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Space Truckin' – The Nostromo (2012)
- sho_hn 11mo agoYou know, I'm sort of frustrated that all the recent entries in the Alien franchise have been nostalgia bait. At this point I've seen those corridors so often I'm tired of them. A most unwelcome dilution.
- echelon 11mo agoCameron doubled down on the aesthetic in Aliens, he just changed the genre from horror to action. Both films were "peak 80s" (Alien was '79) and just ooze with what must be the absolute pinnacle of science fiction vibes. If you haven't seen these two films, you need to fix that this week. It'll change your life. Scott tried to expand the aesthetics with Prometheus and Covenant. I felt the films did a great job of refreshing the look and feel while remaining faithful to the 80's. Unfortunately, the writing was trite and Scott's directing is averaging .200 at bat these days. Romulus was not bad, though certainly not a masterpiece. At least it was better written and had better character arcs than Scott's recent films. I'd rather have the performance of this series than whatever Jurassic Park or Star Wars have become. Predator, oddly enough, has strangely been improving if you don't count Shane Black's entry. I'm happy they keep making these, and I hope the writers and directors at the reigns keep experimenting rather than conforming to "safe" or "understandable by a general audience".
- the_af 11mo agoAlien and Aliens were masterpieces, but I've been consistently disappointed by everything after. Let's agree to ignore the awful VS Predator crossovers for a second. I'm not sure they are canon anyway, and they are obviously cash grabs and not made with the same care of even the worst Alien movies. Alien 3, while it has a cool idea (prison planet), is a mess as a result of executive meddling (the story can be read online). And they killed Hicks and Newt... bastards! Resurrection was awful and awfully badly acted. I like Jeunet, but this was a hard miss. It has some cool visuals at times, typical of Jeunet, but the movie itself was embarrassing. Prometheus was atrocious. Badly acted, badly scripted (characters making the dumbest of choices at every turn, professionals who don't know their profession -- xenobiologists who pet alien snakes, geologists who get lots at the first turn -- this has been discussed countless times). And the loss of mystery... nobody needed to know more about the Engineers/Pilot aliens, that's not how good storytelling works. Aided by technology, Scott "pulled a George Lucas" and forgot the cardinal rule of scifi horror/mystery: less is more. After this, I exercised the good sense of avoiding Covenant (the plot summary seems bad), and Romulus, and now the new TV show. I think overall the gravest sin is that the Alien universe was meant to be sketched in the broadest strokes, and details and mystery kept, not overexplained. I wish they had let the first two awesome movies rest in peace. Extended universes suck. P.S. same applies to Blade Runner. Then again, I didn't even like the sequel, so I'm sure I'll dislike the upcoming show :(
- loudmax 11mo agoI tend to agree with your take on these movies, but I find I can enjoy some of them to a greater extent by rejecting the notion of what's "cannon". For instance, I like the bleakness of Alien 3 opening with Newt and Hicks both dead. That doesn't spoil my enjoyment of Aliens, which ends on a triumphant note. These are different stories, and they can be treated on completely different planes. If you want, you can imagine the movies as representing alternate branching universes, where one branch led to Newt and Hicks dying in hibernation, and in some other branch that's too uninteresting to be put to film, they live happily ever after. I also liked Blade Runner 2049, but I don't need to retroactively reevaluate the original Blade Runner in light of any of the questions that are settled in the sequel. In Ridley Scott's original film, Deckard's humanity is still open to question, regardless of what's presented in Villeneuve's version. Of course when the sequel is complete trash, it's easy to ignore entirely. Terminator 3 being the obvious example.
- havblue 11mo agoWhile I agree that you can just mentally split the continuity and thus spare Newt from her fate, in doing so it means that the continuity after is meaningless. I did something similar with Star Trek Nemesis. It wasn't a great movie so I just rejected that Data died at the end. Everything else after is fan fiction and it's irrelevant whether there's some other android who carries his memories and returns. I think there's a similar issue with Marvel after Thanos. Not as much that Endgame was a bad movie, just that the continuity was derailed and never grounded itself. Did Vision come back? Did Loki? Is the Fox Quicksilver canon now? Eh, who knows, the "real" state of the world has moved so much that it doesn't matter anyway.
- pavel_lishin 11mo ago> I think there's a similar issue with Marvel after Thanos. Not as much that Endgame was a bad movie, just that the continuity was derailed and never grounded itself. Did Vision come back? Did Loki? Is the Fox Quicksilver canon now? Eh, who knows, the "real" state of the world has moved so much that it doesn't matter anyway. In a way, I feel like this makes it the comic-book movie that's spiritually closest to the comics.
- spankibalt 11mo ago> At this point I've seen those corridors so often I'm tired of them. Heh, I can't get enough of them; it's a great visual design template to work from. And visual consistency of properties within a diegetic timeframe has to be taken into account, even if the newer entries' writers' rooms could profit from better talent... That said, Alien: Isolation is still the best modern infusion into that universe, and one of the best games in my lifetime.
- vkazanov 11mo agoTrue, a brilliant and extraordinary game. We completed it with my kid a couple days ago, tons of fun. A perfect replika of Alien the original movie and its retrofuturism.
- the_af 11mo agoThanks for reminding me: I need to finish that game. Visually it's a masterpiece.
- evelant 11mo agoAlien: Isolation truly is an under appreciated masterpiece. One of the best video games ever made IMO. Aesthetic, sound design (put on headphones and watch the reactor purge scene or the spacewalk near the end it’s phenomenal sound design), emotional design, storytelling, it captures the setting in a way I don’t think anything has done since the first two films.
- VectorLock 11mo agoHave you watched Alien: Earth?
- sho_hn 11mo agoYes, that and Romulus is what I was thinking of. Alien Earth has that whole fanfic-style flashback episode.
- speed_spread 11mo agoI love the franchise and my will to suspend my disbelief was strong yet the writing, acting and editing were soooo bad that I couldn't make it past the second episode. And that rock song ending entirely killed whatever was left of the vibe. I'm not even sure who to blame for this mess.
- ghostDancer 11mo agoI'm a fan of the franchise but the fan service in the last movie was lame, it took me out of the movie a couple of times. And that's the reason why I resist to watch the series, afraid of more of the same stupid winks to the fans.
- evo_9 11mo agoI always loved Alien and Blade Runner because of this shared aesthetic. It gave the sense that the doomed ship Nostromo departed Blade Runner earth.
- ggm 11mo agoOwners of Frank Lloyd Wright homes licked their lips with glee when Bladerunner fans made the bricks-and-mortar movie-famous. How Deckerd can afford to live in one post economic meltdown is a bit unclear. And those whisky glasses are worth a mint now too. "Enhance" indeed.
- sorokod 11mo agoMany go off-world to create real estate opportunities?
- balamatom 11mo ago>How Deckerd can afford to live in one post economic meltdown is a bit unclear. He's part of a precarious minority of semi-technical functionaries, armed bureaucrats afforded generous promotions and great inner leeway amidst the post-meltdown order of things, in return for their unquestioning allegiance to the same
- ggm 11mo agoRetconning 2049 into that was.. Hard. Personally I prefer the PKD book. It was more nuanced. But the aesthetic of the first film was just wondeful. If somebody had sold cold cathode flouro umbrellas when the movie came out they would have cleaned up.
- balamatom 11mo ago>Retconning 2049 into that was.. Hard. After Deckard did an exemplary job, everyone liked it so much that they they replaced his entire cadre with simulacra. >Personally I prefer the PKD book. It was more nuanced. Oh absolutely! Just recently bought a fake animal and pondered it. Love PKD for selling various angles on the same trip for decades; wonder if his OG exegesis can be read anywhere...
- iancmceachern 11mo agoAlso see, but not to be confused with, Space Truckers: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0120199/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0120199/
- stronglikedan 11mo agoAn equally great movie! :ducks:
- pavel_lishin 11mo agoIt's up there with Waterworld and The Fifth Element, in that they're un-ironically some of my favorite films.
- gorfian_robot 11mo agopeople brush their teeth three times a day???
- BLKNSLVR 11mo agoIn space everyone can smell you scream
- ErroneousBosh 11mo agoHow often do you do it?
- the_af 11mo agoTwo?
- ErroneousBosh 11mo agoSo you just eat lunch and then walk around with crap on your teeth like it was perfectly okay?
- 4ndrewl 11mo agoI thought the article was great, but I couldn't get that sentence out of my head!
- Mistletoe 11mo agoYeah three seems insane but less than two also seems insane.
- stack_framer 11mo agoI always loved how the Nostoromo looked futuristic, yet cramped and dirty. The narrow halls and small rooms reflect the minimalism you would expect from a greedy corporation that considers its crew expendable, while the clutter and disrepair reflect what you would expect from the apathetic, disgruntled employees.
- phrotoma 11mo agoIn one of the myriad making of / behind the scenes docs I've watched over the years, they described how after the first set was built it was decided it should be more cramped, so they cut a horizontal swath out of big chunks of it and lowered the ceiling forcing the actors to crouch and duck as they moved around. Fantastic decision, the claustrophobia really adds to the creep factor IMO.
- Bleedblood 11mo agoIt actually is a pretty accurate reflection of the internals of blue ocean vessels.
- le-mark 11mo agoI’ve read it described as “used future” aesthetic.
- gorgoiler 11mo agoThe computer terminal with an annoying box jammed up against your right hand, but also enough space for an ashtray: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQwxhqRuCU0colccLpyaJknwvwCVjwvtN6Ojeo3Gpq7HA&s=10 https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQwxhqR... I kicked myself on the second read for missing why the title mentions trucking: it’s in the article, buried a little, but Ridley Scott called this the “truck driver” version of sci-fi. “Bachelor pad” sci-fi is another great description, and this subreddit uses the equally fantastic term “cassette futurism”: https://www.reddit.com/r/cassettefuturism/ https://www.reddit.com/r/cassettefuturism/ I think it’s why I love the Technology Connections YouTube channel too. A lot of the devices are like 1980s science fiction! (The article in this discussion mentions the set designers using rotary mechanical switches to automate blinking light patterns so, in a way, they were living in their own futurism.)
- 0_____0 11mo agoWith all the back and forth over the props, also with Ridley Scott scrapping loads of spaceship footage in order to reshoot everything after repainting the models, I get the impression that communication was quite bad in the production. I'm sure we've all encountered this in industry to some degree but having months of work tossed because it ain't look right must sting somewhat.
- throwaway173738 11mo agoSometimes you can’t predict what will work until you see what doesn’t. I’d say that if you’re really developing something new you should have that experience at least once of having something you’ve worked very hard on scrapped because it just isn’t right.
- Neil44 11mo agoI was taken by how freely they spent months of man hours on things to go 'meh' and casually throw them away. Different world. Quite holistic with their production costs
- throwup238 11mo agoOnce production starts the costs for many roles are locked in and they work till it wraps, often due to union rules and contracts. Anyone working in parallel with the film crews just does whatever the director/producers prioritizes since they’re not getting sent home. It's definitely a different world though because you’re not supposed to go under budget. If investors give you $100mil to make a movie, they want to maximize the return on that $100mil, so if you’re $5mil under budget, they want you to go and spend that money to make it even better (usually in post production now, but back then it was less of an option).
- Neil44 11mo agoThat's a great explanation thanks. There are many types of customers around and not many spend like that. They're treating it as an investment in a very direct way I guess.
- Animats 11mo agoThis look all comes from Silent Running (1972).
- usrusr 11mo agoYeah, weird how that seems to never come up. I sometimes have trouble keeping the movies apart in memory (Silent and Dark). But Alien being barely more than a higher budget Dark Star remake that somehow got stuck in the elevator scene (and lost all of the original's lightheartedness in the process), that absolutely is my favorite piece of scifi movie trivia.
- dylan604 11mo ago> But Alien being barely more than a higher budget Dark Star remake granted, but this wasn't a Point Break remake either. Dark Star is pretty much a student film turned into a blockbuster. Even El Mariachi->Desperado wasn't as different as Dark Star->Alien was.
- kazinator 11mo agoWhat a weird coincidence; I made a "Space Truckin'" comment under a YouTube vid less than 24 hours ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWDsSDNpS8c&lc=UgyEogAS5P_HmTb6SxR4AaABAg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWDsSDNpS8c&lc=UgyEogAS5P_Hm... Double coincidence: it was I who posted this ten years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9254748 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9254748
- BLKNSLVR 11mo agoTangential: Alien(s) brought H.R. Giger to my attention, for which I shall ever be thankful. My parents visited Gruyères in Switzerland a couple of years ago, and whilst they didn't tour the museum[0] (his art isn't their thing) they did take a couple of photos of the sculptures outside for me. I'll get there one day. [0]: https://www.hrgigermuseum.com/en/ https://www.hrgigermuseum.com/en/
- e40 11mo agoThat website was really frustrating on iOS, had to close it before seeing much.
- ChrisGreenHeur 11mo agoSwiss people can't ever grasp html
- omnicognate 11mo agoHTML was invented in Switzerland, albeit by an Englishman.
- ChrisGreenHeur 11mo agoyes, that's the joke :)
- ErroneousBosh 11mo agoStrictly speaking it was invented in France, although I'll grant you that depending on exactly when TimBL had the idea for it, it may have depending on which side of the office he was sitting on.
- moffkalast 11mo agoGiger art should only be enjoyed rendered on a CRT in a damp dark cave for that in-universe feel.
- virtualritz 11mo agoThere is is, Spielberg spelled wrong as "Speilberg" four (all) times in the article. Does anyone know why Americans do this regularly, swapping i and e especially in words of German origin?
- 867-5309 11mo agoperhaps due to ignorance for the mnemonic rhyme "i before e, except after c"
- dogman1050 11mo agoIt's wrong in Einstein's name, twice.
- 867-5309 11mo agoheh, every rule has exceptions
- user-the-name 11mo ago[dead]
- ralfd 11mo agoMaybe because Anglos sometimes pronounce e like i and ei is more common in english spelling for a long vocal? To be fair, German "ie" and "ei" is one of the few special rules which make no sense (or lost their sense in time). The 'e' in 'ie' is Dehnungs-e for elongation, just a notation that the i is longer pronounced (like Wiese, Biene). (Special rule: if ie is at the end of a word like familie (latin familia) often it is a diphtong and both vocals are pronounced). "ei" is a bit stupid, because it is not pronounced "ei" but like "ai" or "ay" (eg Mayer).
- Sharlin 11mo agoThe weirdest dipthongs in German are definitely "eu" and "äu". I mean, /oi/? Wtf?
- Barry-Perkins 11mo ago[dead]
- rob74 11mo agoWhat has always bothered me about this "interstellar mining" plot device (which is not only used in Alien, but also in e.g. Avatar): is it really somehow plausible to find minerals in other solar systems that can't be found much cheaper in our own solar system? Of course, you need some kind of McGuffin to justify your heroes going to other planets, but "to seek out new life and new civilizations" is much better IMHO than "just looking for substance XYZ that for some reason can't be found in our own solar system or synthesized much cheaper than the cost of ferrying it over several light years"...
- SJMG 11mo agoIn Avatar they are literally mining a room-temperature superconductor. If you had to think of a way to make interstellar mining plausible that certainly would be a candidate.
- dylan604 11mo agoThis has always been a sticky thing for me as well. These kinds of McGuffins lean towards physics are different in other parts of the galaxy/universe if there are minerals found only in certain parts of the galaxy. That would also imply there are other elements that we do not have on our periodic table. Unless someone has become able to stabilize some of the unstable elements to keep them around long enough to make some sort of material out of them, there's only so much unobtanium or dilithium nonsense I'm willing to accept.
- pavel_lishin 11mo ago> These kinds of McGuffins lean towards physics are different in other parts of the galaxy/universe if there are minerals found only in certain parts of the galaxy. Or the local conditions are such that they produce different chemical compounds. I'm not going to strike gold in my backyard, but people in Colorado might. There's not a lot of diamond production happening within reach underneath my location, but there's plenty in parts of Africa. If we want to take it to space, there's not a lot of Helium-3 to be easily extracted on Earth, but apparently there's quite a bit more on the Moon.
- 11mo ago
- alexjplant 11mo agoFor those interested Deep Purple apparently originated the term "Space Truckin'" with their identically-titled song [1]. I'd be astounded if there weren't a copy of "Made in Japan" lying around somebody's apartment when they made "Aliens". [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wv1ij7KxWc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wv1ij7KxWc
- wiz21c 11mo agoI'm happy to see they talk about Chris Foss. I saw an exhibition of him in Guernsey last year. Alhtough it's a bit dated, it's really nice to see his vision for Dune...
- shon 11mo agoI just bought this vintage magazine on eBay. It’s too good not to. There are a few more out there if you want to thumb-through the deal thing