Social Hooper McFinney's RPF Bar & Grille 6.0 " Your liver can?t repel alcoholic drinks of that magnitude!"

A perfectly apt description I think I know at one point, while watching Requiem with a friend of mine, he had said to me "I know I should feel something but...I don't." Neither did I

It was just boring

 

I'm diggin' AFAS right now.

 

I can see why

 

I personally, have been waiting YEARS for aliens to finally reach the earth, only to have the brilliant (well, I liked it) Aliens: Resurrection reach Earth's atmosphere, catch a glimpse of the planet through the clouds, then roll credits!

I for one, enjoyed Aliens versus Predator. It had heart, it was based around the (haven't a hope of spelling this) Van Dynaken theory that the pyramids were built by aliens, and so had a foundation to build the premise on, and it was on Earth.

Requiem is harder to defend, but it was on Earth, and my dream of proper Army units being up against the aliens and predators, instead of basing it out in the Arctic, was realised.
It was much shallower than its predecessor, the Yutani connection was weak as frag, and the whole end of the film was almost a carbon copy of Resident Evil: Apocalypse - go to get a helicopter in the centre of town, coincidentally, a nuke will meet you there, and the helicopter will try to race the blast to the city limits and end up crashing into a forest.

 

The weird part is, of the two films I think I respected Requiem better out of the two AvP movies. I reckon that was mostly because Requiem tried to be closer to an actual horror film, which is what I consider the true heritage of the Alien franchise. AvP strikes me as a very weak horror film, and an average-at-best scifi action film. Let me be clear: I enjoyed the hell out of Aliens, and whilst I won't say it's better than Alien (no basis for comparison, IMHO) it at least remembered to put really scary horror moments in with all the @$$-kicking James Cameron action.

And this is not to say Requiem doesn't have limitations. It's an inferior film. Alien is a horror film in the suspense genre. Requiem is a horror film in the slasher/gorn genre. There aren't too many "BOO!" moments, but there's an awful lot of "Ohmygodthat'ssofrickin'DISGUSTING!" moments instead.

So much so that I really, really, do wonder how disturbed the scriptwriters on Reqiuem were. Okay, the chestburster thing of the original Alien movies was probably bad enough for its time, but I defy anybody to have it cling to your brain quite as long as that really, really, awful, Reqiuem scene in the hospital featuring the pregnant woman. This is a PG board; those of you who've seen it will get what I mean. Maybe it's because I'm older, maybe it's because I'm married and a recent father, but that scene struck me as really crossing the line, even for an Alien movie. I've got a feeling that scene is going to be with me 'til the day I die, and not in a good way.

On the other hand, it's not like the writers didn't give me fair warning: Requiem is the first Alien movie where they kill a kid onscreen, and that happens in the first ten minutes. That should have clued me in to what was about to happen.

Getting back to what I was rabbiting on about: Requiem at least tried to be a horror film. I can respect it -- just that much -- for that. Beyond that, though, as said, the plotline did not achieve suspension of disbelief for me, and it had enough holes that you could strain tea leaves through it. And some of its more in-your-face gorn moments really just turned me off. AvP, though, for me tried too hard to stay consistent for the Dark Horse fanboys, and it wasn't a good enough horror movie. But that's just me.

 

Eh, I just didn't like those movies. Granted, the whole pyramid thing in AvP was kind of an interesting idea but the rest was pretty "meh". Didn't really like any of the characters or cared when they died, the whole human and Predator team-up was a bit cheesy, and what fight scenes they had were badly edited at times, especially that one where you had one Predator losing to the Alien. I'm still kind a bit sour over how one Alien managed to kill off two Predators just like that. I think that kind of ruined the movie for me just a little with how I was expecting some epic battles with the two alien races that had gripped me to the sci-fi genre along with Star Wars.

Instead, the race that is known for it's hunting prowess has 2/3's of it's members killed off in five minutes. Disappointing really and by then you have the team-up of the remaining human and Predator which...meh. The brief flashback you have of the three Predators battling an army of Aliens was a tease of what I really wanted to see.

Requiem, as Matt put it, was really made to be too much like a teen slasher kind of movie. Once again I didn't care at all about the human characters and it didn't help that the characters were people that you would find in a slasher flick; the hot girl, the jerky boyfriend, the little brother that likes the hot girl, etc. To further worsen the deal, I thought the movie focused too much on them and a lot less then it should on the actual Alien vs Predator action. The only bright spot was that the Predator proved to be the true bad@$$ that I had been hoping for since the first film instead of the three amateurs you got but, like I said, the lack of focus on him didn't allow you to get the most out of it.

But I think I liked it a little better then AvP for what Saint mentioned. Not only did it seem closer to the actual horror aspects that was part of the Alien franchise but you had more of the vs part of Aliens vs Predator instead of "Oh crap, one is WAY worse then the other so let's have the humans team up with that one to stop this one". It's AvP; you're supposed to have the humans hating both of the combatants as they did in their standalone films and trying not to become victims in the crossfire, not teaming up with one of them.

But, as Saint also mentioned, it focused too much on the gore at times, especially the one scene in the hospital. The previous Alien and Predator films didn't need that much gore, especially gore that was used for the sake of gore! Why have the woman be pregnant and why did you have to show the aftermath of it? In the Alien movies you had the chestburster and that was really as far as it went and even then, if I remember correctly, they only showed such a scene once or twice in each movie to give you a sense of unique horror that such a sight gave you with the franchise. Any other humans that were killed involved splashing some blood around the environment, them getting dragged off somewhere, or steamy limbs when they got some acid blood on them. But the message of horror and the intense struggle for the survival was not lessened at all. In fact, when they were dragged off to some unknown fate instead of dispatched in a fountain of blood, it heightened the danger and fear of the Aliens by playing on your imagination.

As for the Army units being up against the Aliens and Predator...I hardly call that a dream realized. In a minute the Army gets ambushed and annihilated by the Aliens and that's it for them, time for the American way of nuking the crap out of everything to solve our problems

 

That's because Alien and, to a lesser extent, Aliens, are movie horror as it's supposed to be done. Stephen King explains it more eloquently in Danse Macabre, but in essence proper suspense horror is the big bad creature tapping on your front door: it only lasts until you open the door. Because even if the monster is a ten foot tall lizard, the audience on an unconscious level is able to say "Phew! That's bad, but at least it wasn't a twenty foot tall lizard with spiked claws." Good horror writers don't open the door, or only open it wide enough so you can see the monster staring straight back at you. Doing so, the writer/director uses a form of mental aikido on you: it is your own imagined fears and ideas about how horrible the monster is that are driving your fear, not the actual monster itself. Horror writers know how to use your own imagination against itself. They let the implication of certain images or scenes do all the talking.

Best example I can come up with on a moment's notice of this actually comes from Silence of the Lambs, where we are down in Buffalo Bill's pit with his next intended victim. In the flickering torchlight, she sees nothing except a few, bloodstained marks which look a lot like those matching a girl's fingernails ... a girl so terrifed she tried to dig her way out with her bare hands, wounding herself as she did.

We never see that happen on film, because the director knows real horror is in letting you picture that in your own mind. A "gorn" director would show it in all its detail. Such directors -- brought up on a diet of Saw and CGI that now puts the most visceral sequences in budget without needing a single prop or makeup to do it -- don't understand suspense, so they have to go for the gross-out instead. And I posit most horror directors have gone that way.

 

Indeed Sad, really, that horror has come to this. I absolutely despise the Saw and Hostel films and what they embody as the deteriorating condition of the horror genre.

 

Wasn't Predator a huge step forwards in the suspense-laden horror movie? After Alien, of course.

 

Predator? I'm pretty sure it was more sci-fi and action and less suspense and horror Especially horror

 

I just meant that it sort of helped canonize the idea of gradually revealing your monster - the way the camo fails, the glimpses you get - yeah, it's not horror, but still!

 

Predator was marketed as an Arnie action vehicle. It was his face on the posters, not the alien. It's not really a horror movie as such, more a The Most Dangerous Game suspense picture. Nonetheless ... like Alien its chief antagonist achieved a notoriety far beyond what you'd expect (so much so that most people actually forget that Ah-nold was actually in the first picture). Partially that's due to its Batman gadgetry; partly it's Stan Winston's creature design, which, like the Alien, is just a gorgeous piece of work that keeps you away from wondering where the suit's zipper is.

But like the Alien, its appeal is essentially confined to its specific mode of behaviour: hunting and taking out enemies one by one. Its impact (like Batman, actually) comes from its capability to inspire dread rather than mete out carnage. It's the door getting slammed open again; the moment an Alien actually engages a Predator in combat, your brain tells you you're watching just another monster movie - "Phew! Glad they're fighting each other and not me ... although, hey ... these guys do look kinda hokey..."

 

[image=http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p266/Vegito1991/Predator_screams.gif] Muwahahaha

As terrible as the AvP movies are though, the games are fun to play

 

And the Battle at Kuat is picking up steam, even as the Duel on Ruusan begins to heat up.

Luke vs. Leia. Rahm Kota vs. Lumiya. WHO ELSE WILL SHOW UP?

 

CC Sabathia

 

As I was cruising YouTube, I came across the perfect music for what I've been planning as one of the more epic denoument (post-climax wrap-up) posts for AFaS Part II. Naturally, I had to write that post immediately.

 

Brilliant choice Matt.

Used that one in Man Cubs too. Bear McCreary's work is generally top class, but that is his best piece, IMO. Especially after I recently saw the BSG finale (took me forever to actually get round to watching it).

 

Ahh! Updates! Updates I don't have time to respond to!

Working is taxing.

(I know, I know: cry more. But still.)


And BSG music is the bomb.

 

Oklahoma weather is fun (not)...yesterday we had beautiful sixty-something degree weather, sunshine--today (the first official day of spring)...



...it's snowing.

 

Seventy-degree weather over here for today. No snow. Just clear skies and the bright, bright sun.

......................I want winter to come back

With my recent inability to wake up to my alarm and, even when I do, drifting right back to sleep a second later, I'm convinced that I'm meant to hibernate through the spring and summer and awaken upon fall and winter

 

Whirlwind weekend here...quick jaunt to the countryside to grab a few things from home (where it is still quite chilly), return to school (where it is really nice and warm), papers, charity events, gigs...it's pretty awesome, I have to say. I like being busy.

 

Sounds nice...I guess

I'm playing in a big paintball game tomorrow that's been named Vengeance of the Galarom An associate of ours known as Crazy Tony - a fan of Star Wars, cheap sci-fi movies, and propmaking - is behind the craziness of the creation so it'll be interesting to see his ideas come to fruition

[image=http://i312.photobucket.com/albums/ll340/Sarge221/galorom.jpg]



Yes he made the costume himself...among other things

 

So this 9-6 thing is surprisingly taxing.

I mean, damn ... I don't actually have that much work to do, as the AIM crowd has undoubtedly noticed, but it's tiring anyway. Gotta wake up early, sleep early, not stay up late playing videogames and RPFing ...

I know, I know, welcome to the real world. Still!

 

It be whinable though because then you don't have time to play the Dragon Age!