That live blog was life! So! Enter the Dragon was also part of that cache of Final Boss Dad moves? Amazing. Alien, Aliens, Excalibur (Helen Mirren [Morgana] and Patrick Stewart [Leondegrance], 1981), and Enter the Dragon were like, 60% of my entire childhood.
Spoilers if you've not subjected yourself to all the mediocrity that followed in the Alien(s) franchise, the Xenomorphs never have a rational conversation with humans, which frankly annoys* me. The trope in the genre that is sometimes even explicit: 'No matter how reasonable and friendly, unresolvable, deep-seated irrational fear will always wreck communication between two sentient aliens,' doesn't hold water for me when I think of how completely unreachable some members, but not others, of my own species are.
*In the same way, ST:Strange New World's Gorn are flirting with really annoying me, though I love the series. I mean yes, inscrutable bad guys are necessary to certain kinds of horror. I guess.
When the film came out I had no idea what it would be. I was 25 years old, and I had a first (and last) date with an adorable, curly haired blonde hippie girl. When the movie was over I asked if she wanted to go for coffee. She said, "No, that really creeped me out." I drove her home, and after that she ghosted me. We didn't use the term "ghosting" back then, but that was the gist of it.
Great Substack entry! I really enjoy your writing.
This was so fun to read! By complete coincidence, I also saw Alien for the first time yesterday (in my case because it was available on a transatlantic flight). I’m not sure how I missed it, as I was a teenaged sci-fi nerd when it came out — maybe my parents thought it was too violent? I had some of the same reactions (especially re PPE and AI), and what about all that smoking? I kept worrying something would ignite and explode!
I had the fortune/misfortune to see Alien opening night in the theatre. It was all going great until some lady was walking back down the aisle with the ginormous soda when the egg popped in John Hurt's face and she launched that soda all the way to the theatre ceiling, where it sprayed all over and then dripped for another 20 minutes or so :)
That live blog was life! So! Enter the Dragon was also part of that cache of Final Boss Dad moves? Amazing. Alien, Aliens, Excalibur (Helen Mirren [Morgana] and Patrick Stewart [Leondegrance], 1981), and Enter the Dragon were like, 60% of my entire childhood.
Spoilers if you've not subjected yourself to all the mediocrity that followed in the Alien(s) franchise, the Xenomorphs never have a rational conversation with humans, which frankly annoys* me. The trope in the genre that is sometimes even explicit: 'No matter how reasonable and friendly, unresolvable, deep-seated irrational fear will always wreck communication between two sentient aliens,' doesn't hold water for me when I think of how completely unreachable some members, but not others, of my own species are.
*In the same way, ST:Strange New World's Gorn are flirting with really annoying me, though I love the series. I mean yes, inscrutable bad guys are necessary to certain kinds of horror. I guess.
When the film came out I had no idea what it would be. I was 25 years old, and I had a first (and last) date with an adorable, curly haired blonde hippie girl. When the movie was over I asked if she wanted to go for coffee. She said, "No, that really creeped me out." I drove her home, and after that she ghosted me. We didn't use the term "ghosting" back then, but that was the gist of it.
Great Substack entry! I really enjoy your writing.
This was so fun to read! By complete coincidence, I also saw Alien for the first time yesterday (in my case because it was available on a transatlantic flight). I’m not sure how I missed it, as I was a teenaged sci-fi nerd when it came out — maybe my parents thought it was too violent? I had some of the same reactions (especially re PPE and AI), and what about all that smoking? I kept worrying something would ignite and explode!
I had the fortune/misfortune to see Alien opening night in the theatre. It was all going great until some lady was walking back down the aisle with the ginormous soda when the egg popped in John Hurt's face and she launched that soda all the way to the theatre ceiling, where it sprayed all over and then dripped for another 20 minutes or so :)