with that. The problem is that Covenant tries to give it a definitive start point, and that start point was 20 years before the first movie. Again, you can see why one might object to this idea, right? Yes or no will do.
Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Mar 31, 2021 |
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Mar 31, 2021 21:13
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Xenomrph posted:You lost me again, you’re coming at it from an entirely different direction that I don’t agree with, sorry. Can you explain what you don't agree with? I feel like I'm making pretty unobjectionable descriptive statements about the film Alien. The monster in the movie was created through a combination of an alien substance with a human named Kane. In a deleted scene, the monster (which is now part foreign, part human) combines its substance with more humans, such that the eggs it makes are made partly from humans. Where's the lie? What I'm saying is that you're factually wrong that "a definitive start point" even makes sense as a phrase to apply to the xenomorph, because the xenomorph was never a closed loop with a definitive "true" form. This is implicit in the first three movies; hell, in the very first movie.
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Mar 31, 2021 21:25
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Yes or no will do. Edit— you kind of implicitly said “yes”, if that helps.
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Mar 31, 2021 21:28
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I can see why someone might object to the idea, but that "why" is specifically that they are confused and haven't really thought hard about the subject matter. As I keep telling you, your framing doesn't actually make sense - there is no "definitive starting point" egg, no "definitive starting point" xenomorph, because the xenomorph is inherently and unavoidably different with every generation. The eggs on LV-426 had never existed before and never will again, because they came from the recombination of a slightly different xenomorph with some kind of human or alien, and their progeny will themselves combine with some other human or alien as they continue the cycle of reproduction. It seems to me like you dislike what I'm saying on an emotional level but can't really figure out why I'm wrong, so you're trying to dodge around it.
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Mar 31, 2021 21:53
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So yes, then. All I needed to hear. Also I understand it just fine, and no there’s not some kind of emotional response going on here. No need to psychoanalyze me, thanks.
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Mar 31, 2021 21:58
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To be clear, I don't see why someone who understands the subject matter would object to the idea. You're operating off of the mistaken assumption that there is such a thing as an original egg or an original xenomorph, but since there isn't, it doesn't actually make sense that you would classify David as the creator of the xenomorph, but not classify Mother as the creator of the xenomorph, or Kane as the creator of the xenomorph. Strangely, you of all people, forums poster "Xenomrph", seem extremely reticent when it comes to actually discussing the Alien series of films. Why could this be?
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Mar 31, 2021 22:18
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Are you really this incapable of letting poo poo go?
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Mar 31, 2021 22:24
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Ferrinus posted:To be clear, I don't see why someone who understands the subject matter would object to the idea. You're operating off of the mistaken assumption that there is such a thing as an original egg or an original xenomorph, but since there isn't, it doesn't actually make sense that you would classify David as the creator of the xenomorph, but not classify Mother as the creator of the xenomorph, or Kane as the creator of the xenomorph. Strangely, you of all people, forums poster "Xenomrph", seem extremely reticent when it comes to actually discussing the Alien series of films. Why could this be? i don’t think David created the Alien, I don’t think anyone did, but Ridley Scott does and he thinks David did it and he expressed that in Covenant and then reinforced his belief in interviews. Like you, I think the idea is nonsense (although perhaps for slightly different reasons). I never said I thought David made the Alien. Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 22:33 on Mar 31, 2021 |
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Mar 31, 2021 22:29
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I definitely wish Ridley would've just not said all that stuff about the movies. I know on one level it doesn't really matter but once he said it I have a hard time just ignoring it completely.
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Mar 31, 2021 22:36
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8J8SzBhjqaQBasebf555 posted:I definitely wish Ridley would've just not said all that stuff about the movies. I know on one level it doesn't really matter but once he said it I have a hard time just ignoring it completely. the great thing is that you can happily ignore everything outside the movies. heck, you can even ignore the movies if you don't like em! i do that with James Cameron's Aliens all the time. i'm more interested in whatever HR Giger and O'bannon say about it anyways and seems like they just wanted a cool psychosexual nightmare monster. alf_pogs fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Mar 31, 2021 |
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Mar 31, 2021 22:37
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sigher posted:Are you really this incapable of letting poo poo go? I've actually found this conversation really helpful to my own thinking, particularly your comment about certain fan conceptions of The Thing. I'm realizing that Prometheus and Covenant are actually much closer to, and much more logical elaborations on, the original Alien movies rather than just being cool additions or expansions in their own right. Xenomrph posted:i don’t think David created the Alien, I don’t think anyone did, but Ridley Scott does and he thinks David did it and he expressed that in Covenant and then reinforced his belief in interviews. What I'm telling you is that Ridley Scott doesn't actually think so either. Specifically, he seems to think that David's experiments are in part to blame for the eggs on LV-426, but that just makes David one link in a potentially-infinite chain that stretches forward through Mother, Ash, and Kane but also stretches backwards through Shaw, Holloway, etc. If you can let go of the idea of there being such a thing as a definitive, initial, or original xenomorph, then you'll also be able to cheerfully accept rather than offer white-knuckled resistance to the idea that any particular manifestation of the xenomorph is somehow a specific being's responsibility. It's like the difference between Da Vinci creating the Mona Lisa and Da Vinci creating the discipline of portraiture.
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Mar 31, 2021 22:38
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Just because David bred eggs doesn’t mean he birthed the concept of eggs.
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Mar 31, 2021 22:39
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Ferrinus posted:What I'm telling you is that Ridley Scott doesn't actually think so either. Specifically, he seems to think that David's experiments are in part to blame for the eggs on LV-426, but that just makes David one link in a potentially-infinite chain that stretches forward through Mother, Ash, and Kane but also stretches backwards through Shaw, Holloway, etc. quote:If you can let go of the idea of there being such a thing as a definitive, initial, or original xenomorph, then you'll also be able to cheerfully accept rather than offer white-knuckled resistance to the idea that any particular manifestation of the xenomorph is somehow a specific being's responsibility. It's like the difference between Da Vinci creating the Mona Lisa and Da Vinci creating the discipline of portraiture. I do think that there are things that are classified as capital-A Aliens and things that aren’t (and Covenant tries to demonstrate the distinction). I’m not “letting go” of that.
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Mar 31, 2021 22:43
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It’s not exactly psychoanalysis, but it’s also very clear that there’s something strange going on. Like, for example, you have been repeating that David does a “science experiment” when David is actually performing alchemy - and clearly knows exactly what he’s doing. With this really-not-subtle spiritual aspect in mind, it’s tough to miss that David is conjuring demonic forces already latent, and not precisely ‘creating’ anything.
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Mar 31, 2021 22:48
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Xenomrph posted:He said he does in interviews. That’s what I object to. What he means by that is that David specifically created the eggs we see on LV-426. Those eggs are actually responsible for the entire mainline series of Alien movies - one of them combined with Kane in the first movie, at least one of them combines with Newt's dad in the second movie to generate a queen that proceeds to combine her eggs with more colonists, that queen lays two more eggs which get on Ripley's dropship and combine with both Ripley and a dog in the third movie, and Ripley's recombinant DNA is extracted to generate all the aliens in the fourth movie. Actually think about that for a second - every single xenomorph we've seen on the big screen, even discounting Prometheus and Covenant, comes from the same specific clutch of eggs! And yeah, those come from David's alchemy. But we know that David didn't conjure the eggs from nothing - he made his prototypical egg by taking already-existing xeno-essence and fusing it with alien and human subjects. So there's actually this enormous family tree of xeno-creatures, and we only see one tiny branch of it in the original four movies. quote:Dude I literally just bolded that I don’t think anyone created the Alien. Your problem is that you think it's possible, that it even makes logical sense to say that someone "created" the Alien. For some reason, you're drawing a bright line between the LV-426 egg clutch and everything that ever came before them, or anything besides them, and being like this, this is it, THIS is the Alien, this far and no further, nothing besides this counts. But that doesn't make sense, is totally arbitrary, and only seems to make you unhappy.
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Mar 31, 2021 22:53
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That’s not what I said at all, sorry
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Mar 31, 2021 23:44
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Ferrinus posted:Hmm, no, I disagree to disagree. In fact I disagree that we disagree As a peanut gallery spectator to this whole exchange, knock it off with this dumb poo poo. e: oh new page, you sure earned that custom avatar didn't you buddy? McSpanky fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Apr 1, 2021 |
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Mar 31, 2021 23:58
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Just about any movie that digs too deep into the origins of the unstoppable murder thing winds up robbing that mechanism of its scariness. Like, the more we know about Michael Myers, the less effective he becomes as a scary ominous force in the Halloween movies. One example. He's The Boogeyman. The end. Not some weird druid cult whatever the gently caress thing they started doing. How frightening would The Thing be if we learned everything about it and it turned out some giant dudes on a distant planet manufactured it to send to earth for reasons or whatever?
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Apr 1, 2021 00:02
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Xenomrph posted:That’s not what I said at all, sorry It's exactly what you said. You are drawing a line between official, "capital-A Aliens " and things that aren't proper Aliens. You draw the line between Aliens and non-aliens exactly at the beginning of the movie Alien, specifically between the egg clutch on LV-426 and everything that came before. Therefore, in your terms, because David is responsible for that egg clutch, he created the Alien. However, this doesn't make sense in light of your other claims, never mind what the movies teach us about xenomorphs as a whole. For example, you repeatedly mention the fact that the existence of the LV-426 xenomorph implies that there's other similarly horrible stuff lurking out there in the cosmos. But, as I've pointed out, every single xenomorph we've ever seen on a movie screen is a descendant of specifically the LV-426 brood. Has it been your impression that all the rest of the Alien setting's universe's "Lovecraftian" horrors are just carbon-copies of the specific four-legged bugs we see in Alien and Aliens? All across the galaxy, there's just this exact kind of egg that releases a spider creature perfectly sized for human throats and human faces? I realize that this is what's implied by EU material but it's actually kind of stupid when you think about it. And, again, it does not take the Prometheus movies to realize this; just putting it together in your head that every xenomorph we see is the unique combination of an alien x-factor with earthborn mammals specifically should help you realize that the actual gamut of hostile alien life must run way, way, way broader than is depicted in the movies. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Apr 1, 2021 |
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Apr 1, 2021 00:03
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You keep doing you, bro
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Apr 1, 2021 00:14
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BiggerBoat posted:Just about any movie that digs too deep into the origins of the unstoppable murder thing winds up robbing that mechanism of its scariness. Like, the more we know about Michael Myers, the less effective he becomes as a scary ominous force in the Halloween movies. One example. Michael Myers in Halloween is literally just some dude. This is the problem of obscurantism. You’ll start going on about how this person is not a person at all but a force. And, well, what do you mean by that? Do you find him charismatic or something? Why does the force drive such a lovely car? Keep in mind that we are actually given a ton of detail about the character, in the movie. Probably closer to the truth is the part where you refer to Myers as a “mechanism”. But that’s not really accurate either, is it? Myers doesn’t behave as a machine at all, and does all sort of weird idiosyncratic stuff. So what are we talking about?
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Apr 1, 2021 00:17
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Probably closer to the truth is the part where you refer to Myers as a “mechanism”. But that’s not really accurate either, is it? Myers doesn’t behave as a machine at all, and does all sort of weird idiosyncratic stuff. So what are we talking about? i think they mean MM as an example of a plot mechanism that pushes the narrative along, rather than a fully-developed character with a narrative focus. but i think in horror movies they generally function as both - macguffin and antagonist. they are tangible, real characters in their movies and stopping them from achieving their aims becomes the primary plot.
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Apr 1, 2021 00:26
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Xenomrph posted:You keep doing you, bro Here's my diagnosis: your problem is not psychological at all, but rather political. In short, rather than dialectical, you are being idealistic, and this just causes you to to get frustrated or confused. To quote a famous philosopher: The metaphysical or vulgar evolutionist world outlook sees things as isolated, static and one-sided. It regards all things in the universe, their forms and their species, as eternally isolated from one another and immutable. Such change as there is can only be an increase or decrease in quantity or a change of place. Moreover, the cause of such an increase or decrease or change of place is not inside things but outside them, that is, the motive force is external. Metaphysicians hold that all the different kinds of things in the universe and all their characteristics have been the same ever since they first came into being. All subsequent changes have simply been increases or decreases in quantity. They contend that a thing can only keep on repeating itself as the same kind of thing and cannot change into anything different. ... As opposed to the metaphysical world outlook, the world outlook of materialist dialectics holds that in order to understand the development of a thing we should study it internally and in its relations with other things; in other words, the development of things should be seen as their internal and necessary self-movement, while each thing in its movement is interrelated with and interacts on the things around it. The fundamental cause of the development of a thing is not external but internal; it lies in the contradictoriness within the thing. When you conceive of the Alien as a static ideal - which is exactly what it has to be in order to remain marketable and exclusively controllable as a brand - then ideas of ownership, origin, credit, etc. all seem decisively important. When you realize, instead, that the Alien has always been a process of constant mutation and evolution, these concerns melt away. I write all this out of comradely concern, because I think I'm coming from a very similar place as you are in terms of why the xenomorph as a narrative device enthuses me, but am actually able to enjoy it more than you do because I don't get hung up on idealized notions of what does or doesn't count, what does or doesn't get a capital A, what is or isn't truly cosmic, or whatever.
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Apr 1, 2021 00:34
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this chat has made me try and identify what's so spooky about the Alien. for me, the lack of clear motive and goal of the alien outside of 'kill and reproduce' is the scariest thing about it. it's clearly intelligent - what does it as a species want? this is a bit related: something i loved in Alien Isolation was arriving on the Anisidora, a spaceship that's visited the derelict. they have a facehugger onboard, that had laid its eggs and detached. you find an audio log saying (just like in Alien 1), "it must have died afterwards, we just locked it in this room, wtf is it, argh, etc." when you find the facehugger in the room, though, it's not dead - it's scuttling around as active as ever. it gave me the heeby jeebies and i loved the idea that maybe facehuggers don't die after impregnation: they just go into a rigid stasis, or sleep it off. forgive the gross analogy, but like a sleepy dude after ejaculation. and then eventually, they'll spring back into action. this makes it all the more horrifying: left to their own devices, these things live loving forever. they're as invulnerable to time as they are to everything else. and then you think, well what would a creature like that want? what goal does it have? not that i'm specifically interested in the answers to those questions, because as a horror fan it is better if it's something unimaginable. the idea of something ageless, that will outlive us, outlive the sun, living in the black vacuum of space - with intelligence and a goal that we can't identify - is both horrible and awe-inspiring, wherever it comes from.
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Apr 1, 2021 00:41
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I've always assumed that the xenomorph's lack of any motivation but "kill and reproduce" was sort of the point, and part of why Ash considers it the perfect organism. It's life's urge to procreate wedded to capital's hunger for valorization - and therefore it has too much life to the point of almost being an undead creature or automaton, never ever being satisfied or reaching the point of "enough". I think your comparison of a facehugger's internal cooldown timer to a sexual refractory period is right on the money.
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Apr 1, 2021 00:46
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I’m glad you’re doing this for yourself at this point to understand poo poo better or whatever but this is not as interesting to read as you think it might be.
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Apr 1, 2021 00:47
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BiggerBoat posted:Just about any movie that digs too deep into the origins of the unstoppable murder thing winds up robbing that mechanism of its scariness. Like, the more we know about Michael Myers, the less effective he becomes as a scary ominous force in the Halloween movies. One example. Also one persons idea of Michael myers is not the others. Zombies myers is a different story, character, continuity. His myers could’ve been an alien or whatever. It doesn’t matter.
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Apr 1, 2021 00:49
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I do like some level of explanation about things, but I think that's just natural curiosity about things you enjoy, which isn't unusual. Like, sure, I want to know why Micheal wanted to murder his entire family, but I'm also content with it being " I dunno" and that being the explanation.
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Apr 1, 2021 00:52
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Leavemywife posted:I do like some level of explanation about things, but I think that's just natural curiosity about things you enjoy, which isn't unusual. Like, sure, I want to know why Micheal wanted to murder his entire family, but I'm also content with it being " yeah that's the spookiest thing about halloween, that there are people out there like that
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Apr 1, 2021 00:53
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BiggerBoat posted:Just about any movie that digs too deep into the origins of the unstoppable murder thing winds up robbing that mechanism of its scariness. Like, the more we know about Michael Myers, the less effective he becomes as a scary ominous force in the Halloween movies. One example. The analogy would be basically if some space dude found a piece of The Thing that had already mutated from something else, threw it on an alien to see what it would turn into, caught it while it was turning, and sent it to earth in a ship. It doesn't really change anything.
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Apr 1, 2021 01:14
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Also, like... what if some dudes on a distant planet DID manufacture the Thing and send it here? What if we even got to see its original factory-fresh form and it was just a glistening red sphere or something? What then? Nothing, that's what. This is just a nerd cargo cult.
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Apr 1, 2021 01:15
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Leavemywife posted:I do like some level of explanation about things, but I think that's just natural curiosity about things you enjoy, which isn't unusual. Like, sure, I want to know why Micheal wanted to murder his entire family, but I'm also content with it being " Right but this is still the explanation for John Carpenter’s Michael Myers. Zombies is its own thing
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Apr 1, 2021 01:17
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