Alien: Earth is receiving excellent reviews

I'm a HUGE Alien franchise fan and I didn't even know about this! It has really good reviews. I'll be watching this. Thanks OP.

Here's the trailer in case anyone is interested. It looks excellent.

It's television, Jim

Its a series ........ Disappointed it's not a movie.

Anyone watching yet?

No. Next.

Don't all shows start off with excellent reviews? I can't remember the last time I saw a new release that had bad reviews.

Thanks for reminder OP. Noah Hawley has an impressive track record. I have high hopes.

Ridley Scott is executive producer so this will be top notch.

It has the 1979 look down pat.

Yeah it looks really authentic and faithful to the original Alien but also updated and modern at the same time R10.

Wow Hulu is really trying to keep me as a subscriber right now between this and the return of King of the Hill.

I just watched the first episode on FX. It's bleak and scary and very well done. If you're depressed do not watch it.

[quote]Ridley Scott is executive producer so this will be top notch.

Oh, please. His films suck now.

I was getting bored during episode one, trying to figure out why the black android and the Asian man in the spaceship are so disagreeable, watching some sick girl get her body switched into an adult with super powers, then we have to see her "learn" about having boobs now and watch old movies. Following some sad sack through rainy streets and some billionaire genius acting funky. Why is Timothy Olyphant looking like a meth lesbian or cracked out Billy Bob Thornton?

I kinda tuned out around when the alien ships started falling to earth. Guess I'll try again

I'll give it a go, but the portentous dialogue and plodding ASMR line readings in the trailer don't inspire confidence.

I like Noah Hawley, but after watching forty minutes of this I’m confused why it even exists. They spent an absolute fortune on it, well north of 250 million. It certainly looks expensive. Given the diminishing returns of the Alien movies in the past decade, it makes little sense for FX to spend that much. It’s received barely any promotion, and the promotion that it has gotten has been troubled at best with the main star not showing up to interviews because she clearly dislikes Hawley and Olyphant (who is doing some sort of weird performance copied from Guy Pearce in Prometheus.

The first episode is an uncomfortable mix of Blade Runner, Spielberg’s A.I. and a direct copy of the first Alien with multiple dumb jump scares that have no effect. I just… don’t get it. The action is dull and the talky scenes even duller. Make it make sense.

The first episodes are usually to introduce characters and plotlines. I'll give it a chance. I have always been a fan of the franchise. It's better than most science fiction out here and Ridley raised some terrifying possibilities about the future of the human race. I thought the weakest movies were the Alien vs Predator ones. Those were garbage. I never got why they literally killed children after transferring all the usable parts to the clones or who ever they are. Super Androids? This is a very dark series. I can already see that much. I don't recommend it for those who are fragile.

They had major productions issues. It’s been in production since 2020. Pandemic screwed it and then screwed again by the writer’s strike. They finally finished shooting early last summer but took another year to release. It feels disjointed to me, that’s probably why.

It was pretty engrossing story wise, and I love the characters with children’s brains and adult bodies.

I do wish the acting were at a higher calibre, which has been my big problem with a lot of the post Prometheus films. When that first chest bursted popped out in the original Alien everyone on camera looked fully and truly SCARED, and the palpability of the actors’ fear was a huge reason why the film succeeded.

The scene in this show were the female crew member was banging on the door to the control room begging to be let in because the monster was coming had zero stakes, she didn’t seem terrified to be dismembered by a lovecraftian monstrosity, instead it was as if she needed to pee real bad. Veronica Cartwright is missed.

I find it very hard to be truly engrossed in a film if the actors are bland, let alone subpar, but that's just me. I'm very finicky about audiobooks of novels for that reason. I'd rather bring the narrative to life in my head.

Fully agree that the cast from the original film was untouchable. What an amazing ensemble of stage and screen actors.

It's wonderful. I love the Alien Franchise and I loved Episode 1. More please!

Episode 2 was dropped and it's much better than the opener, IMO. I've also read the recaps on Collider and it helps make things clearer. But I am R22. This is gonna be amazing.

Finished episode 2 - so far, I'm not that invested. I count 4-5 different storylines and none of them are making that much impact on me: the black android wanting to keep the xenomorph thriving, the super kids recruited to fight aliens, the genius asshole with a God complex, the girl looking for her brother, the aliens on earth causing havoc. The thing that struck me the most is how bloody and gory the series is.

I wonder if this will skew away from the aliens and become a weekly character study with flashbacks, ala Lost.

The best thing about this is Essie Davis.

it's very bleak.

Alien was very beak R26. The whole Alien series is bleak and fatal. The aliens kill everything they encounter and the victims have almost no chance of surviving. That's their reason for existing. And if you manage to kill an alien then their blood will eat through your ship and kill you that way. Pretty bleak.

I watched the first two episodes last night and LOVED it because I really want to see what happens when the Xenomorphs escape into the general populace. I always thought that an Alien 5 could have been made picking up were Alien Resurrection left off where the ship was in the process of touching down on Earth. I really enjoyed the tributes paid to Alien and how the sets and tech all match the 1979 movie but expand on it. There's obviously been a lot of money spent on the show - I read it was more expensive than Shogun. Agree with others who have said the storyline seems a bit disjointed and what R19 posted makes that make sense. I'm looking forward to more episodes before judgement.

What grosses me out and makes it hard to watch is the very realistic way they have these mutations where a cat or some other familiar creature gets "impregnated" and something gross and disgusting burst from it. That cat licking blood was extremely gross. This series may be entirely too graphic for a TV show even if it is streaming.

Yes, no one expects graphic violence from the Alien franchise.

I was disappointed that the Versailles dinner party massacre occurred off screen

Maybe next week R30!

I absolutely love that shot of the sparks in the mirror when the soldier first realizes the gravity of the spaceship wreck.

The SFX are impressive for a TV show. I love that they kept the widescreen like a theatrical production. And the cast seems perfect for their characters. Last night's back-to-back episodes felt like a movie (without an ending, of course). I'll be watching.

Just to clarify some confusion about the various “androids”:

Androids, or “Synths” are advanced robotics with artificial intelligence.

Cyborgs are robotically enhanced humans.

Hybrids are humans whose consciousness has been transferred into the body of a synth.

R30 me too!

why would there be confusion r34, your post is almost word for word the very first piece of information we get in episode one, after the credits, before the story starts.

R36 Some posts on this thread have referred to certain characters as androids as opposed to their appropriate classification. It’s easy to get confused.

“Excellent reviews” lured me into the theater for the last Alien film and it sucked. Alien fans are easy to please as long as you stick to the formula.

For me, Alien ended with the death of Helen Ripley in Alien 3. Everything after that sucked.

Helen Died?!

R39 that's Ellen Ripley, if you please and she comes back to life in Alien Resurrection enhanced by her favorite DNA, which is a great movie.

Just call me Ripley. No one calls me Ellen.

The show's composer, Jeff Russo, does not have any formal musical training or a background in 20th/21st-century concert music, and it shows. It's all crude gestures and stock sample library aleatorics rendering pale imitations of Goldsmith/Horner/Goldenthal.

R38 Have you checked your expectations lately?

I thought the first two episodes were just meh.

The first two episodes became great when the focus was on the xenomorph and the other monsters (the eye with tentacles was creepy). But when the focus was on Wendy or the Prodigy CEO, the series became really, really dull. Wendy is not a compelling character, and neither is the CEO; both are annoying. The "child in an adult's body" plot point isn't handled well. And if your main character isn't vulnerable to the villain (the xenomorph), then there's no dramatic tension.

The violence is way more graphic than expected. The production itself looks really expensive, and the details look carefully curated. The opening scene on the spaceship evoked the original film really well.

Did the second hour get any better? I turned it off after the first one. The brother/sister thing just ground everything to a halt.

I thought the second episode was better. But that's me.

I saw the first episode. Meh

I went in expecting the level of tension you got from Alien or Aliens, or even Romulus. But this being a series, I think the first episodes are more focused on building up the main characters which ultimately worked for me. The leading brother and sister are sweet enough and smart enough that I can see identifying with them in future episodes.

R46 We don't know if Wendy and the other hybrids are going to be invulnerable. I can imagine the xeno shredding them to bits with those claws or its acid blood.

Third episode and I was feeling zero tension when the alien was threatening Wendy and her brother. But I guess we're supposed to be curious why it is not killing them outright when they are inches away.... did the alien "sense" something from them? Whatever, it's dead now. Still don't care about the genius asshole and his quest to make an alien his weapon.

Lastly, those adult actors who have to play like they're still just kids are cringeworthy. Their conversations and interactions are so bad! The red-haired girl just looks stunned and the black and Indian guys are trying too hard.

I've decided I don't like the young guy in charge, the boy genius who is inventing these clones and who is stealing the alien creatures to experiment on them. He is terribly annoying. I do like Kirsh. I hope he doesn't turn into a bad guy.

R50, I can't recall if the Alien attacked the ones in the earlier movies? Didn't Michael Fassbender's character get ripped up? And I thought the first two had injured androids? What I don't get is that thisissupposed to be taking place afew years before the first Alien movie with Sigourney asRipley. It seems like this should be happening after?

The thing is we know that the Aliens don't infest Earth because this is two years before the first Alien movie and fortysomething years before Aliens. So what's the point of this show? We know that the infestation is somehow going to be stopped. And apparently it's these retarded kids who do it.

Three eps in and it seems like this is yet another limited series that would've been better as a two hour movie.

R55 I suspect we are the wrong demographic for it. This series targets a younger audience than us old farts. Of course I'm speaking for myself. I know most of you are still in your 20's. It's so obvious.....

I am old as fuck and am enjoying it so far.

Zero tension indeed but fun to watch, so far.

The sex scene with the alien was unnecessary

I was going to avoid because it seemed a rather weak premise. It's not great so far but an unexpected surprise was the introduction of humanoids formidable enough to tangle with Xenomorphs.

[quote] The sex scene with the alien was unnecessary

R59 Where was the sex?

How did I miss the sex?

R61 it was a joke

R59 wasn't there something unnatural going on with Winona Ryder and Sigourney Weaver in Alien Resurrection? It was the 4th movie.

The third episode rather bored me. I find myself caring about the characters less and less.

It sucks ass.

There’s just no pleasing some of you old farts.

[quote] [R61] it was a joke

I actually think it was a dizzy queen who watched Alien Resurrection by mistake.

It’s like a somber reboot of ‘The Big Bang Theory’

I’m enjoying it so far with the bleak atmosphere. The Blade Runner and Peter Pan mash ups are working for me.

Is it worth coming back to? I couldn’t make it through the first episode.

It's meh so far r70

Besides the beginning with the xenomorph, episode three was pretty boring. You could have condensed the remaining 45 minutes into about 10 and not lost much.

The main mistake this show has made is to put children into adult bodies with adult actors.

I was bored and fast forwarding through Episode 2. Will I even bother with 3? There is nothing clever or surprising or new going on.

Alex Lawther is a good actor in certain roles. But he feels really miscast here.

I'm liking it so far.

In space no one can hear you say BRO (or dude!)

The xenomorph's two-jawed mouth is based on the moray eel's.

The child-like robots or whatever they're called are ruining it for me.

Yeah, they don't make sense in a story that needs to be driven by the vulnerability of its main characters to generate suspense.

I thought the first two eps were kinda meh, but I really liked the 3rd one. Timothy Olyphant is a chameleon- he was so goofy in, "The Santa Clarita Diet".

If you want to see a really good more realistic movie of what an alien might look like check out Life (2017) with Ryan Renolds and Jake Gyllenhaal. I get tired of aliens always being some guy in a costume. This move does not do that. It's more like what a possible encounter might be like.

I wish the Timothee Chalamet knock-off would put some fucking shoes on.

I thought she wasn't moving very fast when she was looking for her brother, moments after they had shown her moving super fast with her superpowers.

I also don't like the kids in the adult bodies. You just have adults talking and acting like they're retarded. It should've been adults in the synth bodies.

And the brother and sister just need to DIE already.

I loved Alien Romulus because I cared about the characters. I haven’t got an attachment to the characters in this one yet.

It's so poorly conceived I want an Alien character to root for. To dispose of some of the rotten disagreeable or deeply boring characters we are supposed to like. Am I the only one?

I'm really enjoying it so far. I must be the only person in this thread who doesn't expect this to be better than The Godfather.

I think there will be a special surprise for the CEO character down the line. He will die in an alien altercation in a spectacular way. Looking forward to that. However, as others have posted - I'm also not loving the children in the adult bodies and don't see the point of it. But I'm willing to see where it all goes. Perhaps they will mature at a sped up rate? If so they should do it real soon.

Whoever upthread recommended the film "Life", you owe me $3.89. I rented it last night and it was PURE SHIT.

I like it so far, I also thing the CEO will get it at some point. I kind of like the brother sister thing. As far the the kids in the adult bodies, as they mentioned, a young brain is open to possibility that adults are not, creativity. I get that because as someone who have worked in a creative field all my life, keeping an open to all possibility when creating things is a struggle as an older person. Your life time of experience with previous wins and failures make you want to edit or prejudge new ideas. Something kids don't do.

Something in the storyline that annoys me in this and many other films is the shoehorning of something culturally specific to our recent times in something set hundreds of years in the future. I know it’s suppose to make it more relatable to the audience, but it’s just not credible. This is set in 2120. Do you really think people are going to give a shit about specifics of baseball that happened 150 years ago? For context, how currently obsessed are you with the cultural trends of the 1870’s?

Yeah, that baseball thing was stupid, though the same thing. You just know that writer was some straight Bro assuming Field of Dreams will still be a thing 150 years in the future.

In contrast, the immature Trillionaire CEO I could totally see as a thing still happening. He's like a Mark Zuckerberg / Elon type and I have seen that charter now in a few different Sci-Fi movies. I think the days of old men who spent a lifetime obtaining wealth is over. We don't live in an industrial age anymore, everything is digital or viral type of business where wealth comes almost overnight or not at all.

[quote]For context, how currently obsessed are you with the cultural trends of the 1870’s?

Guess you haven't read any of the Gilded Age threads.

R92 - I agree, it came across like an ageing out Yankees fan wanted to leave his childhood memories as a mark in the film. The franchise has done stuff like this in the past too like using John Denver’s ‘Country Roads’ which was instantly recognised by one of the crew in the future in Alien Covenant. I agree in your second point about billionaire douches. They may well exist like that in the future.

RR3 - touché, I’m sure there is are people out there cosplaying Alva Vanderbilt on a daily basis especially after Gilded Age.

Since this take place before the first Alien movie, we can assume that Prodigy fails, and the Xenos are eradicated from earth, only for Nostromo from Weylan-Yutani to find one of them again. Possibly WY takes over Prodigy, as they have a synth on board Nostromo.

[quote]Whoever upthread recommended the film "Life", you owe me $3.89. I rented it last night and it was PURE SHIT.

What? But Ryan Reynolds was in it. How could it be pure shit? All of his movies are so watchable.

Life was not “pure shit,” Idk what that poster was talking about. I thought it was a good horror thriller and that creature made my skin crawl—I saw the film years ago and I can still see the alien in my mind. Was it a great movie? Not by most measures. But it wasn’t a waste of time, I can tell you that much. The director did a good job, the actors did a good job, it had great production value. It left a lasting impression and I enjoyed it.

The best part of "Life" was Ryan Reynolds dying a gruesome death within the first 30 minutes.

Well Ryan's character was supposed to be kind of a jackass so there is that. It was an entertaining movie. And like R2 said, the alien will creep you out. Not some stupid dude in a rubber costume.

Now if you want to see a really shitty sci-fi movie, probably the worst I have ever see, go watch Adam Sandler ins Space Man. The alien which he bonds with is a stupid stuffed spider puppet. It's almost camp level stupid without being funny, or not supposed to be.

I am not responsible for the 2 hours of your life lost if you watch it.

I refuse to watch Adam Sandler movies.

This is getti g more interesting. I don’t understand why the red headed hybrid is glitching, what she went through didn’t seem so traumatizing

The red headed chick is so ugly, like a poor man's Molly Ringwald.

An eye octopus monster trying to get into your eyeballs is not traumatizing? Especially if you're mentally a child?

Mental children should not watch Sci-Fi then.

I'm totally not invested in anything going on in this show - I tune in because I programmed it into my DVR and once I start a show, I can't help but finish it.

The B-team synth kids are the most annoying, tied with the genius butthole. The character of Morrow is going for sinister but the threat is just not there and his interaction with the blubbering Indian kid is tedious because the actor is not selling it. Can't wait until red-head girl explodes from the inside with her alien baby.

Alex Lawther is a good actor but terribly miscast as the brother. And he looks way too much like the one who plays the CEO boy genius. When they’re in the same camera shot they look like they’re related.

Essie Davis finally had something to do in this most recent episode and she’s very good. Jennifer Saunders’ husband has the easiest role in show biz-he just stands around in a few scenes in each episode and delivers aminimum of dialogue using his snobby British accent. He might as well be playing a butler.

Blade Runner vibes.

Now that they’re at a lush resort peddling basic philosophical concepts most of the steam seems to have run out and stakes are now very character-specific.

This universe works much better on ships and wrecks, where danger is always a hop and a skip away.

That they’re giving these creatures elements of personality has long been considered sin in Horror.

La Marcy is Kyle Chandler’s daughter and I find her performance to be rather good.

Timothy Olyphant is aging like world’s finest wines.

Timothy Olyphant is like a block of wood. They could kill him off tomorrow and no one would even notice. He reminds me of the Blade Runner dude with white hair. Feels like they threw him in there just for that reason. We need a stiff creepy guy with white hair.

I think I’m going to stop watching at this point.

They’re going to drag this out forever, aren’t they? I know this isn’t a popular opinion but I’m sick of American tv shows having to go on and on and on for multiple seasons, and now of course, there being 2, 3 , 4 years or more between seasons. Doesn’t anyone want to see just a few episodes of a story anymore that holds your attention and plays out in less than 8 years? I do.

The crazy ginge girl, who we all knew from the beginning would be batshit crazy, declaring she’s “pregnant” and lunging at Dr. WhatsHerName, who had to call the guards….. we weren’t allowed to see that play out so that we could suffer more whimpering and quivering from Wendy’s clueless brother who STILL can’t read the room and get what’s happening.

And while I’m pointlessly bitching, could we PLEASE, for fuck’s sake, stop getting shots of the dirty, weird feet of the bargain basement Timothy Chalamet guy playing the evil Marc Zuckerberg role?

She’s not actually impregnated in any real way r105 , just nuts.

So this series, so far, is not about aliens, it's about indestructible kids.

What is it with girls who like to keep snakes and reptiles as pets

Think about it, r114.

They had an opportunity to cast a hot looking British or Scandinavian lad as the CEO boy genius. Someone with hot looking feets which would be featured in scene after scene. But Noah Hawley is a hetero idiot .

I hope the eventual horrible death of The Boy Genius will prove worth all these episodes I've been slogging through

Supposedly it picks up after this episode with the last couple of episodes being particularly action packed.

Normally Noah Hawley writes compelling characters even within heavy action and sci-fi settings, but these characters are just annoying across the board. The human characters--the brother and the scientists--are bland. The boy genius is especially unbearable and makes it hard to enjoy any scene he's in. I'm going to stick with this, but I would never guess this is a Noah Hawley series if I were watching it in isolation.

I like Hermit, Wendy's brother. I think he is a lot smarter than they realize and he is clearly "free" in his thinking. These people live in their own bubble. He clearly sees things much differently.

God this show is dragging.

[quote]They’re going to drag this out forever, aren’t they? I know this isn’t a popular opinion but I’m sick of American tv shows having to go on and on and on for multiple seasons,

You mean like a TV series that has several seasons? Oh what a world this has become, it's almost like I love Lucy and the Golden Girls should have stopped after the first season in your rational.

This last episode was really good. Boy Genius made sure the ocellus creature noticed him. That’s probably not going to go well for him,

The recaps said this last episode was excruciating and unwatchable.

On the other hand, Alan Sepinwall liked this episode:

"After having mixed feelings about last week's Alien: Earth, I was all-in on this week's installment, which gave us more of the eyeball monster, and finally started taking the Xenomorph material into a new and fascinating direction."

Halfway through the season, and I'm still not feeling it with this show. The scenes with the aliens are about the only interesting thing it has going for it; the rest is a slog. Wendy is not an interesting enough character to carry a show; Boy Cavalier is insufferable to the point his character almost ruins the show. The other characters are just plot points.

The Alien franchise lends itself to a lot of exploration and stories, but this one is really uninspired. Alien: Romulus did the brother-sister plot a year ago and executed it much better.

The problem with this series is that they won’t let us BINGE it. When you make us wait a week between episodes, we crave an action-packed payoff by the time it gets here. If we could’ve watched this as a full season, these slower episodes in the middle wouldn’t feel like such a drag. It’s not like Law & Order where each episode is a complete story with a satisfying conclusion.

I should’ve waited until the season ended then spent a weekend binging it on Hulu.

What happens if one of those eyeball things hijacks an android or a Xenomorph? Do xenomorphs even have eyes?

[quote]I should’ve waited until the season ended then spent a weekend binging it on Hulu.

Watched the first episode and intend to to just that for the rest of the season.

That alien eyeball thing would have an orgy in an ophthalmologist office.

I think we're overdosing on the alien creatures. IMO there is no longer an element of surprise or horror. Not nearly enough tension.

So Dame Sylvia’s first name is actually Dame because she’s married to the techie Arthur Sylvia? Really? How very gauche.

We’re still making movies and TV shows about figures from the late 1800s. Billy the Kid, Jesse James. And I don’t doubt we will still be talking about Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth a few decades from now.

Agree this is slow and underwhelming. Hopefully ext week will have more action at the compound.

Much as i hope for the alien attacks, so far they have been, paradoxically, both gory and not scary. Can’t put my finger on exactly why, maybe as someone said above results from poor acting.

Most scary alien thing so far is the gigantic rat’s nest wig in Dame Sylvia. I watch in fear of the moment one or several creatures will disentangle from it and attack.

That was just ok

During tonight ep, which was a variation of the original Alien movie, the was another shot of the woman who was still in cryosleep and was stared at by 1-2 of the male crew. I guess I missed her story: was she dead, not revived for a reason, equipment malfunction and kept under until the return to earth, what exactly was her role on the crew, etc. Can someone remind me, please? Thanks.

Only some of the crew is up at any given time.

It really bugs me how the computer technology is still a 1970s vision of what computers of the future would look like. Monochrome cathode ray tube monitors limited to alphanumeric character displays, keyboard data entry. Flashing lights. And when Morrow was searching video transmissions for the saboteur, he had to watch random videos until he found what he was looking for?

And let’s just say that the Weyland-Yutani Corp’s alien containment systems are . . . laughably inadequate.

I like the retro computer tech, it's very utilitarian which is how I picture the future to be, a hodgepodge of old and new. Not some Apple store in space.

Was everyone on the DEI alien collection spaceship retarded?

Apparently r139. Bloodthirsty dangerous parasite alien creatures and they were so not worried that some horrible shit could happen.

This shit just isn't as good without Sigourney.

Is anything?

R137 It’s intentional. The show is set two years before the events in the original Alien which premiered in 1979. It would make sense then, that a similar ship would have the same retro-futuristic design. It’s also a cool homage to the original film.

It's like every character - save the black cyborg guy - was intentionally written to be clownishly stupid.

I understand they are paying homage to the original 1979 conception, but I wish they had abandoned it . A lot of movies from the last century had no idea what technology of the future would look like. In Total Recall, they can reprogram human memory and colonize Mars, but to make a video call required standing in front of a fixed location call booth.

In particular, computers that can only interact with keyboard data entry and display on cathode ray monochrome monitors is an especially egregious lack of imagination, especially in a world that has cyborgs.

^should say was a lack of imagination in 1979. Now it’s kept for continuity and nostalgia.

I did not like any of the acting or characterizations in this episode. Visually it had the right look- they looked like real people not CW heartthrobs, but whether due to bad writing, direction or limited range, the characterizations all came off charactatyrishband tbh slightly bizarre. What was the point of the creepy Asian dude? Why was the biologist so profoundly careless? Has the art of naturalistic acting completely died out? Just look how believable weaver is in her screen test. Everyone on this show is written in broad strokes that are then acted inside of huge quotation marks and it kills all the things that made the original so intense and immediate

[quote]A lot of movies from the last century had no idea what technology of the future would look like.

It's called an alternative universe and movie magic. You are bitching about how it's not accurate tech wise but willing to believe Aliens landed on Earth, breathing our air, walking upright eating people is totally plausible?

That great big Alien that was chasing the woman captain who had been relieved. OMG it was really terrible. It looked like a tall guy in a very bad Halloween costume.

[quote] It looked like a tall guy in a very bad Halloween costume.

So did the alien in the original. It still worked.

If everything was CGI, I suppose you’d all become experts in that and complain about how much it sucked.

The nit-picking, complaining, whining, and joy-sucking is particularly unusual even by DL standards.

I can't decide who was stupider, this crew of mentally challenged clowns or the crew of the Prometheus

Well, space truck drivers are not usually known for their high intelligence. Wasn't the Prometheus basically a mining ship?

I loved the whole sequence with the eye. And how those wormy looking things snuck into the water bottle and then the mouthy young guy drank it, and when t hey opened him up he had all these bugs infesting his organs. Now that was some very excellent special effects. But the giant Alien looked too muscular. In the movies it looked scrawny and bug like except for it's head.

No one will ever beat Ridley Scott's genius Alien. The movie which should have been awarded Best Picture. No question about it.

R152 you're thinking of the Nostromo. That crew was pretty competent, and behaved rationally. Not that that helped them in the end

Junior Security Officer Clem was pretty cute. Mechanic twink Malachite was also kinda cute but they almost made him too stupid to be on the crew.

[quote] It's called an alternative universe and movie magic. You are bitching about how it's not accurate tech wise but willing to believe Aliens landed on Earth, breathing our air, walking upright eating people is totally plausible?

Completely different things. Aliens and interstellar travel were fantasy in 1979 and remain fantasy today. Computers are real and a part of everyday life. The idea that computer interfaces and technology remain frozen in what someone in 1979 thought was “futuristic” but got completely wrongis kind of silly when so much care is spent on building an otherwise advanced technological world.

You sound like an idiot, R157.

I’m glad you think so.

[quote]you're thinking of the Nostromo.

Yes, I stand corrected. Thanks.

I am sure R157 your oh so insightful opinion was considered by the writers, the producers, and the set designers and builders before they did that. How could they have missed your opinion?

Obviously. I’m criticizing their choices, not claiming they didn’t make any.

Respecting the original aesthetic makes the most sense to preserve continuity. Updates to a setting's aesthetic to account for advances in technology are often received poorly. Star Trek: Discovery is one of the most recent examples of this. Strange New Worlds returned to the TOS aesthetic and was much better received. Admittedly, that's far from the only reason, but it was a significant factor. I think it's also clear that Noah Hawley wants to tell a "classic" Alien story, so the aesthetic supports that.

An interesting element this week is that maybe the eye creature is "good" in some way. It seemed to be trying to warn the scientist about the tick breach and possibly drove off the xenomorph temporarily. It's obviously still a parasite, but there may be more to it in its intelligence.

Episode five was an improvement over the previous few, but it still had pacing issues. The crew of the ship were pretty stupid in how they handled dangerous creatures. The eyeball fighting the xenomorph was a highlight.

To be so sophisticated and so far into the future, these people clearly have no knowledge of or apparently interest in containment protocols, backup containment scenarios etc. It’s bordering on the absurd how easily the aliens are able to get out of their containers and run around. One and only on door going into the research lab, no backup doors or airlocks or anything. Air vents that are easily accessed from inside the supposedly “high security” labs. Scientists and doctors operating on people infected by aliens with not even a paper mask over their faces much less biohazard suits or respirators. I mean, I know it’s fantasy but shit, did the writers just blow off all the basic stuff so they could rush and get to the aliens slaughtering people?

Oh, also, they can transplant Human consciousness into synthetic robots but clearly they’ve forgotten how to produce high def, color and/or flat panel monitors, opting instead for 1960s era TV’s inserted into walls. This show is a hot mess.

The evil hybrid unwilling for the Asian woman, the black guy… could they have maybe put some clothes on him before he walked around in his underwear? He can produce lethal daggers and blowtorches out of his hands but he can’t cut back on the carbs?

R167, this is why I love DL

This was a massively expensive multigenerational mission by one of the leading powers on earth whose entire purpose was to find and bring back creatures so dangerous they could be turned into weapons. The sloppiness of the containment protocols and infrastructure is an insult to our intelligence.

It worked in Alien because that ship was not designed to contain a dangerous alien life form. This ship would have been.

Basically, a glass jar on a shelf is the best these interstellar-traveling cyborgs could come up with?

I still love the old 1950's space alien movies better. I especially like that we had giant anys and spiders chasing people because nucleer fall out.

What's the deal with that weird simpering flat affect Asian guy? I assumed he was a synthetic of some sort but usually Aliens don't go for that kind of milky white meat.

The Asian guy was jerking off to the girl in the sleeping pod every day. Pervert.

I can’t keep track of who’s a cyborg, who’s a synth and who’s just a weirdo. The bald guy who hangs around Boy is apparently a human while Timothy Olyphant is a synth. Morrow is a cyborg. Teng was apparently just a weird human.

that weird Asian guy plot thread was random, had zero payoff and added nothing to the story

[quote] It's obviously still a parasite, but there may be more to it in its intelligence.

The eyeball parasite is so lovable. I want one.

Bobby? Bobby, is that you?

You know, this show got me thinking. Does anyone else believe that there are a whole lot of labs and scientific experiments with transplanting brains from one species to another? I'm not suggesting you'd give a rabbit the brain of a lion. But let's say you have a kangaroo and a deer and you tried it. I look at Wendy and I wonder if in the future they will be able to transplant a whole lot of things to give people who are dying a new life, so to speak. I found the comments between President Xi of China, and Putin very interesting. They were talking about people being able to live for 150 years and to just keep getting organ transplants. So conceptually where does that end? Is this Alien series and the movies suggesting that there is an interest in all these alien creatures beyond using them as weapons? I mean, in the past I read about doctors using heart valves from a pig to repair damage in a human. And even the heart of a chimpanzee into a human.

Yes, R178, all of that will happen and in the not too distant future. I don't know about using aliens as weapons but people will be able to live 150 and more due to technological advancements. They'll think of us the way we think of our ancestors who died at an average of 30 years old.

I know people in their 70's and 80's who have taken good care of themselves and are in much better shape than my Grandmother was in her 60's.

Why would you want to put the brain of a deer into a kangaroo?

I can imagine that technology might be able to translate personal memories and character traits into digital information that could exist outside of biological time. But once you do that, why leave the bad traits and trauma? Why not improve yourself and add happy memories and then at what point are you no longer you? What’s the point of living forever?

[quote] Why would you want to put the brain of a deer into a kangaroo?

Because the deer identifies as a kangaroo.

I'm sure there's all sorts of freaky biological experiments going on. A small example, back in 2013 a son in Arizona donated his mother's body, who had died of Alzheimer's, to a company for research into the disease that killed her. Instead the company, Biological Resource Center, sold it to the Army for bomb experiments, ie, they blew it up. It turned into a big scandal and when the company was finally investigated they discovered a huge horror show, including heads sown onto different bodies.

When you donate a body to “science,” you better read the fine print.

R184, you just made me spit out some of my coffee.

[quote]When you donate a body to “science,” you better read the fine print.

If you actually give a fuck about what happens to your body when you're dead.

Some people want their parents remains treated with respect and dignity, I suppose. Fucking idiots

[quote]I can imagine that technology might be able to translate personal memories and character traits into digital information that could exist outside of biological time

In case you missed it in the very first episode, even if you could implant the memories into some other bio mechanical body, you still would be lacking all the the other things that make up the personalty. Like loss of testosterone, adrenaline, sleep cycles for offloading during dream states etc. All biological things that affect the brain.

It's really a lot more complicated than just sewing back on a missing finger. I read about an attempted head transplant of monkey a while back, connecting the spinal cord etc. When the brought the monkey out of Anesthesia it opened it's eyes, couldn't move and died almost instantly. The brain also controls breathing so....

[quote]When the brought the monkey out of Anesthesia it opened it's eyes, couldn't move and died almost instantly.

Animal testing at its finest!

Can we please get back this hot mess but still somewhat interesting tv series? Please?

Heads sown onto the wrong bodies are much more fun than this thread's topic, R191.

Well the Eyeball Alien is basically an eyeball sown onto an octopus so it's quite on topic.