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Branais (73)
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I always thought Margaret was quite beautiful, for the style of her time. She was certainly more elegant, glamorous and photogenic than her sister.
But as time went on, and she realised more and more that her life had never been within her own grasp. a certain light went out of her eyes, and her looks went with it. I suspect she died of sadness as much as anything else.
I've just rewatched it, and got a chuckle from Bedford's comment that he had shown scientists his film footage from the Moon, but "They told me I'd faked it in a movie studio!" ;-)
>> "David was way up in his ship"
An Engineer ship, which would have contained all the information he needed on this colony. And I don't remember the exact words, but I'm pretty sure the dialogue makes it clear David didn't just end up at this planet by happenstance -- he had an intention.
David makes it clear he thinks he's the inheritor of the Engineer legacy, and he intends to experiment with what that legacy makes available. He does say that by wiping the planet clear of the lifeforms that were there when he arrived, he has been able to create a new and connected ecosystem of life.
But I don't think we can be surprised such issues aren't more clearly explained. One of the recurring complaints about these most recent Alien films is that they don't indulge in a lot of wordy exposition.
"Lol" ?! Don't be a jerk.
Well put, AtomicReturns.
Also, David said he'd learnt from the Engineers that sometimes, in order to create, you must first be willing to destroy. As you say, the people David killed were another seeding by the Engineers -- not Engineers themselves -- and as such they were in the way of David's plans. He wiped the ecosystem of the planet, to clear the decks for the new order of life he was developing. From that first conversation with Weyland, David was driven by exploring the role of Creator.
The crew wasn't there to propagate, though. They were there to get the colonists safely to their destination, by working as a stable, loyal team. It was mentioned in the dialogue, I think -- and certainly was in Ridley Scott's commentary -- that the crew was made up of people in committed relationships as stable personalities and to foster loyalty among the crew without love rivalries starting up.
The colonists were a different matter, since as well as needing world-building skills, they *were* there to reproduce.
Also, it was inevitable, once the colony was established, that some kids would be born gay themselves. It made sense for there to be some older gay people in the colony as role models for these kids too.
I agree, Daisy_Mabel. I think people often assume such concepts are recent because they themselves have only heard of them recently.
Agreed, aliholly. I've read that the studio felt the novel (both of them, since there are actually two slightly different versions) was too "European" in tone for American audiences. So they tried to make it American-friendly, as they saw it, but based it in Edinburgh as something exotic that Americans might still relate to.
In thoughts of what-might-have-been, the 2008 remake with Brendan Fraser was originally intended to be a faithful version of Verne's novel, done in a Victorian-era steampunk style. I would so much have liked to see that!! But the studio got nervous and decided there wasn't a market for it, and wanted it to be a kids' movie instead; it had the script rewritten, and when the bloke who had originated the project couldn't agree with the changes, he was forced off the project. The end result made money at the box office, but to my mind it was boilerplate crap.
In an interview he did for "Death on the Nile", he was asked why he gave Poirot a French accent rather than a Belgian one, and his answer was that, in his experience, most Belgians liked to think they sound French, though they get annoyed if someone actually mistakes them as such. ;-)
There's a new, restored version just been released by StudioCanal on Blu-ray, and it looks great. It's currently only available on Region B, in the UK and Australia.
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