 |
The World's Largest Coalition of Nontheists and Nontheist Communities!
Genre Movies You Hated, Even Though Everyone Else Liked Them
Alien (1979)
Heresy! Blasphemy! Doesn't everyone like this movie? I didn't. If a film is going to scare me, it has to make me believe what's going on in order to set me up for a good fright. I stopped believing in the plot and characters of Alien very quickly. Some of my issues:
o Nostromo is a deep-space ore ship? Did we use up all the minerals on the moon and in the asteroids?
o What's the safest way for non-explorers to investigate something on an unfamiliar, hostile planet? You all get into the shuttlecraft and crash on the surface, leaving no one back on the ship except the cat. Brilliant.
o Speaking of the cat, could someone tell me how he closed himself in that small locker so that he could jump out and scare the crewman? Do cats evolve thumbs and sense of humor in the future?
o The final scene aboard the escape shuttle is a real puzzler. Apparently a well-designed shuttle contains an assortment of poisonous gases that you can easily release into the passenger compartment...just in case.
I really wanted to like this movie; it remains a visual wonder. But I left the theater that day feeling cheated. I think we're all accustomed to cutting film-makers a bit of slack, but there were just too many times during this movie when I thought, "Oh, come one!" One faux pas was not fatal, but together they ruined the movie for me.
Heresy! Blasphemy! Doesn't everyone like this movie? I didn't. If a film is going to scare me, it has to make me believe what's going on in order to set me up for a good fright. I stopped believing in the plot and characters of Alien very quickly. Some of my issues:
o Nostromo is a deep-space ore ship? Did we use up all the minerals on the moon and in the asteroids?
o What's the safest way for non-explorers to investigate something on an unfamiliar, hostile planet? You all get into the shuttlecraft and crash on the surface, leaving no one back on the ship except the cat. Brilliant.
o Speaking of the cat, could someone tell me how he closed himself in that small locker so that he could jump out and scare the crewman? Do cats evolve thumbs and sense of humor in the future?
o The final scene aboard the escape shuttle is a real puzzler. Apparently a well-designed shuttle contains an assortment of poisonous gases that you can easily release into the passenger compartment...just in case.
I really wanted to like this movie; it remains a visual wonder. But I left the theater that day feeling cheated. I think we're all accustomed to cutting film-makers a bit of slack, but there were just too many times during this movie when I thought, "Oh, come one!" One faux pas was not fatal, but together they ruined the movie for me.
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Johnny on -
ah, great point hahahaha but that seems like something you analyze AFTER a movie. I didn't know all that about minimum calories so i got the benefit of ignorance =)
plus the food would be horribly scarce due to lack of sunlight. any food would have to be something like artificial supplements derived from stem cell recreation of extinct nutrients from fossils or something created in a lab, though those would STILL require energy from the humans to produce and would waste all the energy. how complicated hahaha. good thing i didnt think about it too much when I was 12 or so.
though... to be fair, it didn't say they were the ONLY power source, so perhaps they found a way to quickly pressurize and form fossil fuels... though that would require organic matter... BAH forget it. why am I analyzing this? it's a movie that made me think when i was a preteen. FORGET IT! I liked it! =D
hahaha -
-
Permalink Reply by Jason Spicer on -
Yeah, it usually doesn't pay to overanalyze movies like this, but if I happen to notice when I'm watching the film, it kinda wrecks it for me. Like I say, though, I enjoyed the first Matrix movie.
-
-
Permalink Reply by Little Name Atheist on -
But, seriously, it's hard to think of less efficient batteries than human bodies. Particularly if you have to spend a lot of that power computing the individual realities for all those Cartesian Brain-in-a-Vats(TM)
Heh. Which part of science fiction didn't you understand?
I agree, but I'm fairly good at suspending disbelief when I want to be. -
-
Permalink Reply by Johnny on
-
oh come now. there's a time to think deeply and a time to BLOW SHIT UP to some heart pumping music. As long as it isn't overly cliche and has some new over the top stunts (like the matrix's motorcycling backwards through traffic) fight scenes can be awesome.
-
-
Permalink Reply by Jaume on -
a time to BLOW SHIT UP to some heart pumping music.
Oh yeah: 'heart pumping' music in movies - yet another pet peeve of mine. Except I usually give it an entirely different name. -
-
Permalink Reply by Little Name Atheist on
-
Except I usually give it an entirely different name.
Please, tell... the suspense is killing me! -
-
Permalink Reply by Johnny on
-
how do you get it to go upside down and backwards like tha when posting? =O
-
-
Permalink Reply by Jaume on
-
Simple Unicode character mapping.
If you're only interested in the result, the easiest way is to use one of the many upside-down converters on the net (example), and copy/paste from there. -
-
Permalink Reply by Seamonster on -
There's this little indie film that was made on a shoe string budget that anyone I've ever met who has seen it loves, it's called Primer. Not only do I not think it's one of the greatest genre movies ever like everyone seems to think it is, I think it's one of the shittiest movies I've ever seen. First off, the acting is terrible. It's so bad that the lines make no sense because the actors don't enunciate their lines correctly. The time travel device is never explained, and since the main characters are only going a few days back in time you can never tell when they're in the past or present. I guess that's sort of the point, but it makes a story that's already confusing almost impossible to follow. Towards the end one of the guys goes ape shit and beats the crap out of somebody but it's never explained or even speculated about. The problem is that it's really important to the plot. I feel like an observer just watching chaos unfold in front of me, it's stupid.
Going a bit more mainstream here though, I have to say that Gattica is really over rated. The problem is with me, not the movie. I can see how some people would love it. It's just too boring. I mean, not every sci-fi movie needs to be wall-to-wall gun fights and space battles, but if you're going to go the non-violent route you should for something like Star Trek IV. Star Trek IV actually has tension and a somewhat frantic atmosphere. It distracts you from the fact that no one gets killed in that movie. I think the most violence you see is when the whale biologist slaps her boss across the face. I know Star Trek IV and Gattica are apples and oranges, but both are morality plays in a way. One is entertaining and engaging, the other is boring and poorly paced. -
-
Permalink Reply by Jason Spicer on
-
I've never seen Primer, but the Wikipedia entry makes it sound a bit like a cross between Office Space and The Fly. Which come to think of it, could be brilliant.
Time travel stories almost always disappoint in a blaze of causality failure. The only exception that springs to mind is Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, which resolves the paradoxes by making fun of them. Time Bandits might be another exception. -
CONNECT WITH ATHEIST NEXUS
Latest Activity
- Top News
- Everything
Madhukar Kulkarni liked matthew greenberg's discussion YES!!!! Wolf Blitzer asked the wrong person if she thanked the Lord....Madhukar Kulkarni liked matthew greenberg's discussion YES!!!! Wolf Blitzer asked the wrong person if she thanked the Lord....
 |
 |
 |
 |
© 2013 Atheist Nexus. All rights reserved. Admin: Richard Haynes.
