1/6 1/6 Hot Toys: Ellen Ripley - Alien - Collectible Figure

[Wor-Gar]

Re: Hot Toys: Ellen Ripley - Alien (Updated with new prototype HS)

You're being too literal regarding Rosemary's Baby. It's just the general notion that something so nefarious could be gestating inside of a human.

As for the James Arness The Thing, you're essentially confirming my original point, in that Alien can be considered derivative.

Well, the gestation thing was only 20 minutes worth of a whole movie. I've never heard Alien pitched that way before.

I think Ash said something similar.

That was the beauty of it.

 

[YankeesFanboy]

Re: Hot Toys: Ellen Ripley - Alien (Updated with new prototype HS)

Well, the gestation thing was only 20 minutes worth of a whole movie. I've never heard Alien pitched that way before.

Which is why Alien would have been a disaster if it had been placed in less capable hands or if the cast hadn't been as talented.

 

[VintijDroidGutzz]

Re: Hot Toys: Ellen Ripley - Alien (Updated with new prototype HS)

The Alien in Alien was a humanoid bug with a lil' mouth in his mouth that came from a facehugger having it's way with a crew member that came upon it from an egg. The guy goes around causing a ruckus by killing/raping/eating it's prey and occasionally (as the deleted scenes shows), makes some love goo to put people in to incubate them. It dies when a flamethrowin' lady goes around and cleans up it's mess, but wait, it's not dead! Surprise! It's really on board with her until she sends it off floating into deep space.

The Aliens in Aliens were humanoid bugs with lil' mouths inside their mouths that came from a facehugger having it's way with a colony of people that came upon eggs. The guys go around causing a ruckus by killing/raping/eating their prey and occasionally make love goo to put people in to incubate them. They die when a flamethrowin' lady goes around and cleans up their mess, but wait, there's a Queen, a big momma just like Ripley. Surprise! She killed it! Not! It's really on board with her until she sends it off floating into deep space.

Eggs, facehuggers, lil' mouths within mouths. Whatever. Same humanoid bug (or sexually organic, giger weird ****). Difference is, in film one, there's one and in film two, there's a lot. If I'm a monster/animal/whatever, I'm going to act differently when I'm on my own in a small, claustrophobic ship than I would if I'm hanging out with all my bros in an open environment taking on the military. People can act "buggy" and hive minded too.

Seems to me like people have this weird idolization or primadonna thing with the first Alien or Terminator. They're put on a pedestal and it's like somehow, there can't be more of them, and if there are, they're not as bad ass or as cool as the first. I don't get it, it's silly when we're dealing with creatures that can be remade, either through birth, or in the case of the Terminator, assembly. We never saw the Alien do anything extraordinary except grow from a phallic looking alien that burst out of a man's chest, which turned into an adult sized space monster that went around killing people (assuming it has the intention of surviving and procreating like any living being). Yes, it was special because it was the first, but there were also hundreds/thousands of other eggs there, all with facehuggers. The sequel deals with the "what if" of that and we have a little colony of people that helped give birth to more monsters. It's not about the "mysterious" Alien, but about Ripley going back and facing those demons again (just like T2 isn't about the Terminator or how "bad ass" he is going in and killing a lot of cops, it's about Sarah Connor overcoming her nightmare and making peace with her prejudices).

Enough.

The original Giger concept was based around a 'biomechanoid' idea; exotic, beautiful, grotesque, overtly sexual - all rolled into one. Scott took to it immediately after seeing his work, & so an iconic partnership was born.

Cameron bug-gerized it.

..& you're welcome.

G-zuss, stop encouraging him would ya!!?

 

[DiFabio]

Re: Hot Toys: Ellen Ripley - Alien (Updated with new prototype HS)

Enough.

The original Giger concept was based around a 'biomechanoid' idea; exotic, beautiful, grotesque, overtly sexual - all rolled into one. Scott took to it immediately after seeing his work, & so an iconic partnership was born.

Cameron bug-gerized it.

Nope, they were still all those things.

https://www.jamescamerononline.com/AlienWarrior.htm

If anything, the slight tweaks closely resembled the original paintings even more.



Also dis,


RIDLEY SCOTT: 'It's like a rather beautiful, humanoid, biomechanoid insect.' (Making of Alien)

RIDLEY SCOTT: "I wanted them to be insect-like. Like an ant, because if we examine an ant under a microscope they're kind of elegant. And I wanted him to be elegant and dangerous." (The Alien Saga Documentary)


Good day!

 

[BuGz]

Re: Hot Toys: Ellen Ripley - Alien (Updated with new prototype HS)

I built Cameron Aliens and there are only slight mods to the suit. But still resembled Gigers. Just more practical.

 

[BurningRage]

Re: Hot Toys: Ellen Ripley - Alien (Updated with new prototype HS)

Watched the movie again. Now I want the figure.

 

[VintijDroidGutzz]

Re: Hot Toys: Ellen Ripley - Alien (Updated with new prototype HS)

Nope, they were still all those things.

https://www.jamescamerononline.com/AlienWarrior.htm

If anything, the slight tweaks closely resembled the original paintings even more.



Also dis,


RIDLEY SCOTT: 'It's like a rather beautiful, humanoid, biomechanoid insect.' (Making of Alien)

RIDLEY SCOTT: "I wanted them to be insect-like. Like an ant, because if we examine an ant under a microscope they're kind of elegant. And I wanted him to be elegant and dangerous." (The Alien Saga Documentary)


Good day!

Fair enough..

My point though, is more that the 'bug' thing wasn't spotlighted too much in the first film - it was an 'unknown' being more than anything.

The second film turned it into WWIII inside an ant farm.

 

[bigbisont]

Re: Hot Toys: Ellen Ripley - Alien (Updated with new prototype HS)

Fair enough..

My point though, is more that the 'bug' thing wasn't spotlighted too much in the first film - it was an 'unknown' being more than anything.

The second film turned it into WWIII inside an ant farm.

I can't disagree with the idea that 'explanation' and removing the mystery lessens the horror. Ones' imagination is often scarier than anything that can be displayed visually. How many horror movies start out amazing and tense until you see the monster/ghost?! Most of them I say.

BUT. The idea a sequel shouldn't have elaborated and expanded is a bit silly. If they did everything exactly the same while not adding anything to the creature, it would have just been a cursed reboot!!!

AlienS is my favorite movie of all time (by a HUGE margin). So, I am trying to stay out of conversations that imply it was anything except amazing, but I felt the above needed to be said. Expanding on the creature was necessary to tell a new story and not just rehash the old one. The mystery was never going to be maintained without doing the exact same movie over again. Most people told Cameron when he took on the job, he couldn't win. Being a sequel automatically puts the filmmaker in a box where the purists of the original curse it for any changes while everyone else will damn him for rehashing the same old thing if he doesn't change enough to make it fresh.

 

[Khev]

Re: Hot Toys: Ellen Ripley - Alien (Updated with new prototype HS)

I think the ALIENS:SE is what really fostered the notion that Cameron turned them into bugs because of the added scene with the sentry guns. Possibly one of the reasons I prefer the theatrical edition. No aliens as shooting gallery targets. Just one ambush and then them methodically plotting how to cut the power and sneak into Operations through the ceiling.

The SE also had that awkward scene where the marines compare them to ants or bees. I think the movie is better without such lip service being given to mundane insects.

 

[abake]

Re: Hot Toys: Ellen Ripley - Alien (Updated with new prototype HS)

I think the difference between Alien and Aliens is that the former is a thriller/horror movie set in space, while the latter is an action/thriller set in space. That difference already sets the tone for each film, and that in itself doesn't make either better or worse than the other.
I will say this however, Alien has aged better than Aliens IMHO.
Cameron is a master of crowd-pleasing cinema. Aliens is a perfect example of (good) 80's movies: the one-liners, the obvious Vietnam angle, the in-your-face "message", the over the top characters... it's all there, it's what Cameron does. He makes great popcorn cinema. And that's not necessarily a bad thing (except when it gets to nauseous levels like Avatar, but that's another story).
Alien on the other hand has no one-liners, it has no over the top characterisations, it has no in-your-face "message" to deliver. You can relate to the characters in Alien, because they are written and portrayed like regular human beings. I can't really relate to anybody in Aliens, because they're pretty cartoony.
As for the mystery of the creature in Alien vs. the explained life-cycle in Aliens, well, I do like the mystery better.
In Alien you're never really sure of how intelligent the creature is, its motives are inexplicable. Is it just a monster on a rampage? Does it kill or eat its victims? Remember that first viewing experience: a guy gets face raped and then dies giving birth. You never really understand how that happened or where this thing came from, but it's scary as hell. The same is true for the creature itself. You don't really understand what it looks like at first, but it's big and scary as hell! You don't know its motives or how clever it is, and then Ash calls it "Kane's son". And you start thinking, "wait a minute, is that thing actually half human? does it have some of Kane in it?". You never know if it just ended up in the Narcissus out of sheer luck or because it knew the ship. You don't know why it undressed Lambert. Or what it actually wanted to do to Ripley. Why did it show Ripley its tongue sliding in and out?

Cut to Aliens.
The sexual tension is gone.
The mystery around the intelligence of the creature is gone (the queen clearly communicates with her children and she clearly sets an ambush for Ripley. She also clearly goes after her for revenge, something no animal does just like that).
The ambivalence about the creature's motives is gone (they are just like any other creature, killing and eating for survival).
It's just a morality play about how the brass let down the grunts who pay for the mistakes of their superiors, and how there's nothing stronger than a mother's love for her children. With lots of one-liners and cartoony characters.
And I'm not saying it's a bad movie at all, I enjoy it immensely. I don't think Cameron had too many other options to make a sequel. It's just that he did kill a lot of the mystery.

 

[Wor-Gar]

Re: Hot Toys: Ellen Ripley - Alien (Updated with new prototype HS)

RIDLEY SCOTT: 'It's like a rather beautiful, humanoid, biomechanoid insect.' (Making of Alien)

RIDLEY SCOTT: "I wanted them to be insect-like. Like an ant, because if we examine an ant under a microscope they're kind of elegant. And I wanted him to be elegant and dangerous." (The Alien Saga Documentary)

love the source material (Cameron).

Those quotes are from 2002 and 2003. Long after the "bug" thing had become more than accepted. Even Ridley has come to believe it, or he's taking credit for something he started. Either way, that wasn't the intent in 1979. I remember Alien coming out very well, and I don't remember any bug talk. They really made an effort to speak of it as a biomechanical organism and that's it. They kept it very alien.

 

[a-dev]

Re: Hot Toys: Ellen Ripley - Alien (Updated with new prototype HS)

If 'original intent' mattered a damn we'd all be talking about Starbeast and Luke Starkiller and so on. All that counts is what made it to screen. Cameron's Aliens does not contradict (and importantly was a damn good film) = canon.

 

[Wor-Gar]

Re: Hot Toys: Ellen Ripley - Alien (Updated with new prototype HS)

If 'original intent' mattered a damn we'd all be talking about Starbeast and Luke Starkiller and so on. All that counts is what made it to screen. Cameron's Aliens does not contradict (and importantly was a damn good film) = canon.

Not sure how that justifies your argument. Just because you see bugs doesn't make it so.

What's on the screen in ALIEN was in fact contradicted by Cameron -- the life cycle. You can justify it any way you want, but in the context of the original, there was no Queen, no hive, no "bugs"... it was a very simple organism; it's simplicity is what made it scary. It wasn't scary because it looked like or behaved like a bug.

 

[Khev]

Re: Hot Toys: Ellen Ripley - Alien (Updated with new prototype HS)

You know both life cycles can co-exist. It is an "alien" after all. For all we know the default reproductive cycle of the creatures is egg by queen but in the event that no queen exists (Nostromo) certain warriors can turn their victims into eggs (which then could potentially give birth to a queen.) Or maybe that isn't the default because the creatures don't like following orders and prefer there to NOT be a queen but when there are too many potential threats in the area (an entire colony of people) they arrange for one to be created in order to beef up their numbers quickly. A "shake and bake" colony of aliens, if you will.

The Queen might just be the alien counterpart to human terraforming.

Think of it like District 9. I'm sure the prawns reproduced the old fashioned way but they clearly had means through their technological goo to produce more of their kind by turning humans into them. Why? We have no idea. And that's part of the fun.

 

[Bo Shrek]

Re: Hot Toys: Ellen Ripley - Alien (Updated with new prototype HS)

Or they could have “Super Aliens” that hunt in a pack of three, always three. The “Super Aliens” are like wolves and they hunt the smaller “aliens” which are like dogs. There’s a blood feud….

 

[karamazov80]

Re: Hot Toys: Ellen Ripley - Alien (Updated with new prototype HS)

Aliens is essentially really great fan fiction. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[VintijDroidGutzz]

Re: Hot Toys: Ellen Ripley - Alien (Updated with new prototype HS)

I was previously going to take issue with Difabio's one Cameron link, followed by the cut & paste Ridley quotes, but out of laziness.. I relented.

I agree with Wor-Gor - that's my vibe as well, but Khev made a good point earlier about the theatrical release of ALIENS showing a somewhat different perspective as opposed to the extended cut. Worth considering for sure..

Look - as per Giger's art, the first ALIEN was just that - a being of unknown origin. Not a fly, not an ant, not a cockroach.

A biomechanoid.. thing. A beautiful, grotesque, frightening yet fascinating creature.

Of unknown origin.

The earlier point made about 'where else was Cameron supposed to go' in regards to a solid sequel - while I love ALIENS too (of course) & not trying to be sacrilegious at all, but ALIEN would've possibly have been even more powerful & iconic, had it been a stand alone film - with no sequel.. & I'd have been fine with that.

 

[a-dev]

Re: Hot Toys: Ellen Ripley - Alien (Updated with new prototype HS)

Spoiler

All you did is weaken a forum today. That's all you did.

 

[VintijDroidGutzz]

Re: Hot Toys: Ellen Ripley - Alien (Updated with new prototype HS)

Nah..

 

[Khev]

Re: Hot Toys: Ellen Ripley - Alien (Updated with new prototype HS)

Khev made a good point earlier about the theatrical release of ALIENS showing a somewhat different perspective as opposed to the extended cut. Worth considering for sure..

Thank you. Remember that in the theatrical cut the word "queen" is never actually mentioned. Just "so who's laying these eggs." "We don't know, it must be something we haven't seen yet." As opposed to Hudson foreshadowing the look of the queen by indicating that she's merely a "badass" ant, "I mean big." In the theatrical cut you are just braced for something you haven't seen, then they do that awesome slow reveal of the egg sack, then that giant spindly monstrosity and THEN the queen's mouth descends and you finally see that she has features somewhat like those of her offspring. It was very well done.

I think people also forget that ALIENS predated Platoon by a couple months and was THE first movie to show true documentary style war combat. It isn't some dated 80's action movie, it's Black Hawk Down but with monsters and spaceships. I guess Cameron could have tried to match the artistic style of ALIEN but who wants "The Thin Red Line" in space? No thanks.