So nobody is carrying around any sort of iPad or personal smart phone type of device. The computer screens are pixelated like it's the 80's. Useless flashing knobs on walls. This was a great re-watch throughout the 90's...but now that the technology looks dated/unlikely, does the it diminish some of the movie for you?
shareHell no, the grimy vintage tech is one of the best parts of the movie and its atmosphere. Questions like this make me weep for humanity.
shareAgreed.
Is like whining about why old movies are black and white. I mean, how dated and stupid is that
There is a difference though - the old movies had a plot and a logic and reality to them. My example is "Forbidden Planet". Are you familiar with it?
Alien's plot never made sense, unless you are mindless fan bending over backwards hard enough to stick your head up your ass.
A monster that is specialized to gestate in a human host, but doesn't really need anything from it, and then bursts out killing it, but doesn't eat it. Then grows to enormous proportions by eating nothing.
Why does it need humans at all? OHHHHH, just so it can be scary in a movie for people who are so stupid not to worry about such things.
You expected deep philosophy or award winning writing from a monster movie made to entertain?
I love science FICTION, but a lot of it does't work.
But in THAT WORLD, that's how it works because we see it all happening.
Grab some popcorn and enjoy.
I didn't say I didn't enjoy "Alien" at the time, but even at the time the WWII style aviator helmets, the blinking lights in the Mother interface room, the long steaming corridors, came off as silly.
By the way, what does this even mean?
> You expected deep philosophy or award winning writing film a monster movie made to entertain?
Huh?
Darn phone typo I missed.
I meant FROM. sorry
Why are you so certain it doesn't get anything from it's host?
The way the monster seems not to have to obey the normal laws of biology is intentional and IMO makes it a very frightening enemy. The crew being limited in how they can fight it due to its acid blood, for example. And the newborn monster wouldn't stay and eat it's host when it's surrounded by much larger beings who might be hostile to it.
You make it sound like the entire ship is filled with steamy hallways. It's a few scenes and its belowdecks, where the ships engines and most of its plumbing is.
You're bending over backwards and making assumptions to see things as negatively as possible.
I don't have to bend anyway - the logic to the movie is ridiculous.
shareYes ... It's stupid to the point of being moronic. It was clever script writing for a horror movie with novel monster effects, but it's over 40 years old. Same reason something like "Forbidden Planet" does not have the original punch it must have had back in 1956.
I'd love to see the promised re-make of "Forbidden Planet" ... but an "Alien" remake I don't think would work - it's played out, and the sequels aside from "Aliens" have been stupid. The whole premise and logic of "Alien" never made sense anyway.
I'm curious what you would want from forbidden planet remake?
I still enjoy the original, dated and all, as is.
If love to see a sequel in that exact same universe, maybe slightly updated.
The message in that movie is extremely relevant to today ... I think when you look at it clearly, the powerful are like Morpheus ... they just think of stuff ( mostly toxic, dan gerous, evil, and stupid stuff ) and it affects all the rest of us ... like it is killing us off. Monsters from the id ... exactly.
shareThe movie is from 1979, so no.
shareright but we are also not quite sure what equipment is required for deep, deep space travel.
yet.
I never understood the need to have our movies, our literal art, to mimic our true lives. And to disregard them if they don't hold up to whimsical evolving standards of acceptable convention. When we hold no other art form to that standard. Get rid of those shitty pyramids! They look nothing like sky scrapers! They're shit!!!
shareI don't think it detracts from the movie at all. Like another poster said, it takes place in its own universe.
I do think its a little funny how some people try to explain away how dated the technology is my blaming it on the ship being a towing vessel, pretty much. What did they do, scavenge old IT from museums and junkyards? Even the lowest end flatscreen monitors made today, in 2024, are far superior to what they have on the Nostromo.
There's just no reason for them not to have modern technology like tablets, only more advanced. Other than the fact that it was a movie and made in the late seventies and some things held up better than others.
The movie looks great anyway, only now it looks more vintage than futuristic in some ways.
Since "the computer screens are pixelated like it's the 80's [sic]", and the movie was made in the '70s, they did a pretty good job. I don't really care what they look like. The story is what matters, and it's scary as hell now, just like it was over forty years ago.
shareI should have said "pixelated like it's the 80's at the latest". Those screens didn't last very long in history. But, of course, I'm not sure how they could have either envisioned or built a more futuristic flat-panel in the 70s. I'm not ripping on Alien like some think, I was just curious if the dot-matrix style devices now feel out of place for a futuristic movie.
One of my favorite movies is "Children of Men" but it still bothers me a bit that their "future" had a lot of old fashioned newspapers in it. In fact, the newspaper industry was at the start of their downfall when this movie was made...they maybe should have seen that one coming a bit more than they did. "Minority Report" was on the right track with newspapers being gone but made a hilarious-in-hindsight error...They still had the paperboy "deliver" the electronic newspaper iPad-type of device to your home each morning! Again, probably should have thought that through a bit more and realized that a new one wouldn't need to be delivered each day, that one device could simply update itself throughout the days and years. The paperboy even threw the device in the front hedges like he was delivering a paper in the 80's, lol!