[HN Gopher] Ridley Scott's Prometheus and Alien: Covenant - Cont...
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Ridley Scott's Prometheus and Alien: Covenant - Contemporary Horror
of AI (2020)
https://web.archive.org/web/20251012183954/https://www.ejump...
Author : measurablefunc
Score : 50 points
Date : 2025-10-12 17:23 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ejumpcut.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ejumpcut.org)
| jmclnx wrote:
| > Ripley defeat the alien queen
|
| What is it with "queens" in SF ? Off to a rant :)
|
| IMO, adding a queen to the Borg destroyed the Borg. I was really
| intrigued by the Borg as presented in their first appearance. If
| you remember, they had a nursery with Baby Borg and a collective
| conscience, no individuality. Then came the queen, the ruler of
| all with some people having a "higher rank". Totally made the
| Borg irrelevant to me.
|
| There was a TV show about an invasion of Earth, it went along
| fine until the last season, a queen was added, I could tell it
| was rushed and doing that changed its direction.
|
| Same can be said about Independence Day, even though I did not
| like the queen addition, it did not take away from the whole
| movie and in a way a "queen" in that context made a bit of sense.
| The only thing is, if the Queen was killed, wouldn't that end
| these Aliens ? To me, a queen should not leave the home planet.
|
| Alien movies were too much for me, things popping out of
| someone's belly would be a "close my eyes" type scene. But I
| really liked Promentheus. I did not realize until much later that
| was a prequel to Alien :) And I still think it is a good movie.
| righthand wrote:
| Well in the case of the first Alien movie, the whole thing is a
| left-then-right metaphor about conception, birth, motherhood,
| and gender roles in biology. If you were alive when it
| originally came out you wouldn't know that Ripley is the true
| lead of the film (a now commonly known fact about the
| franchise). This idea plays off of scifi with male leads. The
| film then does A LOT to foreshadow Ripley as the lead and
| mother figure. So in the case of Alien it was a statement on
| traditional science fiction films. The Queen was added later in
| the sequels on an evolution of the birth theme.
|
| A queen in Alien universe doesn't operate like ants do. She is
| just the largest most vicious female amongst the brood.
| hnspammers wrote:
| > If you were alive when it originally came out you wouldn't
| know that Ripley is the true lead of the film
|
| ?
| throwawayk7h wrote:
| I think they meant "wouldn't have known." The ensemble cast
| didn't really give contemporary viewers purchase on who
| would ultimately be the one to survive by the end of the
| film. Nowadays, many viewers go into the movie already
| knowing that Ripley will be the one to make it through,
| which makes it easy to see her as "the main character."
| Baeocystin wrote:
| Ripley being the survivor was a rug pull on the audience's
| expectations. Tom Skerritt (Dallas) was a well-known actor
| at the time, and would have been assumed to have been the
| default lead.
| jjmarr wrote:
| In the marketing materials, Tom Skerritt got top billing as
| Dallas. He's also the captain of the ship.
| speedbird wrote:
| Gotta have a boss fight at the end
| pixl97 wrote:
| >What is it with "queens" in SF
|
| Insects. Queen bees, queen ants, queen termites. Feels nice an
| icky to humans.
|
| Now, SF mostly gets this wrong as isn't that much of a leader,
| more of a 'starter' and many species have multiple queens and
| when one gets killed another is promoted from larva. This and
| the vast majority of behaviors are self organizing, and not
| ones from a leadership position.
| TOGoS wrote:
| > adding a queen to the Borg destroyed the Borg
|
| Agreed. The Borg used to be scary because they seemed
| unbeatable. They were like grey goo that could adapt to
| whatever you threw at them.[1]
|
| Having a queen gives them a single point of failure. Suddenly
| they are a lot less scary.
|
| [1] I kind of felt the same way about the Boogieman from Ghost
| Busters when I was a kid. Teleports between closets and the
| regular ghost trap doodad doesn't work on him! Shit!
| labrador wrote:
| Pink Freud: The Dark Side of Your Mother
| jancsika wrote:
| > IMO, adding a queen to the Borg destroyed the Borg.
|
| Having more than one episode about the Borg destroyed the Borg.
|
| 1st appearance: there are some things out there that human
| civilization isn't ready for. You wanna see an example? You
| really wanna see? Okay, you asked for it. _OMG it 's the Borg!_
|
| 2nd through Nth appearance: _Demystifying Borg Internal APIs_
| pols45 wrote:
| Private Hudson arc is the main show -
|
| "I'm ready, man. Check it out. I am the ultimate badass. State of
| the badass art. You do not want to fuck with me"
|
| "Well, that's great. That's just fuckin' great, man! Now what the
| fuck are we supposed to do? We're in some real pretty shit now,
| man!"
|
| "That's it, man. Game over, man. Game over!"
|
| "What do you mean they cut the power? How could they cut the
| power, man? They're animals man!"
|
| "They're coming outta the walls! They're coming outta the goddamn
| walls! Let's book!"
| louthy wrote:
| You mostly missed: "why don't you put her in charge?!".
|
| Mostly.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Such a great actor. RIP.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Very true. Hudson the character is deeper than what you see
| at first glance - always complaining, but apparently very
| competent and (barely) keeping it together.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7qCwofjymM
| andy99 wrote:
| It's down for me right now. See
| https://web.archive.org/web/20251012183954/https://www.ejump...
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! we'll add that link to the toptext as well
| jader201 wrote:
| TIL: Ridley (one of the main alien villains, and sometimes a
| final boss) from the Nintendo video game franchise, Metroid (that
| originated in 1986), was named after Ridley Scott.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ridley_(Metroid)
| reactordev wrote:
| Alien: Earth was the dumbest addition to the franchise. Hybrid
| synths that can "talk" to the aliens... pffft. Off the rails.
|
| The last few films were of similar ilk. Prometheus started it
| with their David narrative. Just terrible writing.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| Being a good fiction consumer requires offering the benefit of
| the doubt up to a reasonable/personal limit of suspension of
| disbelief. The missing piece with that show is inconsistent and
| shallow character development. Lost (prior to the later
| season/s) is probably one of the better examples. It's still
| watchable but it could be better. Maybe they'll sort it out.
| grues-dinner wrote:
| That's the thing, though. Gigantic spaceships, alien
| panspermia, stasis pods, human-passing androids, underground
| alien bases, convenient maps in caves. All that disbelief can
| be suspended.
|
| A handpicked team of professional astronauts on an
| interstellar mission being a bunch of complete incompetents
| over and over again for plot convenience is the real
| headscratcher that eventually makes it feel like the plot is
| an afterthought and makes you disengage from the film as a
| story rather then just pretty pictures.
|
| It's a pattern you see a lot especially in sci-fi and action,
| and it's annoying because it's not like you couldn't have the
| glossy visuals or set-pieces if you also had coherent plots.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Exactly. If human characters don't react like real humans
| would, then that is much harder to 'justify' or 'suspend
| belief' about.
|
| Lets take our helmets off in a unknown hostile enivroment?
|
| Lets play with giant worms with teeth, as if in real life
| those things wouldn't scare the crap out of you even if
| they weren't alien.
| mbreese wrote:
| Hubris is a tough drug to kick. If you were a biology
| officer on a spaceship with a bunch of fancy tech, why
| wouldn't you think you could poke and prod a giant alien
| worm? Part of the story is that everyone thinks that they
| are in control until something happens, they realize
| their mistake, and then they probably die.
| like_any_other wrote:
| > why wouldn't you think you could poke and prod a giant
| alien worm?
|
| Because 90% of the average moviegoing audience got it
| right. You can invent tortured reasoning for why a
| biology officer on a spaceship with a bunch of fancy tech
| would be dumber than the bottom 10% of humans, but the
| real explanation is just lazy/incompetent writers.
| scotty79 wrote:
| > handpicked team of professional astronauts on an
| interstellar mission being a bunch of complete incompetents
| over and over again
|
| It's set up in the future. Observing current trends it's
| quite realistic for everyone to be really, really dumb by
| then.
| smcin wrote:
| Agreed. Necessary suspension of belief vs unnecessary and
| contradictory.
|
| For an in-depth list for 'Prometheus': "Red Letter Media
| talks about Prometheus"
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x1YuvUQFJ0]. (To what
| extent were those due to Lindelof, not Scott?)
| veganerfotze wrote:
| Two (one bad, the follow up crap) forgettable movies.
| measurablefunc wrote:
| How is that relevant?
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| Not every comment need be about a fanatical robotic
| optimization for "relevance". Half the interesting on this
| site would disappear otherwise, you realize? Besides, what's
| wrong with mentioning how crappy these movies are (they
| really do suck) in a post that specifically names them?
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| And downvoted. Some people who comment here seem to have
| the conversational development of a pre-AI phone support
| bot (at least the newer ones can pretend to be slightly
| chatty). I do feel sorry for the social scenes that need to
| endure your presence.
|
| Can just picture it: Bill from accounting casually mentions
| the new barbecue he installed because some water cooler
| talk about home repair reminded him of his yard, only for
| one of you to snap in with "How is this relevant?!"
| smcin wrote:
| "Could you substantiate that opinion?" is a better way to
| generate discussion.
|
| (and FrustratedMonky's comment
| [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45561992] is useful
| discussion.)
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| So much wasted potential. I'll take any article or theory to
| retcon the movies into something that makes sense.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| Sci-fi is a manifestation of society's diffuse subconscious in
| mostly semi-lucid nightmares.
| mmargenot wrote:
| I had the good fortune of seeing Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm in a
| theater and then going to watch Prometheus within the same two
| week span. It gave me a much greater appreciation for the movie
| [Prometheus], and what it was trying to do.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Best creators are a little mad. Their best work is usually early
| work when their madness is tempered by limitations and other
| people around them.
|
| But when success comes they become too big, rich and influential
| and their next movies are pretty much whatever they want them to
| be. And they are crap, because pinch of salt of their madness
| becomes whole dish.
|
| It happened with Ridley Scott, George Lucas, Neill Blomkamp,
| probably some others.
|
| It's also said that a director makes the same movie for entirety
| of their career. It's very visible in case of Ridley Scott. His
| later movies hit again and again the same perverse things that he
| consistently finds exciting.
| Razengan wrote:
| By the way, anyone else craving some good new alien/sci-fi movies
| right now? Or got any good ones to share from the last couple
| years?
| dcminter wrote:
| Not an action movie, but I enjoyed The Pod Generation sci fi
| flick a lot a year or two back:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pod_Generation
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(page generated 2025-10-12 23:01 UTC)