Man, it has been a good month for news on sci-fi movies! Here comes the first official trailer for Ridley Scott (AKA God)'s dark sci-fi epic. The word is that Prometheus is a prequel to 1979's ALIEN. Honestly, this trailer left me speechless and amazed. Maybe this film, with help from God, can finally get the ALIENS universe back on track after years of pure shit. The other rumor is, after Prometheus, Mr. Scott is moving to the Forever War! Here is the trailer. But be warned, you are not ready for this.
One thing that science fiction has taught us prospective astronauts is that biological material is NOT GOOD. Eggs, baby aliens, hatching, alien bugs, etc.... ALL OF IT IS BAD.
ReplyDeleteA.E. Van Vogt introduced the concept of an alien that lays eggs in hapless human hosts in Voyage of the Space Beagle, long before Alien. Those involved in the making of Alien claimed that Voyage of the Space Beagle had no influence on them, but when Van Vogt initiated a lawsuit against 20th Century Fox for plagiarism, they settled out of court.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Voyage_of_the_Space_Beagle
In the really bad 1998 TV-remake-as-a-movie Lost in Space, the Robinson family comes across a future human spaceship, the Proteus, that has been infiltrated by giant space spiders. The first signs of the infestation is various gooey blue smears on the walls and eggs- biological material again. Then the spiders began crawling from every corner, intent on preventing the most annoying and useless comedy relief character ever from joining the Robinson family.
The space spiders are tenacious little buggers- they melt through a bulkhead, and when the Robinson family escapes to their ship and try to fly away, they jump into the vacuum of space and try to burn through the hull of the Jupiter 2. Sadly, even they cannot prevent the meandering storyline, nonexistent plot, annoying cardboard characters, and lame family morals from ruining Lost in Space.
One thing I found odd was that the Robinson's pulse blasters are voice-controlled. The Robinson family can switch the safety on and off of a laser pistol by speaking to it. The guns also have user recognition locks- again enabled or disabled by voice control. What if I bit my tongue and couldn't speak clearly to the gun? What if the gun is in a noisy environment? What if someone plays back a record of my voice to the gun telling it to enable all users? Its a terrible idea!!
By the way, William, there are many dangerous monsters in this world, and they have no trouble devouring men who run blogs on military SF. I know- I am one of them. Now, give me your gun.
SPIDERS!!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP-kG4cC7P4&feature=related
Nostalgia Critic on Lost in Space:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jaTOdxntik&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQoRgqP9pk4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNu7G_--WUU&feature=related
Christopher Phoenix
I had forgotten all about the 90's Lost in Space remake! Nice catch along with the story about the original ALIEN movie!
ReplyDeleteYes, xenomorphs would most likely eat me first, but first they'd have to get through my homebrew flamethrower!
I saw Lost in Space on Christmas Day, so the memory is still fresh in my mind. I learned that all non-human biological material is bad, that space spiders can live in the vacuum, and to never give Dr. Smith my laser pistol....
ReplyDeleteYou know how to make a flamethrower? I recall that xenomorphs don't like heat and light.
Scarily enough, my wikipedia research into parasitic organisms and male pregnancy lends credence to the idea of an organism that grows inside of a hapless human host and later rips its way out of its host's chest. The biggest problem with a hypothetical male pregnancy, it seems, is that the host would not survive the pregnancy. Yeah, the Alien series taught me that first.
I also found that mind controlling parasites, just like the headcrabs from Half-Life or the Ceti Eel from Star Trek, are real. The Sacculina barnacle infects and controls the mind of a crab, causing it to forgo molting so that more resources go to the barnacle and even making the crab take care of the barnacle's young. Headcrab's-crabs-barnacles-sacculina barnacle- it can't be just a coincidence, can it? The headcrabs will have to get past my Glock 17 and semiautomatic shotgun before they can infect me...
http://listverse.com/2009/07/29/10-fascinating-cases-of-mind-control/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacculina
Then again, an interesting inversion of this theme would be a symbiotic organism that increases the strength, speed, and survival capability of a human. Not all relationships are parasitic, after all.
Christopher Phoenix