Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
Day 355: Though the fabric is still in fine shape, I’m afraid the print on this shirt is degrading to the point where soon it won’t be remotely legible. So, for posterity: The “coexist” is made up of the Death Star, the One Ring, a xenomorph, the X-Files ‘X’, the Tardis, Shazam’s bolt (not a lightning bolt scar, though it is often mistaken for that), and a Star Trek Type TOS II phaser.
Memory: The Origins of Alien (2019): ⭐️⭐️⭐️: A neat look back at Alien, with a mix of some “making of” and some analysis of the film’s themes, where they came from, and how they’re explored in the film.
So Amazon had a really good deal earlier this week ($35 for this stack)! The Alien quadrilogy is an upgrade from the DVDs, the AvPs and Prometheus are new to my collection. No regrets. #alien #aliens
One of my favorite geek shirts; unfortunately, it’s showing its age and is getting a little harder to decipher. Need to see if I can track it down to buy another one. (241/366) #coexist #geek #nerd #fandom #starwars #lordoftherings #lotr #alien #aliens #xfiles #drwho #harrypotter #shazam #startrek
I don’t think I’ll ever cease to be amazed at how strongly the mind can react to things — and which things it chooses to react to.
I’ve always had an extremely active imagination, a quality which has both good and bad points. Growing up, I often retreated into my own little fantasy worlds instead of dealing with the real world around me, and that’s something that has never entirely ceased. While I’ve long since ceased hiding within myself as an escape from things I didn’t want to deal with or as a defense mechanism, I can’t say — and really, I wouldn’t want to — that I’ve ever ceased letting my imagination run away with me from time to time.
Walking down a hallway, someone might notice a small twitch of my hands from time to time, though it’s most likely they wouldn’t. Just a small gesture, perhaps just stretching my wrists a bit, nothing really worth paying attention to. Of course, that’s only because they can’t see the blast of power I just released careening down the hall, rushing past them, sweeping papers and debris in its wake as it crashes into the locked gate at the end, bursting it open with a horrendous shriek of tearing metal as the hinges shatter and fall to pieces.
People passing me on the streets at night never know of the creatures stalking them. Wingless batlike creatures the size of large dogs, walking on their forelegs, hind legs slung up and over their shoulders and terminating in wicked-looking claws. Needle-sharp teeth beneath an eyeless face, the cries of their sonar echoing from building to building as the pack converges on another unlucky derelict passed out in an alleyway. Curious how few rats this section of the city has.
Okay, perhaps it’s a little juvenile. Silly daydreams built on many years of fantasy and science-fiction novels. That doesn’t make these worlds any less fun to play in from time to time, however.
When I was younger, my fertile imagination would often get the better of me. Certain television shows would keep me up for nights. The Incredible Hulk — or the “crumbly hawk”, as I deemed him — was an especially potent terror for a time. I didn’t see Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller‘ video until long after it was released when I was only nine years old, and even into my early teen years, horror movies were a rarity.
I once tried to watch the sci-fi horror movie Lifeforce during one of HBO’s promotional free weekends after our family got cable, because of the naked lady at the beginning — but all puberty-driven fantasies were driven violently out of my head when she sucked the very life out of some poor hapless man, turning him into a horrible desiccated corpse before my very eyes, and I don’t think I slept well for a month afterwards.
Even the trailer for Gremlins was enough to give me nightmares when I saw it, and I never saw the movie in the theaters. I read the novelization to try to get an idea of how the movie was, and oh what a mistake that was. At one point in the story, the gremlin Stripe escapes from being studied by a teacher in the school’s science lab. While in the movie Stripe simply jabs the teacher with a single hypodermic needle, the book described seven or eight needles, maybe more, being stuck into the teacher’s face. It was literally years before I got the nerve to watch the movie (and then was somewhat chagrined to see how tame it was compared to the images I’d had seared into my brain when I read the book).
As I grew and began to be better able to separate the fantastical worlds inside my head from the real world around me, I started to develop a fondness for some of the more disturbing images that I hadn’t been able to cope with as a child. I started watching all the horror movies I’d heard about for years, but never been able to watch. Dean Koontz, Stephen King, Clive Barker, and other similar authors started appearing on my bookshelves. The Alien movies introduced me to the artwork of H.R. Giger. Discovering David Cronenberg‘s films led me to Naked Lunch, and then to the literary work of William S. Burroughs. My musical tastes, while never having been particularly mainstream, started skewing more towards the gothic and industrial genres. Black soon became the dominant color in my wardrobe.
Finally being able to explore and embrace this darker imagery helped me a lot through my teen years, and still does today. While I wasn’t always the happiest teenager around — I had more than my fair share of whiny, angsty moments — I never ended up succumbing to the depression that so many other people seem to. I’ve never been suicidal (in fact, quite the opposite, as I’m somewhat frightened of death, and have never found myself in a situation where suicide seemed like an even remotely good idea), and while there were certainly some stumbling blocks over the years, I think I’ve ended up becoming a fairly well-rounded and well-grounded adult (oh, lord, did I just admit that I’m an adult?).
I have my ups and downs, same as anyone else, of course, but on the whole, I’m a fairly chipper and easygoing guy (chipper…who talks like this?). That “dark side” is still there, of course, manifesting itself primarily through my tastes in music, movies, and an often bitterly bleak sense of humor, but rather than dominating my personality, it’s just another aspect — and, importantly, one not incompatible with a love of childlike (and sometimes childish) silliness (a double feature of Hellraiser and The Muppet Movie isn’t something I’d find particularly unusual, for instance).
For all that, though, there are times when my imagination can still play games with me. What it latches onto now, though, aren’t the fantastical elements of horror movies. I can watch Freddy suck Johnny Depp down into his bed in a geyser of blood, watch Pinhead flay the flesh off of Frank’s recently resurrected body, or watch Jason skewer horny teenager after horny teenager without batting an eye — heck, I enjoy ever last little blood-soaked minute of it, and sleep soundly as soon as the movie is finished.
What gets me now are the real possibilities — and, more specifically, the really realistic situations, as redundant as that might sound. Kill Bill, for all the hype it got over its extreme amounts of blood and gore, didn’t bug me simply because it was so ridiculously over the top (in a good way) that I didn’t feel real. It may have been live action with real flesh and blood actors, but it felt like a comic book, and so my brain quite happily filed it away with all the rest of the blood and gore from all those silly horror movies.
It’s when it’s something that could conceivably really happen that I get the willies.
Pulp Fiction is a great film, and The Rock, while certainly not great, is a lot of fun. Those two films have one very important element in common, though: an adrenaline shot straight to the heart. I can’t watch either movie without cringing and turning away as the needle plunges into the character’s chest and into their heart — heck, I can’t even write this paragraph out without rubbing my own chest due to the sympathy pain I feel.
Last week Prairie and I watched Deliverance, which I’d never seen before. Just after the disastrous run through the rapids as the boats break apart and the men go tumbling over rocks and down the river, Burt Reynolds pulls himself up and out of the water onto a rock, revealing the compound fracture sending his legbone tearing through skin and muscle and jutting out the side. “Oh, God,” I said — if it was even formed into actual words — and immediately curled into a ball on my side, rubbing my calf as my oh-so-eager-to-oblige imagination sent spasms from my own suddenly shattered body up my leg.
Tonight — because I’m apparently a glutton for punishment — Misery was the movie of choice. Okay, I knew the hobbling was coming. Even without having read the book or seen the movie before (that I can remember, at least), that scene is so much a part of pop culture that it would be nearly impossible to really be taken by surprise when it comes up. That certainly didn’t make it any easier to watch, however. The sickening crunch of splintering bone as the sledgehammer pulverizes his ankle, and at thirty-one years of age, I’m curled in a ball on my bed.
Honestly, in some ways it’s as funny as it is exasperating. I can laugh at the absurdity of having such a strong reaction to these things even as I’m still trying to drive the residual twinges out of my ankles. I wouldn’t trade my imagination away for anything…but I’ll freely admit that there are times when I wish I could just turn it down a few notches.
I came so close to blowing some money just a few minutes ago — if this wasn’t rent week, I probably would have.
There’s a plush Alien Facehugger available now (I saw it at Suncoast).
Plush.
Facehugger.
It even has wires run through the fingers and tail to make it posable (huggable?). Cuddle up to it, or wrap it around your skull.
Creepy. Eerie. Deadly. Cute. Cuddly.
I want!
Update: Hey, mom, dad — babies like plush animals, right? Think this would make a good first Christmas present for Noah? ;)
“Mantrap: The Seduction” by Beborn Beton from the album Tales From Another World (1996, 5:00).
Just in case any Alien/Aliens/Alien^3^/Alien Resurrection fans happen to stop by here who haven’t heard about this yet…
…you really need to hit Amazon and order your copy of the Alien Quadrilogy.
Press release with full specifications follows (though be aware that while mostly correct, it apparently contains a few inaccuracies — for full, correct specs and reviews, see The Digital Bits’ review):
A L I E N QUADRILOGY
BURSTING WITH 45 HOURS OF BONUS MATERIALS AND NEVER-BEFORE-AVAILABLE VERSIONS OF EACH MOVIE, THE DEFINITIVE 9-DISC SET LANDS ON DECEMBER 2, 2003
Fox Home Entertainment Sets The DVD Bar With Ridley Scott, James Cameron, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Original Film Editors, Five FX Companies And More To Deliver The Ultimate Alien Collection
CENTURY CITY, Calif., — The Alien Quadrilogy is hatching! The ultimate nine-disc Alien DVD collection, loaded with never-before-available versions of each movie, plus a bonus disc, explodes on December 2, 2003 from Fox Home Entertainment. Featuring 45 hours of never-before-seen footage, the Alien Quadrilogy includes the original theatrical releases of each of the four films in the franchise plus alternate versions of each film and out-of-this-world bonus features including new director commentaries, original screen tests and production footage. A ground-breaking initiative from Fox Home Entertainment, the significant under-taking marks the first time a studio’s home entertainment division has finished a theatrical film (Alien3). Working closely with Directors Ridley Scott, James Cameron, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, original film editors, and teams from Fox Restoration, Fox Sound, Visual Effects houses, TCFHE and the DVD producer coordinated the restoration of original footage, reconstruction of original audio, new visual effects and foley work, and much more to allow fans to experience the Alien franchise as never before. The most highly anticipated box set of the year is set to infiltrate homes this holiday season with a suggested priced of \$99.98 U.S./\$139.98 Canada.
On January 6, 2004, the Alien singles DVD discs will land. The two-disc Collector’s Editions of Alien, Aliens, Alien3 and Alien Resurrection will be loaded with the never-before-available versions of each film, plus commentaries from the world-renowned directors, behind-the-scenes featurettes and much more for a SRP of \$26.98 U.S./\$37.98 Canada. Pre-book date for the singles is December 10, 2003. The Alien Quadrilogy bonus disc is exclusive to the box set.
DVD SPECIAL FEATURES
Presented in English 5.1 Dolby Digital (except for Alien and Alien Resurrection, which are also presented in English 5.1 DTS), French Dolby Surround (Canada only) and Spanish Dolby Surround (U.S. only) sound. All films are anamorphic widescreen with their original 2.35:1 aspect ratios (except for Aliens, which is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio) and THX certified.
ALIEN
- The original 1979 theatrical version of Alien and the 2003 Director’s cut
- An introduction by Director Ridley Scott, Dan O’Bannon, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt and more
- Brand new commentary by Ridley Scott and the technical crew
- Nine brand new documentaries:
- “Star Beast” — On developing the Alien story
- “The Visualists” — the direction and design of the film
- “Truckers In Space” — Casting the movie
- “Fear Of The Unknown” — Behind the scenes at Shepperton Studios in 1978
- “The Darkest Reaches” — Developing the Nostromo and Alien planet
- “The Eighth Passenger” — Creating the Alien
- “Future Tense” — Focusing on the music and editing of Alien
- “Outward Bound” — Peering into the film’s visual effects
- “A Nightmare Fulfilled” — Reaction to the film’s opening
- A Multi-Angle Scene Study on the Chestburster sequence with optional commentary by Ridley Scott and the production team
- Sigourney Weaver’s original screen test with optional commentary by Ridley Scott
- Seven deleted scenes with a deleted footage marker and deleted scene index
- The first draft of the screenplay by Dan O’Bannon
- Ridleygrams — Original thumbnails and sketches by Ridley Scott
- Storyboard Archives
- The Art of Alien including a cast portrait gallery, production gallery, the sets of Alien, H.R. Giger’s Workshop, continuity polaroids and VFX gallery
- The original theatrical posters and stills from the premiere
ALIENS
- The original theatrical version – available for the first time ever on DVD – and James Cameron’s special edition version of Aliens
- An introduction by Director James Cameron
- Brand new commentary by James Cameron, Michael Biehn, Jenette Goldstein, Carrie Henn, Terry Henn, Lance Henriksen, Gale Anne Hurd, Pat McClung, Bill Paxton, Dennis Skotak, Robert Skotak and Stan Winston
- James Cameron original treatment
- Nine brand new featurettes:
- “57 Years Later” – Continuing the saga
- “Building Better Worlds” – From concept to construction
- “Preparing For Battle” – Casting and characterization
- “This Time It’s War” — A look back at Pinewood Studios, 1985
- “The Risk Always Lives” – Weapons and action
- “Bug Hunt” — Creature design
- “Beauty And The Bitch” — Power Loader vs. Queen Alien
- “Two Orphans” — Revisiting Sigourney Weaver And Carrie Henn
- “Aliens Unleashed” — Reaction to the film
- The Art of Aliens including conceptual art portfolio, cast portraits, production gallery, continuity polaroids, Stan Winston’s workshop, VFX gallery and premiere stills
- Deleted footage marker and deleted scene index
- Multi-angle videomatics with optional commentary by Miniature Effect Supervisor, Pat McClung
- An Easter Egg
ALIEN 3
- The original theatrical version and a restored pre-release version with more than 30 minutes of never-before-seen footage
- Brand new commentary by Cinematographer Alex Thompson, Editor Terry Rawlings, VFX Designers Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr., Visual Effects Producer Richard Edlund, and actors Paul McGann and Lance Henriksen
- 11 new featurettes:
- “Development” — Concluding the story
- “Tales Of The Wooden Planet” — Vincent Ward’s vision
- “Pre-Production III” — The making of Alien 3
- “Xeno-Erotic” — H.R. Giger’s redesign of the Alien creature
- “Production: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three” — Behind-the-scenes on the production of the movie
- “Adaptive Organism” — Creature design
- “Optical Fury” — Visual effects
- “Music, Editing And Sound”
- “Post-Mortem” — A reaction to the film
- E.E.V. Bio-Scan — A multi-angle vignette with optional commentary by Alex Gillis
- The Art of Alien 3 including conceptual art portfolio, production gallery, and visual effects
- Furnace construction time lapse
- Storyboard archives
ALIEN RESURRECTION
- The original theatrical version and an extended cut with alternate opening and ending sequences
- An introduction by Director Jean Pierre Jeunet
- Brand new commentary by Director Jean Pierre Jeunet, Herve Schneid, Alec Gillis, Tom Woodruff Jr., Pitof, Sylvain Despretz, Ron Perlman, Dominique Pinon and Leland Orser
- First draft of the screenplay by Joss Whedon
- 11 new featurettes
- “From The Ashes” — Reviving the story
- “French Twist” — Direction and design
- “Under The Skin” — Casting and characters
- “Death From Below” — Underwater photography
- “In The Zone” — Basketball scene
- “Unnatural Mutation” — Creature design
- “Genetic Mutation” — Creature design
- “Genetic Composition” — A listen to the music
- “Virtual Alien” — Computer generated imagery
- “A Matter Of Scale” — Miniature photography
- “Critical Junction” — A reaction to the film
- Multi-angle rehearsal footage
- A Mike Carro photo gallery, a conceptual art gallery, VFX gallery, a promotional photo archive and continuity polaroids
- Storyboard archives
- An Easter Egg
BONUS DISC
- A brand new Q&A with Ridley Scott
- “Experience in Terror” — A promotional featurette from 1979
- “Alien Evolution” — Channel 4 U.K. exclusive documentary on Alien
- A complete laser disc archive of Alien and Aliens
- Original theatrical trailers and TV spots from all four films
- “Aliens In The Basement” — Inside the Bob Burns ALIEN Collection
- Dark Horse cover gallery — Anthology of 11 issues of the ALIEN comics
- DVD-ROM feature — Script to screen comparisons
SYNOPSES
ALIEN
Alien is the first movie of one of the most popular sagas in science fiction history, and introduces Sigourney Weaver as Ripley, the iron-willed woman destined to battle the galaxy’s ultimate creature. The terror begins when the crew of a spaceship investigates a transmission from a desolate planet, and discovers a life form that is perfectly evolved to annihilate mankind. One be one, each crew member is slain until only Ripley is left, leading to an explosive conclusion that sets the stage for its stunning sequel, Aliens.
ALIENS
In this action-packed sequel to Alien, Sigourney Weaver returns as Ripley, the only survivor from mankind’s first encounter with the monstrous Alien. Her account of the Alien and the fate of her crew are received with skepticism – until the mysterious disappearance of colonists on LV-426 leads her to join a team of high-tech colonial marines sent in to investigate.
ALIEN 3
Lt. Ripley (Weaver) is the lone survivor when her crippled spaceship crash lands on Fiorina 161, a bleak wasteland inhabited by former inmates of the planet’s maximum security prison. Ripley’s fears that an Alien was aboard her craft are confirmed when the mutilated bodies of ex-cons begin to mount. Without weapons or modern technology of any kind, Ripley must lead the men into battle against the terrifying creature. And soon she discovers a horrifying fact about her link with the Alien, a realization that may compel Ripley to try destroying not only the horrific creature but herself as well.
ALIEN RESURRECTION
Ellen Ripley (Weaver) died fighting the perfect predator. Two hundred years and eight horrific experiments later she’s back. A group of scientists has cloned her-along with the alien queen inside her – hoping to breed the ultimate weapon. But the resurrected Ripley is full of surprises for her “creators,” as are the aliens they’ve imprisoned. And soon, a lot more than “all hell” breaks loose. To combat the creatures, Ripley must team up with a band of smugglers, including a mechanic named Call (Winona Ryder), who holds more than a few surprises of her own.
A recognized industry leader, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment is the marketing, sales and distribution company for all Fox film and television programming on VHS and DVD as well as video acquisitions and original productions for the U.S. and Canada. Each year the Company introduces hundreds of new and newly repackaged products, which it services to more than 70,000 retail outlets — from mass merchants and warehouse clubs to specialty stores and e-commerce — throughout North America. Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment is a unit of Fox Filmed Entertainment, a Fox Entertainment Group company.
I just got back from seeing the Director’s Cut of Alien — one of my all-time favorite Sci-Fi/Horror films — at the Seattle Cinerama.
The movie, of course, was excellent. The Director’s Cut isn’t that much of a change (I immediately noticed three differences between it and the original version, one of which was footage that’s been known of and previously seen as a “deleted scene” on the original Alien DVD), for me most of the fun was just being able to see Alien on the big screen, as I was far too young to do so when it was first released.
While I enjoyed the movie a lot, this was my first experience with digital projection — and I have to say, I’m somewhat less than impressed. I’m not really sure if this might be a side effect of the size of the Cinerama screen, and whether it might be less visible on smaller theater screens, but I could very easily see a vertical “banding”/pixillation/scan line effect. In shots with a lot of movement it wasn’t very noticeable, but in still shots with strong vertical lines (walls, fixtures, table legs, etc.) it was definitely apparent, and made the image much less crisp than I had expected it to be.
I also don’t know what medium the movies are read from, but I’m guessing it must be some form of optical disc, similar to a DVD (though I’m assuming with much higher resolution for theater projection). AT one point early in the film, there was a slight glitch, and it produced the same “blocking” artifact that can be seen on DVDs if they have fingerprints on them. It was only there for a brief moment, less than a second, but on a screen the size of the Cinerama, it’s extremely distracting.
Even with the slight technical oddities, though, it was a lot of fun.
The rest of this post discusses the various additions and changes in the Director’s Cut from the original theatrical release version. If you want to stay spoiler-free, stop here — otherwise, press on!
The additions I noticed:
I’m double-checking against the Deleted Scenes section on the Alien DVD I have, and it appears that more of the Deleted Scenes have been added in — I just didn’t realize it as I was watching the film, probably because I’d seen them before on the DVD. These include:
This is one of those ‘net memes that has been going on for quite a while now. Figured I’d go ahead and jump on the bandwagon.
I have such a hard time with ‘favorite’ lists — narrowing any category down to a single entry is damn near impossible. The first ones that pop into my head, though, are The Blair Witch Project, Alien, and Something Wicked This Way Comes.
What is your favorite Halloween treat?
Candy corn, definitely. Love that stuff.
Do you dress up for Halloween? If so, describe your best Halloween costume.
I haven’t in years, but I think the best I ever had was ‘The Blue Beetle’, when I was a kid. We got a blue snowsuit, and mom sewed an extra pair of arms onto it, connected to my arms with string, so that they moved with mine. I couldn’t tell you anymore where we came up with the idea for the costume, or even whether or not it had antennae, or anything else — but the costume, and especially the arms, has stuck in my brain for years afterwards, so I must have been pretty impressed by it back then.
Do you enjoy going to haunted houses or other spooky events?
Something else I haven’t done in years. I had fun going to them with friends a few times, but I think they lost their luster after a while. How many times can you walk down a dark corridor, waiting for someone to jump out and yell “BOO!” before it starts to get boring?
Will you dress up for Halloween this year?
It’s not looking like it. Again. Someday I’ll get back into it…
(Thanks to the Friday Five)