You Can Take Away My Geek Card Because…

[Professor Bear]

But it always struck me as an act of desperation almost, in a 'nothings working, we've tried a dozen different drafts and writers, lets go totally ape-shit crazy with this' kind of way.

I'm not sure it was that so much as the spin-off media - comics, especially - had gone to all the obvious places with the franchise in order to expand upon it and up the ante on what went before.  In theory, Fox - like all studios that farmed out their properties - was on top of what licence-holders were doing with those properties in case it wanted to veto anything, so doing anything remotely similar to what had been done elsewhere might have meant having to give a story credit to someone outside the project.  The end result was that most ideas floated for Alien 3 were counter to what most people were expecting after Aliens, including outright daft ideas like the wooden planet thing.

[radiator]

Indeed, when Walking Dead launched it was a fresh and original take on a mostly dead genre. 15 years later Zombies are pretty worn out again

I don't even give it that tbh, and that's my beef with it. For me it doesn't bring anything new to the table. It's not a clever twist on or shot in the arm for the zombie genre like 28 Days Later and Shaun of the Dead were, nor can it really be said to have the satire of Romero's films. It's just bog standard, straight down the line zombie survival. The characters are basically archetypes and plotwise its incredibly repetitive. I mean, its fine for what it is, but I just don't get what people see in it to make it so insanely successful, or for it to make the basis of the biggest show on TV.

[Dandontdare]

It's a soap opera with zombies. A large ensemble cast with intertwined relationships and ongoing (sometimes repeated) plot-lines; only instead of "moving to Manchester" people get their faces eaten off.

[Spikes]

But it always struck me as an act of desperation almost, in a 'nothings working, we've tried a dozen different drafts and writers, lets go totally ape-shit crazy with this' kind of way.

I'm not sure it was that so much as the spin-off media - comics, especially - had gone to all the obvious places with the franchise in order to expand upon it and up the ante on what went before.  In theory, Fox - like all studios that farmed out their properties - was on top of what licence-holders were doing with those properties in case it wanted to veto anything, so doing anything remotely similar to what had been done elsewhere might have meant having to give a story credit to someone outside the project.  The end result was that most ideas floated for Alien 3 were counter to what most people were expecting after Aliens, including outright daft ideas like the wooden planet thing.

Don't they just take what they like, and call it their own?  Witness the first Dark Horse Predator comic (1987?) v Predator 2 (1990)

Predator was another potential franchise that they didn't quite know how to proceed with, and got into a bit of a panic about. Still, Predator 2 turned out to be a pretty good film.

Outside media may well have factored into the equation somehow, but those holding the reins for Alien 3 got themselves into such a tizz, and wasted so much time and money, with that film, that panic ensued throughout, I think.

And of course all that money spent, and time wasted was loaded onto Alien 3, much to Fincher chagrin, and further hamstrung an already wobbly venture

[JOE SOAP]

I suppose you can take away my geek card because I feel similarly about the much vaunted "wooden planet" in Alien 3. Cute idea but stands up to little or no scrutiny and what exactly does it bring to the story?

The Alien films never had much going on in them anyway; the best they can hope for is they look great, have good characters and good tension. With Vincent Ward's film we would've gotten something that looks as close to a Nemesis the Warlock/Termight film as we were likely to get.

[Theblazeuk]

The best idea I ever heard for Alien 3 was

On Earth, Everyone Can Hear You Scream


Which was kind of backed up by the Dark Horse comics. Also the best Engineer story ever came out of that.

[Theblazeuk]

Crossing a minefield isn't tense enough for you eh?

For 45 minutes? Again: how would that work as, you know, a story?

(Clue: it wouldn't.)

Cheers

Jim

Clue: Unless you're going to pay me for a treatment, you're not going to get anything more And if you can't brainstorm a few good ideas off that one scene yourself, you probably should hand in your geek card...

[Professor Bear]

Don't they just take what they like, and call it their own?  Witness the first Dark Horse Predator comic (1987?) v Predator 2 (1990)

Despite only being 4 issues, the first Predator miniseries was released over something like a year to cash in on the upcoming sequel's slippery release date, so I would imagine the comic series and the film having similar elements was by design.  There's a suspiciously similar scene in both comic and film where stockbrokers pull out guns on a subway.

Studios nowadays have contracts that allow for appropriation of material from media adaptations of their properties, but back in the 1990s it was a bit more wild west-y as the writers unions were up in arms about emerging media platforms (first home video, later DVDs/digital distribution) and creators were militant about their fair cut and/or recognition - but in the specific case of Alien 3, I think it was just more likely that the director and/or writer were expected to come up with something on their own so that the studio could paint Alien 3 as being a singular vision in much the same way Alien and Aliens were.

[Eric Plumrose]

nor can it really be said to have the satire of Romero's films.

Mind you, the Romero films don't have the satire they're renowned for, either.

[The Adventurer]

Dawn and Day were both pretty satirical.

[sheridan]

I think I know where Jim is coming from but it could work in the hands of someone very clever and with a few different people thrown into the mix/minefield.

And pigeons.

Peck peck bang.










What's that American quiz show where you're given the answer and have to provide the question?

[The Legendary Shark]

What's that American quiz show where you're given the answer and have to provide the question?

Election Night Special?

[shaolin_monkey]

Dawn and Day were both pretty satirical.

I'd say it was social commentary rather than satire.  Dawn in particular took a massive swipe at consumerism.

[The Legendary Shark]

I never liked zombies, I always found them to be the most boring of all the cinemonsters.
.
For me, the 'alien' is the best monster. I imagined other members of that species getting to Earth; face-huggers small enough to impregnate beetles, then mice, then cats. In the Climax, our heroes' shuttle blasts off to escape the doomed planet, covered in aliens, and hurtles out over the ocean - where a blue whale thrashes at the surface, a huge face-hugger clamped over its blow-hole. (And imagine the offspring of a giant face-hugger/giant squid...)

[JamesC]

You can take my geek card because...

I think Guillermo del Toro is the most overrated film maker around. I really don't like most of his films at all.

Of the ones I've seen - Mimic, Hellboy 1 and 2, The Blade film he did, Don't be Afraid of the Dark and Pacific Rim all suffer form the same problems. They're too long and have uninteresting characters.

Having said that I thought Pan's Labyrinth was pretty entertaining and had an excellent baddie.