Aliens and Predator

[Shit Good Nose]

The biggest influence and direct predecessor was the alien in Dark Star (they even bothered to explain why it was onboard), also written by Dan O'Bannon. For Alien they took out the comedy and injected lots of horror.

I would also go further and say if - IF - you wanted to criticise it for any kind of derivativeism, the slasher film might be more accurate than haunted house.


Also important to note that Ebert later revised his opinion of the film and included it in his Great Movies.

[NoSleep]

I added to my post:

And the ship is the Narcissus, which probably gets its name from Joseph Conrad's dodgily-named novella about being stranded aboard a (sailing) ship.

Yes, there's a lot in common between Alien and Black Christmas (1974); the way the killer hides in the house and picks off each of his victims and stores their bodies out of sight.

[Funcrusher]

And the ship is the Narcissus  Nostromo, which probably gets its name from Joseph Conrad's dodgily-named novella about being stranded aboard a (sailing) ship.

[NoSleep]

Shit... of course...wrong Conrad book.

[NoSleep]

Turns out that the escape craft was named Narcissus. The Alien franchise turns out the be a Conrad-fest.

In Ridley Scott's classic Alien (1979), the spacecraft is named the Nostromo; the escape vessel is named Narcissus, an allusion to another of Conrad's works, The n**ger of the 'Narcissus'. In James Cameron's sequel Aliens (1986), the Marine transport vessel is named Sulaco. Furthermore, appearing in the video game Aliens: Colonial Marines, a vessel of the same class as the Sulaco is named the Sephora, a reference to Conrad's The Secret Sharer.

[Bad Ambassador]

Edit: someone else pointed it out.

[Bad Ambassador]

I would also go further and say if - IF - you wanted to criticise it for any kind of derivativeism, the slasher film might be more accurate than haunted house.


Also important to note that Ebert later revised his opinion of the film and included it in his Great Movies.

Halloween was released after Alien was shot, so it's less likely to have had an impact. And just because something's derivative doesn't mean it can't be brilliantly crafted and hugely effective - like Halloween in fact. But to claim it to be a completely original story without precedent is not really accurate.

AE Van Vogt sued Fox for plagiarism, claiming that Alien was a deliberate ripoff of his novella Discord in Scarlet - also about an alien that attacks a spaceship and lays eggs inside the crew. The studio settled out of court.

[NoSleep]

Black Christmas (1974) is the original slasher. Halloween is more than a little influenced by it. And Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974).

[Bad Ambassador]

Black Christmas (1974) is the original slasher. Halloween is more than a little influenced by it. And Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974).

The original slasher is arguably Psycho, which was a massive influence on Halloween and TCM, but it was Halloween's massive success that made the genre a bankable prospect, rather than an occasional string of independent drive-in programmers.

Black Christmas was fairly obscure on its original release in the US, and didn't make much money. It's unlikely to have had much impact. Frankly, TCM feels more like a haunted house film than a slasher.

[NoSleep]

Black Christmas has more in common with Alien than all of the others you mention. A list of most popular films is probably not the best way to work out what filmmakers find interesting from a particular period. For instance, Martin Scorsese is a big fan of World's Greatest Sinner, which isn't winning any popularity polls.

And TCM is definitely no haunted house movie.

[Bad Ambassador]

Black Christmas has more in common with Alien than all of the others you mention. A list of most popular films is probably not the best way to work out what filmmakers find interesting from a particular period. For instance, Martin Scorsese is a big fan of World's Greatest Sinner, which isn't winning any popularity polls.

Box office, rather than popularity. And what other films did I mention, apart from Psycho and that wasn't even in connection with Alien? You can draw comparisons with Halloween, but they were shot almost simultaneously.

[Thomas]

Still don't understand what Bill Paxton's character is referring to when he says 'gay moaver man, gay moaver'.

Is it explained in Prometheus or Covenant?

[Replies From View]

It's "mauver" as in "a person fixated with the colour mauve".  "Gay mauver" is one of the most famous tautologies in cinematic history.


Yeah it's explained in Covenant.

[Shit Good Nose]

Halloween was released after Alien was shot

Ohhhh, there were a LOT of slasher films before Halloween came out.  Plenty that predate Psycho as well.  They just weren't called slasher films at the time.  Any number of giallos for a start.

[NoSleep]

Box office, rather than popularity. And what other films did I mention, apart from Psycho and that wasn't even in connection with Alien? You can draw comparisons with Halloween, but they were shot almost simultaneously.

Why would box office be an alternative to popularity in trying to dismiss what I said? Filmmakers are probably far more interested in innovation and developments in the art form than the average punter however popular they were at the time. So it still stands that I'm sure Dan O'Bannon (who was involved with similar low-budget project at the time) would likely know of a film like Black Christmas, made in 1974.

[Bad Ambassador]

Some people get really upset when others offer different opinions, or correct easily checkable facts.

[NoSleep]

I'm not upset, just stating the obvious; filmmakers have a different criteria for watching films than the average punter. Not rocket science to understand this. For some reason you think the opposite of this, which is rather odd.

[Bad Ambassador]

I'm not upset, just stating the obvious; filmmakers have a different criteria for watching films than the average punter. Not rocket science to understand this. For some reason you think the opposite of this, which is rather odd.

I was using a lot of "possibly" and "unlikely" qualifiers when making my point for that exact reason, rather than just being a patronising cunt who can't remember basic facts about the films he's talking about.

[NoSleep]

Is this because I forgot that Narcissus was the escape vessel? Oh dear.

[Bad Ambassador]

It's more to do with acting like the Arbiter of Correct Opinion on a film about which you can't remember basic details.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

He's not the arbiter. He didn't win the quiz.

[Shit Good Nose]

He's not the arbiter. He didn't win the quiz.

That's right.  That was me.

[Brundle-Fly]

That hospital scene in AVP: Requiem (2007) is one of the most stomach-churning moments I think I've ever witnessed on screen. It felt too much for essentially, an action movie.

https://www.joe.ie/movies-tv/revisiting-a-scene-so-disgusting-and-bad-taste-that-it-nearly-destroyed-two-beloved-sagas-641244

[NoSleep]

It's more to do with acting like the Arbiter of Correct Opinion on a film about which you can't remember basic details.

Come again? Which basic details are we talking about? The number of ghosts in Alien?

[SavageHedgehog]

That hospital scene in AVP: Requiem (2007) is one of the most stomach-churning moments I think I've ever witnessed on screen. It felt too much for essentially, an action movie.

https://www.joe.ie/movies-tv/revisiting-a-scene-so-disgusting-and-bad-taste-that-it-nearly-destroyed-two-beloved-sagas-641244

Yeah I agree, too much. AvP 2 is one of those modernish sequels\reboots that thinks it can "fix" the prior entry by responding to only the most shallow criticisms. AvP got flack for being PG-13, so AvP-2's main selling point is being a really hard-R movie, even if it's more Friday the 13th than Alien or Predator. But even Jason stayed away from babies (I think).

I think the first AvP is kind of fun if you take it as a 50s-style B-movie monster mash up, but that's not really what anyone would expect or want from an Alien or Predator team up, even if the idea is too silly for anything beyond video games to suit either franchise.

[Shit Good Nose]

In that scene's defence (and I am NO fan of the film), if a xenomorph/predator hybrid WERE to find its way to earth and end up wandering into a hospital maternity ward, I doubt it would walk away and leave them be cos babies and pregnant women mate.  Its actions in that scene make complete logical sense given the nature of the animal, and it's the next logical horrific step from giving birth to an alien - giving birth to an alien that's eaten/absorbed your own baby.  I think it's a nifty idea, and of course it's going to be grim.

[Johnny Textface]

I've not read the whole thread but I expect there are a number of contrarians that think Aliens is better than Alien 3. Alien 3 love is, of course, the new normal (yeah but Fincher). OK let's have a read...

[Replies From View]

In that scene's defence (and I am NO fan of the film), if a xenomorph/predator hybrid WERE to find its way to earth and end up wandering into a hospital maternity ward, I doubt it would walk away and leave them be cos babies and pregnant women mate.  Its actions in that scene make complete logical sense given the nature of the animal, and it's the next logical horrific step from giving birth to an alien - giving birth to an alien that's eaten/absorbed your own baby.  I think it's a nifty idea, and of course it's going to be grim.

yeah there's a lot of what-ifs when you make a shit movie and it must seem tempting in that context to end up making a lot of shit scenes that make logical sense within the shit premise

probably though it's best not to make the shit film in the first place.  this is the rocket science bit I think.  "make shit film? y/n"  hit 'n' and make a good film instead.

maybe someone in hollywood will read this post one day and i will make a million bucks off of it

[C_Larence]

You also have to consider the fact that the hospital scene is one of the only visible scenes in the whole movie, the rest of it filmed in almost total darkness.

[Kelvin]

From that article:

Having watched films for over 20 years, that hospital scene is still the most horrific, nasty, disturbing, bad taste, negligent, malicious and unnerving thing that I've seen at the cinema.

20 years of watching films? Was he just watching the same film over and over again? Absolutely ridiculous article.