Ripleys escape

I for one certainly believe the Alien is not a natural lifeform and is infact created by these space jockies

If the xenomorph were engineered to be a Mayfly organism it would explain it's ability to grow from it's larval state into a fully mature warrior in a matter of hours. It's metabolism is geared towards reaching maturity at the expense of a prolonged gestation and lifespan. Rather like scrubbing bubbles with ferrocerramic teeth.

[quote]I remember reading somewhere that the only reason Ripley is able to defeat the Alien is that it was engineered to only have a limited life span.It does seem sluggish at the end of the film. This does make sense i suppose, the space jockies use these 'Bio-weapons' to do a job and then they expire,leaving the space jockies nothing to clean up i.e. dangerous Aliens running free. What are your thoughts on this concept?[/quote] I had never really thought about it like this but it really makes sense, good call!

Yeah definately makes sense but sadly the expanded universe material and sequels kind of kills that idea. In Aliens the xenomorphs have been at the colony for weeks.

I have stated before that Aliens 'killed' a unique creature by turning it into a giant ant.The original concept of the Alien was completely different from what was created later in Aliens. The Alien originally self reproduced (no queen) and was an engineered weapon that had a limited lifespan. Please people,forget what has happened in Aliens and the rest of the fast money franchise! Ridley Scott has already said hes going back to the basics which is why Prometheus is been billed as NOT an alien prequel,so all the Cameron faithful dont get upset when the Queen and the hive mentality dont make an apperance.

I hope, in Prometheus, they haven't done anything to contradict the other alien films because it'll just make an even bigger mockery of the franchise. I really didn't like Alien Resurrection because ironically it didn't resurrect the franchise- it nearly killed it- and I didn't like what they did with the alien versus predator films, especially requiem. That film was dreadful

Alien is the root film, forget Aiens and the rest of the films made. There will be no Queen in Prometheus! Giant bugs in space.....what a joke! Cameron stick to your own films,Terminator and Avatar!

Sorry to disagree Thadus12 but Aliens is quality!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The third and 4th in my opinion killed off the franchise. It couldn't have been that bad a film. The concept that grew into Aliens spawned graphic novels that people loved worldwide. I agree wholeheartedly that Alien is AMAZING of course but lets not dish the dirt on Aliens so quick.

Dont get me wrong CarterJ, Aliens was well made and shot etc, but the original story premice was rewritten,as soon as the queen was introduced it took the story to another place entirely.Ask any true Alien fan and they will agree Aliens did more harm than good, and to leave HR Giger out of the alien design for Aliens is pure madness.Thats just my opinion...

I loved both Alien & Aliens, you just have to view them as two separate genres. Alien was a pure horror flick whereas Aliens was an all out action film. However, I do have to agree with Thadus12 that the introduction of the hive mentality in Aliens did disspell the mysterious aspect of the Alien itself. That was what made the first one so intense, is that you didn't know what it was doing off screen or what made it tick. They did effectively kill the series with the 3rd & 4th movies but that's a whole other debate for another day. The one thing I think the "Alien" concept had working against it is that the creature itself eventually got over-exposed as more sequels came out and of course the AvP movies, basically reducing the creature to a caricature of itself and not something to be terrified of anymore. The only way to really turn the series on it's head is to start over and do a fresh take on the creature, which is a brilliant idea by Ridley.

Both good points. And I tend to agree in some aspects. I think that is the good thing about these debates. I personally think that Aliens is probably one of the best sequels ever made in that it didn't repeat what the first film did and expanded the original idea into something else entirely that the audience had never saw or expected to see. Maybe because I marginally enjoyed Aliens more could sway my opinion that way. Regardless it doesn't mean that you guys are wrong, on the contrary your points are well valid and you will probably get more people agreeing with you rather than me but rest assured Alien is and always will be a benchmark for sci-fi films everywhere. Lets just hope Prometheus is as good as we all hope.

I'm right there with you CarterJ. I've never been more pumped for a movie like this in a long time. I just hope my exceedingly high expectations don't get the best of me when going to see it. Being that this is Ridley's first sci-fi in almost 30 years I'm sure he will approach this project with as much enthusiasm that he did with Alien and scare the hell out of us in all new ways. I don't think he will disappoint us.

Thadus, To answer your question, they needed an end to the film (quoted directly from Scott). About the points of considering the films as separate genre's. You guys seem to forget that the film is written, and its not written by the director its written by the screen writers. Its the Directors job to make the movie within view point of the script that the writers are trying to portray. I so get tired of hearing the bashing of the other Alien films "because they weren't directed by Scott" If you didn't like the films go talk to O'Bannon and Shusett they wrote the Alien Anthology. Not Cameron, Not Scott, Not Fincher (Note Alien 3 was brought on by Ridley's comment about the alien taking the host form aka Dog Alien) See Link and go to 5:40 [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYTfpF02L-0&NR=1]Alien Design 2 (Youtube)[/url] Alien: Truly Mindblowing Sci-fi Work for the Era. I really think its better than Star Wars. Aliens: Logical follow through from Scott's work on Alien. Although the Alien Queen seems too topsy turvy, cumbersome, and too marionette'd. I really do love the action spin-up taking it from Suspense to Action. Alien 3: See Link to Youtube on Scott's quote about the Dog Alien and good logical ending to the Trilogy. Alien: Resurrection: I agree with everyone on Alien: Resurrection I can understand the route they took needing to bring Ripley back, but still disagree with it. This totally killed the film for me. Ripley was dead let her rest. AvP's: Ok, Really?, Game Geeks United?, Nuff Said on That I also remember reading somewhere quoting from Scott that the Aliens sole purpose is to reproduce and that's that. Much like a Wasp see's a Spider as a Host for its young. So all the movie's really link back to Scott's work so he has touched on every film in a way. So why detract from Cameron when Shusett and O'Bannon got the idea from worms burrowing into the skin and using hosts which is insect behavior. Which Cameron portrayed rather well in Aliens. Regards, Rick

I bash Cameron because he wrote Aliens along side Giler and Hill,O'bannon and Shusett had nothing to do with it.Aliens is Camerons vision,not what was originally intended. It was Shusett's idea about the face hugger and chestburster, he's never said he got the idea from insects,it just came to him late one evening, watch the 'Alien Evolution' documentary

Alien. Story by O'Bannon and Shusett Screenplay by O'Bannon Aliens. Story by Cameron and Giler & Hill Screenplay by Cameron Alien 3. Story by Vincent Ward Screenplay by Giler,Hill & Ferguson Alien Res' Story by Joss Whedon H.R.Giger only worked on Alien and Alien 3

Thanks Thadus12 for setting the record straight. I think if one wants something to look to for an idea of what Ridley might build on in Prometheus they should read the original [url=http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/alien_early.html]Alien script[/url] It lays out the Alien life cycle completely. Another good resource I stumbled upon about Alien: [url=http://alienexplorations.blogspot.com/]Alien Explorations[/url] Where another particularly good explanation of the Alien life cycle can be found [url=http://alienexplorations.blogspot.com/2010/03/dan-obannons-original-story-behind.html]here[/url]

You're right about the screenplays. I just went and looked through them all. On that link I put out there Ron Shusett and Dan O'Bannon did talk about getting the idea from worms burrowing and erupting from the skin on the chestburster. Scroll the time back to 5:15-20 just before Scott talks about the Dog Alien. This is where Scott starts talking about macro photography regarding worms and their complex life cycle, followed by Ron and Dan's idea for it.

That's a possibility. Maybe there's something in our Genetic Memory that was coded into our DNA that the Space Jockeys need as a catalyst to kick the Alien Genome off. Could be some lost technology that the Space Jockey's used and lost over time.