Rangi Guy wrote:Aside from stupid people doing stupid things
Am I the only person who has no problem with them doing stuff like sticking their heads in the eggs? It's an Alien movie. They basically have to do that or there's no film. IMO that's kind of the price of admission to horror/creature flicks like this--someone has to do something very stupid to get the ball rolling.
Nah. Competent heroes make the monster more impressive. I want a crew that does everything right and still can't handle it because it's just too awesome.
One stupid decision is forgivable, maybe two, but constant idiocy is unacceptable.
It also helps if the characters do something stupid because of some demonstrated character flaw like arrogance or inexperience. But otherwise intelligent characters acting stupid just to get the plot lurching to the next setpiece is shit writing.
Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.
Last edited by tragabigzanda on Sun January 11, 2026 9:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.
Last edited by tragabigzanda on Sun January 11, 2026 9:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
I'm about right in the middle of Burt and trag on this one. It doesn't have to be one extreme or the other. The characters in this movie are utter morons, no doubt, and that bothered me in the first 20-30 minutes when the movie was still a standard alien thriller. But once Scott's insanity kicks in, such basic concerns faded away as I was swept away by the giddy madness of it all.
Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.
Last edited by tragabigzanda on Sun January 11, 2026 9:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.
Last edited by tragabigzanda on Sun January 11, 2026 9:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.
Last edited by tragabigzanda on Sun January 11, 2026 9:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
Anyway, you shouldn't let your encyclopedic knowledge of celebrities' personal lives affect your opinion of their work too much. I operate under the assumption that most of them are at least somewhat shitty people. It really shouldn't matter, unless they raped or killed someone.
Anders wrote:I do not have a «neoliberal assessment of geopolitics», so please stop writing that I do.
theplatypus wrote:Anyway, you shouldn't let your encyclopedic knowledge of celebrities' personal lives affect your opinion of their work too much. I operate under the assumption that most of them are at least somewhat shitty people. It really shouldn't matter, unless they raped or killed someone.
theplatypus wrote:Anyway, you shouldn't let your encyclopedic knowledge of celebrities' personal lives affect your opinion of their work too much. I operate under the assumption that most of them are at least somewhat shitty people. It really shouldn't matter, unless they raped or killed someone.
Cheating on and leaving your 7-month pregnant wife is not far behind though.
There's a moment in Batman V Superman when Superman has been nuked and he's a floating corpse in the stratosphere and the sun starts recharging his batteries-- somewhere in the 10-second transition from skeletal cadaver to hunky Henry Cavill, there are a couple of frames where he looks exactly like Billy Crudup.
Anders wrote:I do not have a «neoliberal assessment of geopolitics», so please stop writing that I do.
theplatypus wrote:Anyway, you shouldn't let your encyclopedic knowledge of celebrities' personal lives affect your opinion of their work too much. I operate under the assumption that most of them are at least somewhat shitty people. It really shouldn't matter, unless they raped or killed someone.
Cheating on and leaving your 7-month pregnant wife is not far behind though.
Uh I think it's pretty far behind from both those things. It's a scumbag move no doubt, but not even in the same ballpark.
Anders wrote:I do not have a «neoliberal assessment of geopolitics», so please stop writing that I do.
