There is an interview with Giger where he explained that he really liked the design of the Newborn from Resurrection, he even said something like "You can tell that's an original Giger style". He really hated those Resurrection xenomorphs tho. He said they had a mud-like texture and looked like crap. He was right.
@@RaikenXion Because they were never meant to be biomechanical anymore since they had been gene-spliced and hybridized with human DNA. They became more organic and that's why they looked that way.
@@multiverseoftimelessness4391 Well i don't know bout that cause the underwater shots of Xenos do show some biomechanical detail, and those facehuggers that impregnated those kidnapped humans were just normal like before. I just think at end of the day these particular Xenomorphs look the way they do because of the different quality of practical effects and especially camera quality used; and you can clearly see. Alien Resurrection is filmed in a more smudgy kind of quality to that of Scott and Cameron's Alien films, even Fincher's Alien 3 has a more clearer film quality and that film was quite dark in it's lighting.
i liked the newborn it seems interesting and would be cool to see ripley and a squad with the newborn go into a hive of xenos and start just ripping apart the xenos
If you want a REAL Alien sequel, the videogame "Alien Isolation" is what you dreamed off and more. Seriously, even the nuts and bolts on the ship of that game was based off the 1979 movie, the developers wanted to create the most faithful sequel in every in spirit, tone and visuals.
My head canon for the dumbing down in ALIENS is that when a Xenomorph finds itself in an environment with no hive or Queen, it develops a higher state of intelligence and autonomy in order to set up a hive by egg-morphing captives like they do in the director's cut.
Actually if we were to accept the expanded canon (assuming it wasn't blown out of the goddamn airlock) then if there is a lack of a queen, a drone may undergo a hormonal change and turn into a female, thus growing to become a queen. Much like some frog species here in eart.
@@thekraken1909 Or they're female right off the bat. Like most ants/ bees are female. Since in the expanded lore, any warrior or drone has the capability to become a queen.
@@matthewparker1655 it’s weird cause other lore contradicts this by giving the xenomorphs male pronouns, even from their point if few. I’ve always seem them as mostly androgynous creatures barring the queen and some variants anyhow.
Man the aliens films are the terminator films in terms of how each installment after the groundbreaking 2nd film completely forgot what made the original two so iconic. You could say that they each suffered their own.....dark fates.
That's honestly most of the successful franchise, we compared Alien, Terminator and Predator here cuz they're all similar in terms of universe but Star Wars also kindof suffered that and I'm too tired to think about other examples but I'm sure there is
The difference between terminator and Alien is that the first 2 terminator movies had the same director resulting in both being totally consistent and actually both being action movies, while Alien and Aliens had 2 different directors with the second one being a completely different genre dumbing down and redesigning the Xenomorphs. Aliens is great and all but Cameron did start the path of the series ruining the xenomorphs. Like Cameron even stated that the design change in the head was made not for any lore reasons but to make them look more cool which is entirely the opposite of what the xenomorph should be. The Alien franchise is better compared to the resident evil games with re 1-0 being Alien and RE4 being Aliens and goes downhill for a while until Alien Isolation and RE7.
Something I really like about the Alien design in relationship to the movies is that no one ever mentions it not having eyes, or suggests that it can't see. So we just have to assume that somehow it sees, even without any discernible eyes. That's fascinatingly weird to me.
I always thought that Alien actually has eyes but they're just not visible. Idk. Like that they're on each side of it's skull but kind of comouflaged with the rest of the skin so they aren't visible. :D
You just made me realize that after having like 8 movies of Aliens not once had any of them had an autopsy scene done on the adult xeno (like in most other sci-fi alien movies).
@@TalentCaldwell - You'd think it would've happened in Resurrection if anything. But the whole acid-for-blood thing could make it a bit of a problem. Have they ever been n a position to do it?
@@FTZPLTC Well they performed an autopsy on the face hugger in the first movie (which is how they learned of the acid blood). And they also did a digital scan of the Engineer head in Prometheus. Other than that they’ve all been too busy killing them and getting killed by them to examine.
THIS exactly. I understand the gripe of the cross breeding but THAT is what makes it the perfect organism. The fact that one egg can create a creature that takes on the absolute strongest traits of the host. It's not that the exact version of the alien in the first film is the perfect organism it's the fact that no matter what or where the alien will always take on the strongest and most dangerous traits of that environment.
The greatest irony: Giger was ESSENTIAL to the success of the original, but every subsequent film fails to take advantage of the opportunity to dive deeper into his imagination. I agree with your assessment 100%; Cameron's ideas were a logical extrapolation of what was established in the original. I do wonder what Giger's Queen would have been like, but the version created by Cameron and Stan Winston IS remarkable. Like you, I have resented the series' continuing insistence upon diminishing Giger's design. It's now little more than a big, DUMB 'monster' with a vaguely familiar profile. And Giger's death leaves a void of missed opportunities no one will be able to fill...
a logical extrapolation is the opposite of what Alien was and a mistake. Nothing was logical about the alien. It was...alien lol Making them termites is what everyone loves? A giger direction would have had those eggs not being eggs, but organic vessels, in line with the bio organic motif. Bugs...are you kidding?
@@Nerdmcloser Its one thing if you just don’t like the change but if you can’t see why it’s good (not my words, but the words of Giger, Ridley, and O’Bannon) then you’re not knowledgeable enough in the medium yet
@@camgoodkicks The queen design is cool and Aliens is a great movie, but I do like the cosmic horror of the first movie more. Like, why are these facehuggers seemingly designed to impregnate humans? Does the alien r*pe Lambert? Are these natural creatures or designed weapons? How does the alien grow so fast seemingly without food, and how does it STILL manage to secrete enough goop to build it's "nest" in the deleted scene?
I think the idea behind some of that original chestburster design was that it pretty much starts as the inner mouth part of the full grown alien and the rest sort of grows around it.
A couple days before you dropped the predator design video, I had an hour long conversation with my brother about how the mandibles never quite looked as good as they did in the first Predator. I was even downvoted on reddit for pointing out the shitty mandible in a promotional poster for The Predator 2018.
Getting mass downvoted on Reddit is tantamount to being irrefutably proven right at this point. So many of its users just live in their own private universe.
the point of mandibles is to be like lips to not let the mouth dry out but since they keep getting wider but not shutting correctly they stop being useful
@@antpope6222 spoilers regarding the predator design if you haven't seen prey............ I liked the blend of the the physical suit and the CGI face. It made the character feel real and the face closed nicely. I hated the eyes though.
@@antpope6222 yeah this predator had huge eyes and his face didn't even get enough screen time to warrant changing the design so much. I suppose you can have it all. Oh well, great movie nonetheless
I always interpreted the feature mixing with the host as an ability the queen doesnt have. Thats what makes it a perfect being. It adopts the features of the creatures it wants to hunt, to hunt better. At the same time the queen stays the same.
As much as I love The Queen in Aliens, the scrapped “Eggmorphing” scene/concept from Alien is FAR more terrifying. I’m in the Aliens>Alien camp but I still love Alien & the mystery surrounding everything about the beast in that first movie is just…. perfect.
Same My headcanon is that the eggs are former lifeforms that have been morphed eiher by whatever material (black goo perhaps?) was in use by the Jockeys or by the Xenos themselves via the tail rape injection we saw in the first film. Think about it, you cleanse a planet in a way that automatically refills your ammo supply so that you may do it all over again as many times as you like! Its brilliant!
The egg morphing plays into the queen easily though. Xenos morph people into eggs to get a few xenos then they make an egg with a queen facehugger to have a queen. Basically they create the eggs to build up the start of a nest to protect the queen when she comes, once she does they focus on collecting hosts for the eggs she produces more efficiently.
@@IaMaPh1991 That is painfully blatant in the original movie. The cut eggmorphing scene was supposed to be answer to Lambert's question back on the Derelict. "Where's the rest of the crew?"
"Parazitoid wast but somehow even more disturbing"is definitly better then "writers don´t know how eusocial organism works" of first sequel. Also work better for what metaphoricly xenomorphs stands for.
I mean TBF, the whole idea of the alien taking on the host traits makes sense to me. Also Ridley Scott confirms in his commentary for the first movie that this idea was there from the start.
@@worldscoolestperson7672 so you're telling me that if the alien infected, say, Jones the cat, that it would look and act the exact same way it does in the first movie? Right down to having a human skull? It's not even Scott alone who said this. The various comic books that were released around the time of the second movie also went into detail about this. I understand in this video he's going by the movies alone but this idea has been around for like ever. I mean the whole point is that the alien imprints off of its host. And again, this makes sense to me. It uses the host to incubate. And think about this, depending on the environment the alien may need certain traits from the Host in order to survive. That's what makes it the perfect organism. It's completely adaptable. I can see where he's coming from with his argument regarding the predalien becoming a queen and then creating this weird breeding cycle. But I don't really see a problem with the concept otherwise.
I like the idea of the xenomorph acquiring characteristics from the host. It helps him adapt, for example, to the environment in which it finds himself.
@@igorivanov299 how does that make any sense? If a female exists then the other aliens must be “male” then, otherwise how a female is a female and not just a thing that lays eggs?
@@igorivanov299 Then lets be real, Aliens is not a direct sequel to Alien, its a soft reboot. Ridley Scott never considered it as a sequel as evident from his Prometheus and Covenant. And considering that...Ash called it Kane's son so....
Best thing about the Alien sequels is each one is just the same story(kinda) but each directors take on it is so different and make for a pretty unique series.
A perfect organism is one that best adapts to its environment. That means that if the xenomorph constantly changes shape depending on its previous hosts then it constantly adapts to succesfully hunt its prey.
For the facehuggers in 3, in the assembly cut we see a queen facehugger that one of the prisoners picks up after they hang the ox. Since that’s the only one we see in that cut, it’s safe to assume a queen facehugger has two embryos, the queen l, which takes a long time to grow and a drone to prepare the nest
The aliens only take some of the dna from the host when a face hugger first latches on. Hence the dog alien. There’s actual a lot of cool hybrids of the species.
5:31 I always saw it (I’m not sure if I read it as a kid) the xeno in Alien is a worker and those in Aliens are warriors. Which is why the dome is missing from the tougher, more robust warrior class. Could totes just be head canon again though
Yeah, that's how it works. The Big Chap is a drone, and the others are warriors. They were originally going to be the same, but the resin dome kept cracking in action scenes, so they made them different types of Xeno
In the director's commentary Cameron explains his theory, pretty much as you've explained, that the ridges appear on the Xenomoph's skull after they age a bit which honestly makes sense
It makes zero sense. What happened to the skull and hollow eyes? Not to mention Ridley scott established back in 79 in interviews that you are supposed to understand that the Xeno is dying by the end of Alien. Its lifespan is short.
Well maybe it wasn’t dying and was beginning to molt into the ridged headed Alien. And as for the skull, my theory is that is shifts as the alien grows and that the humanoid skull contorts into a Xenomoprh skull like the one we see in Predator 2 in the trophy room
I think with Giger having been on set for the first one with Ridley working on designs and going back and forth helped a lot. Where the later ones just mostly pushed him away and tried to keep him out, though he did always try to stay connected to the franchise.
I’ve always found it kind of weird how the dog hybrid just has the regular xenomorph head shape. When in reality they should’ve probably thought more about integrating the unexplainable skull and expanding on it what if instead of a human looking skull, the skull instead changed to each host for instance the dog hybrid had more of a dog skeleton including a slightly longer jaw with more pronounced canines. Still trying to make sense of that
Honestly it would be really interesting if you did reviews of the first 2 Species movies since they use Gigers designs in them. And also because of Natasha Henstridge of course.
something I never liked is how as the xenomorph movies progressed they lost "human characteristics" in the original design the big chap had six fingers and as they progressed they lost fingers, their feet that were almost human now look like "legs" of some animal, and not to mention the complete disappearance of the human skull, they also "lost intelligence" in the sense of "sapience", in the first movie the big chap acted in a way in which he showed that although he was a wild creature he had a certain level of "consciousness", as the movies progressed they became they behaved more and more like animals, and with this it became very easy to kill until the point where they die in droves, I know that what I am going to say is a controversial opinion, to say the least, but almost all these things began in the second movie "aliens" almost everything that I complain about is there, as if that were the seed of the plant we are talking about now, and the truth is that whether or not they agree with the latter, I personally do not deserve all this degradation of the so-called perfect organism . . .
I think that as cool as the scene was, the sentry gun sequence (in the Director's Cut) of Aliens ruins the sense of cunning that the Alien had in the original film. It makes some sense later on in the film when they are climbing their way through the ceiling shafts to ambush Ripley & Co, and then by the time they attack they are all coming from different directions in the room, showing a level of tactics and strategy to their attack. But them mindlessly running in and dying to the sentry guns just shows how meaningless they think their lives are, which is in stark contrast to Ash's dialogue describing the Xenomorph as a "Survivor". Even though I adore Aliens, and I think as cinematic experiences go it remains a masterpiece of horror and thriller, there are indeed aspects of the film that do not connect very well with the original, despite its best efforts to stay grounded in the same universe and provide relative continuity.
The og alien was only threatening because the setting was in space, hundreds of light years away from earth with no hope of any rescue, the characters were all just regular people with no weapons or combat experience and they had a sleeper agent android sent by the very company they work for to ensure the capture of the alien, by ANY means necessary. The feeling of loneliness, hopelessness and despair is aleast 50 percent of what made the first movie so scary, the other 50 percent being the xeno itself. If the crew were battle hardened marines the xenomorph would be destroyed in no time. Hell, that's probably why the company decided to use unarmed space truckers instead of marines to retrieve the creature. This means that turning them into hive mind bugs is the only way you could've made them more threatening in a more "familiar" setting like in Aliens. This is why I am somewhat more biased towards the Predator as my favorite movie monster. It's not a dumb monster who eats humans. Instead it's smarter, stronger and more agile than humans. It's so superior to humans that it purposefully nerfs itself for the sheer fun of it. The Predator's society is probably so advanced that death is completely meaningless to them. They care more about the sheer thrill of the hunt and the honour than living a safe and stable life. It's a cool ass concept and it's such a shame that the Predator seems to play second fiddle to the Alien these days.
I think the Alien taking the characteristic of its host is interesting and doesn’t conflict with the perfect species thing. It’s possibly shown with the Alien in the first movie. With the implied rape scene.
I actually liked Resurrection and will defend it haha. Mainly because the newborn was an interesting concept. And the design had something to do with it
I kinda like the concept AVP Extinction introduced, with the xenos having a "purebreed" strain, facehuggers which implant praetorian embryos (larger crested aliens that can morph into a Queen if necessary), and a "transbreed" strain, which is what the regular facehuggers are, creating aliens that take on traits of its host.
My head cannon was something similar. It didn't matter if the queen was hosted from a human or dog etc, they would always produce regular eggs. The DNA from the queen's host wouldn't infect or alter the eggs.
@@cordzfx A lot of people don't seem to talk about Species. It's probably not as popular as the alien and the predator franchises. I've been a Species fan since I was 12 and I watched the first movie with adult supervision, and I watched all 4 movies on Prime Video when they were free. I acknowledge that The Species Franchise has its flaws, but I will always enjoy the classic franchise for what it is even if the movies were low budget. The Lore, the characters along with the hybrid characters will always hold dear to my heart even if they are forgettable at times. My favorite characters were Hybrid Sil and Empath Dan Smithson from The Species movie, Mercenary Preston Lennox and Molecular Biologist Dr. Laura Baker from Species 1 and 2. Astronaut Dennis Gamble and Hybrid Patrick Ross and Sil's clone Eve from Species 2 and Eve's daughter Sara and College student Dean from Species 3. Hollywood should revive the franchise with another sequel without retconning the four movies like a sequel tv series or a Species Sequel Trilogy that is continuing the events after Species 3 and Species: The Awakening. If it were me, I would've called it The 5th Movie Species: Resurrection, The 6th Movie, Species: Reckoning and The 7th Movie, Species: Retaliation. I wish they would revive it and hire people who really love the franchise and people who really care about the lore and the source material and who wants to respect and honor H. R. Giger's vision. But due to our current Political Climate, that's probably unlikely. Regardless, If you're a fan of The Species Movie Franchise, Make this hashtag go viral. #ReviveTheSpeciesFranchise Hey, maybe you can make a Species Theory TH-cam Channel and make all kids of theory videos on how the movies and the characters could've done better and make more What If videos for the franchise and maybe you could make more videos that would add more lore to the hybrids and for the Species Franchise.
I actually think the idea of the xenomorph taking characteristics from its host is what makes it the perfect organism in a way. Because certain traits can be more useful in certain enviroments, and less useful in others. For instance, the speed of the runner/dog alien comes at a tradeoff of size and strength. In a hive, xenomorphs having different abilities to counter the abilities of the native lifeforms on the planet it is invading would be very useful, rather than all xenomorphs having the same strengths and weaknesses against a myriad of lifeforms on a planet. The problem is that this idea was taken too far in other media especially with the predalien. Rather than taking useful traits like enhanced speed, the predalien gets dreadlocks and an instinct to take trophies. Any traits taken by the xenomorph should have some benefit towards it, otherwise that kills the idea of it being a perfect organism if it takes undesirable traits. A predalien should be a slightly larger xenomorph with mandibles and a predator shaped head crest. That’s it. The designers for the movie and many of the comics tried to incorporate more predator traits which should have been left out so as to make it clear that the “predalien” is a xenomorph with predator traits and not a hybrid creature.
There was always an insect element in the original Alien. It's lifecycle is based on some parasitic wasp and there are other parasitic bugs and plus it has armor like a bug's exoskeleton. Makes strange sounds like bugs do, probably sourced from insect legs scratching like some of them do... and its attacks were partially based on the lightning quick movements of a preying mantis. On top of that I think there's a bit of demon (horns on the back instead of the head) and Pan or satyr in it it... cuz of all the dicks and it's implied it "rapes" Lambert, likely impaling her with its tail. The Facehugger definitely rapes its victims. And when Dallas is in the vents losin' his shit, he just so happens to stick his hand into a puddle of alien slime that's subliminally reminiscent of jizz. ANother fun fact, Giger's Alien 3 concept would have had the alien yank out victim's brains through their mouth when it kisses them using some kind of barbed promiscuous. It's in some concept art. That would have been so nasty. They should have gone with his Alien 3 just as he designed it.
The original aliens felt like they were pulled straight from a gothic painting and then smashed violently into some alien architecture, it gives it this distinctly...well...alien feel, it's a truly horrifying creature that feels like this predator with an indifferent feeling to the characters motives, it's not hunting it's surviving. And then covenant came along and now its an angry smooth boy that smashes it's face into a window, I know it's meant to be a 'protomorph' but what makes the alien so scary is how it stalks it's prey, only striking from the shadows making you feel claustrophobic and wonder where it is, showing it completely in the light and acting like a feral animal feels distinctly not alien and honestly, I'd be all for the protomorph stuff if it actually behaved like a flawed alien, making mistakes like it's still evolving though still behaving like the alien should. Although I will say I think the fact it's characteristics changing based off it's host are meant to imply an inherit ability to instantly adapt and thrive on any eviroment, though admittedly I will say it's done fairly poorly. Last thing I'll add is that, since the queen embryo had been extracted from a cloned Ripley meant it was still an imperfect specimen since some DNA had still been merged, it still lays eggs it just doesn't use the egg sac like it aliens, I also will say that it makes no sense but hey, that's what they were going for (of course unless I'm totally wrong in which case please correct me and ignore whatever I said)
I absolutely love every one of your videos. You have the best sense of humor, on the interwebs - ever. Thank you for the good laughs and also truly respect your stance on the Alien series and the lack of continuity from film to film.
And the fact those comments are still going from your predator video is so sad. Love your videos. I always love to look into and appreciate the design that goes into well anything and everything. Probably helps that I do my own art so I’m always looking at details.
Awesome video. Looking forward to the next one. I guess I've always felt the changes in the Alien's design, but couldn't put my finger on what was different. This perfectly laid it out. Giger's art is something else. I just ordered the new 40th anniversary book that came out about him and his work. Reading that before bed will be a trip.
i actually love the idea of it changes alot through whatever genetics it takes like some super adapting mega monster that is a perfect parasite. though ive always wondered do they ever eat? we have seen them bite humans but never eat
They've also forgotten what exactly was scary about alien, it wasn't so much that the alien looked scary, it's that you're alone in a finite space with a thing that wants to eat you and lay eggs inside your chest
You could not be more spot on with your assessment of the films. Bravo .... love it when someone truly gets it and what the first 2 films are to this lost and sadly damaged franchise.
Couldn’t it be argued that the artificial, mechanical elements of the original Alien are make it look more earthly and man-made? Ribbed piping, hydraulic hoses and such are very much of this world, created and understood by human beings, in a sense tying those early designs down to something familiar and recognizable. Their removal, therefore, would make them more alien and not less. That’s not to say I don’t still absolutely adore Giger’s original designs, of course, but I can definitely understand where the makers of the Alien movies were coming from when they decided to dial back the biomechanical style. In a way, I’m glad they decided to leave well enough alone, instead of trying (and inevitably failing) to recapture the essence of his art in later movies.
New subscriber here. Great job on being so detail oriented and organized and clear with you’re arguments. This is the kind of film criticism I’ve been looking for. Well done, and I look forward to checking out your past uploads.
I think the fact that the alien takes its host DNA is a good retroactive explanation for why these supposedly alien creatures are just guys in suits. I assume this idea was at least partially in the heads of the makers of the original Alien, since I'm not sure why else they'd stick a human skull into an alien creature like that (plus in interviews they describe what the Alien does as "rape" and not "a parasitic infection", and Ash calls it "Kane's son").
I loved the Bio-Mechanical side of the Xenomorphs and as the sequels and spin offs went on, my heart went down the drain when the make-up artists removed them... I think the only two variations of the Xenomorphs that I like are the Ravenger and Carrier from the ps2 game, Aliens vs Predator Extinction. Other than that, the original one from the first movie is still the best design.
Aliens was the first movie of the franchise I saw as a9 years old and it scared the shit out of me. Those xenomorphs will forever be the only true versions of xeno's so real to me it feels af if they actually exist and have haunted my nightmares as a child.
I hate to pull, the “oh well in the extended universe” card but, in the extended universe DNA reflex as it’s called has been retconned to be more basic. Anything bipedal is born looking like the OG xeno and anything quadruple or animal like is born look like the dog. Both types have evolutionary lines that follow the same basic pattern of drone, warrior, praetorian and finally queen. I’m a huge fan of the extended alien lore but, I loved the original concept that the alien was only alive for a few days, would take hosts turn them into eggs to create the second generation and just die. That’s great it’s simple and strangely alien, like a violent fruit fly. I’m fine with the whole glorified ant thing but, it could’ve been done better.
The Queen is the ultimate Xenomorphdesign, it's basicly the Jurassic Park T-Rex of the Alienfrancise, which contains just two movies, meaning "Alien" & "Aliens"!
That point you made about carryover dna is actually a plot point in the new Marvel alien runs. The first storyline, Bloodlines, has a xeno born from a goat-like animal, grows into a queen that lays an egg, and then impregnated a human. The resulting xeno kept the goat horn gene.
Great to see new content from you, mate. Looking forward to part two. I'm not half the movie buff you are but this stuff really resonates with me. Nice artwork as well by the way, especially the robocop piece.
One correction friend in resurrection, the Queen did start off with its standard ovipositor, laying a clutch of eggs it’s only later it entered into a second womb based reproductive stage
Um Ackchyually the xenomorphs in Aliens looked different because they are warriors and the alien in the first is a drone. Also it’s the T-850 not the T-800! Awesome video
As a kid, I remember seeing pictures and clips of the xenomorph and being so confused since I didn't know if they were meant to be biological creatures or androids of some kind.
What’s always been funny to me is that while Cameron removed the dome over fears of it breaking, they added those spindley arm “blades” which on the figures tend to break all the time lol. Neca “quality control” not withstanding
They do explain...yes I know "comics and video games don't count blah blah blah" but in the 90's the writers at Dark Horse comics had the appropriate amount of chromosomes so I can respect some of the ideas they had. In Aliens Labyrinth they explained that the dome the aliens have works sorta like a fun house mirror that feeds information to the skull shaped apparatus in the front of the alien's head allowing them to see in a full 360 degrees around them. Which means all those moments in the movies and such where the alien was right next to someone and didn't attack? Yeah they could totally see you there, just didn't choose to kill you for some reason. Which is both cool and scary. Also I get it anytime an alien gets sucker killed from behind or whatever doesn't make sense but fuck it I think that's a cool idea!
_Alien³_ is where the design of the creature was perfected. A lethal feline finesse replaced the clunky man-in-a-rubber-suit vibe that dogged the earlier films. I'm glad they ditched the cumbersome tubes on its back. Most of the rod puppet shots look pretty bad, but there are several shots that look phenomenal. It's too bad they didn't have the digital compositing tools we use today.
My theory of how and egg ended up on the sulaco was that the company commanded bishop to bring one on board. He would have had plenty of time before taking ripley to rescue newt.
The xenomorph became more and more animalistic as the films progressed which unfortunately killed the creepy and sadistic vibe of the original xeno. The xeno in Alien was 💯 different from the ones we saw in Aliens and the films after. The xeno in Alien had sadistic serial killer vibes as it clearly enjoyed fucking with remaining crew members. It relished scaring the fuck out of Lambert by taking it's sweet time in killing her. Hell it even seemed to be smiling the entire time! All that mixed in with how calculated and sneaky it was when it attacked the crew members really added an extra layer of terror to the species. Then they topped it off with rape innuendos which was genius. The xenos from the sequels were not as calculated as that one in any way shape or form. Glad someone noticed this because it's always been frustrating to me lol.
I think there were three face huggers in Alien 3. One that impaled itself on the glass of Newts cryotube causing it to bleed and start the fire. One that impregnated Ripley and one that got the dog.
There is an interview with Giger where he explained that he really liked the design of the Newborn from Resurrection, he even said something like "You can tell that's an original Giger style". He really hated those Resurrection xenomorphs tho. He said they had a mud-like texture and looked like crap. He was right.
I mean, they are imperfect copies of the real thing.
they looked too dark i mean you could hardly see any biomechanical detail on them.
@@RaikenXion Because they were never meant to be biomechanical anymore since they had been gene-spliced and hybridized with human DNA. They became more organic and that's why they looked that way.
@@multiverseoftimelessness4391 Well i don't know bout that cause the underwater shots of Xenos do show some biomechanical detail, and those facehuggers that impregnated those kidnapped humans were just normal like before.
I just think at end of the day these particular Xenomorphs look the way they do because of the different quality of practical effects and especially camera quality used; and you can clearly see. Alien Resurrection is filmed in a more smudgy kind of quality to that of Scott and Cameron's Alien films, even Fincher's Alien 3 has a more clearer film quality and that film was quite dark in it's lighting.
i liked the newborn it seems interesting and would be cool to see ripley and a squad with the newborn go into a hive of xenos and start just ripping apart the xenos
If you want a REAL Alien sequel, the videogame "Alien Isolation" is what you dreamed off and more. Seriously, even the nuts and bolts on the ship of that game was based off the 1979 movie, the developers wanted to create the most faithful sequel in every in spirit, tone and visuals.
Alien, Alien Isolation and Aliens is a great trilogy. In my opinion I’d even throw Alien 3 in there and make a great quadrilogy.
@@-.-.11 and don't forget the earth war saga by dark horse.
Yes it is one of the best games for tension I have ever play (still have it). Shame they never followed it up.
and they failed
@@Dead_Hitori how
My head canon for the dumbing down in ALIENS is that when a Xenomorph finds itself in an environment with no hive or Queen, it develops a higher state of intelligence and autonomy in order to set up a hive by egg-morphing captives like they do in the director's cut.
I always assumed that too
Actually if we were to accept the expanded canon (assuming it wasn't blown out of the goddamn airlock) then if there is a lack of a queen, a drone may undergo a hormonal change and turn into a female, thus growing to become a queen. Much like some frog species here in eart.
@@thekraken1909 Or they're female right off the bat. Like most ants/ bees are female. Since in the expanded lore, any warrior or drone has the capability to become a queen.
@@matthewparker1655 it’s weird cause other lore contradicts this by giving the xenomorphs male pronouns, even from their point if few. I’ve always seem them as mostly androgynous creatures barring the queen and some variants anyhow.
In the AVP game the alien you play as is female and eventually becomes a queen
Man the aliens films are the terminator films in terms of how each installment after the groundbreaking 2nd film completely forgot what made the original two so iconic. You could say that they each suffered their own.....dark fates.
I would be okay with a…resurrection of the franchise, but only if the developers made a….covenant to be faithful to the first two.
I feel like a similar thing could be said about the Predator movies
That's honestly most of the successful franchise, we compared Alien, Terminator and Predator here cuz they're all similar in terms of universe but Star Wars also kindof suffered that and I'm too tired to think about other examples but I'm sure there is
The difference between terminator and Alien is that the first 2 terminator movies had the same director resulting in both being totally consistent and actually both being action movies, while Alien and Aliens had 2 different directors with the second one being a completely different genre dumbing down and redesigning the Xenomorphs. Aliens is great and all but Cameron did start the path of the series ruining the xenomorphs. Like Cameron even stated that the design change in the head was made not for any lore reasons but to make them look more cool which is entirely the opposite of what the xenomorph should be. The Alien franchise is better compared to the resident evil games with re 1-0 being Alien and RE4 being Aliens and goes downhill for a while until Alien Isolation and RE7.
“I see what you did there.” *insert pointing meme*
God I love this video, I love hearing you talk about Alien stuff
Ayo! I didn’t expect to see you here! Love the content man!
Something I really like about the Alien design in relationship to the movies is that no one ever mentions it not having eyes, or suggests that it can't see. So we just have to assume that somehow it sees, even without any discernible eyes. That's fascinatingly weird to me.
I always thought that Alien actually has eyes but they're just not visible. Idk. Like that they're on each side of it's skull but kind of comouflaged with the rest of the skin so they aren't visible. :D
You just made me realize that after having like 8 movies of Aliens not once had any of them had an autopsy scene done on the adult xeno (like in most other sci-fi alien movies).
@@ArcadeMusicTribute - Interesting. My thinking was, the whole long dong-head was like some big compound eye.
@@TalentCaldwell - You'd think it would've happened in Resurrection if anything. But the whole acid-for-blood thing could make it a bit of a problem. Have they ever been n a position to do it?
@@FTZPLTC Well they performed an autopsy on the face hugger in the first movie (which is how they learned of the acid blood). And they also did a digital scan of the Engineer head in Prometheus. Other than that they’ve all been too busy killing them and getting killed by them to examine.
I like the fact that the aliens are adaptable on a genetic level. If something can survive in an environment a xenomorph can by taking on its DNA
The fact that it can MORPH with any species yet retain its Xenomorph hive mind is what makes it the perfect species
THIS exactly.
I understand the gripe of the cross breeding but THAT is what makes it the perfect organism. The fact that one egg can create a creature that takes on the absolute strongest traits of the host. It's not that the exact version of the alien in the first film is the perfect organism it's the fact that no matter what or where the alien will always take on the strongest and most dangerous traits of that environment.
@@rahmodin9209 the Xeno will always rule! 😂
They should make a comic where a Xenomorph hive is invaded by doom’s Hell.
@@juanjoyaborja.3054 omg! Imagine that!!!! Id like to see that!
It's how they adapt to their environment
The greatest irony: Giger was ESSENTIAL to the success of the original, but every subsequent film fails to take advantage of the opportunity to dive deeper into his imagination. I agree with your assessment 100%; Cameron's ideas were a logical extrapolation of what was established in the original. I do wonder what Giger's Queen would have been like, but the version created by Cameron and Stan Winston IS remarkable. Like you, I have resented the series' continuing insistence upon diminishing Giger's design. It's now little more than a big, DUMB 'monster' with a vaguely familiar profile. And Giger's death leaves a void of missed opportunities no one will be able to fill...
Well said brother
a logical extrapolation is the opposite of what Alien was and a mistake. Nothing was logical about the alien. It was...alien lol Making them termites is what everyone loves? A giger direction would have had those eggs not being eggs, but organic vessels, in line with the bio organic motif. Bugs...are you kidding?
@@Nerdmcloser Its one thing if you just don’t like the change but if you can’t see why it’s good (not my words, but the words of Giger, Ridley, and O’Bannon) then you’re not knowledgeable enough in the medium yet
@@camgoodkicks The queen design is cool and Aliens is a great movie, but I do like the cosmic horror of the first movie more. Like, why are these facehuggers seemingly designed to impregnate humans? Does the alien r*pe Lambert? Are these natural creatures or designed weapons? How does the alien grow so fast seemingly without food, and how does it STILL manage to secrete enough goop to build it's "nest" in the deleted scene?
I think the idea behind some of that original chestburster design was that it pretty much starts as the inner mouth part of the full grown alien and the rest sort of grows around it.
A couple days before you dropped the predator design video, I had an hour long conversation with my brother about how the mandibles never quite looked as good as they did in the first Predator. I was even downvoted on reddit for pointing out the shitty mandible in a promotional poster for The Predator 2018.
Getting mass downvoted on Reddit is tantamount to being irrefutably proven right at this point. So many of its users just live in their own private universe.
the point of mandibles is to be like lips to not let the mouth dry out but since they keep getting wider but not shutting correctly they stop being useful
@@antpope6222 spoilers regarding the predator design if you haven't seen prey............ I liked the blend of the the physical suit and the CGI face. It made the character feel real and the face closed nicely. I hated the eyes though.
@@ferniefabian5503 predator eyes kinda have to be angry and not to visible to
@@antpope6222 yeah this predator had huge eyes and his face didn't even get enough screen time to warrant changing the design so much. I suppose you can have it all. Oh well, great movie nonetheless
I always interpreted the feature mixing with the host as an ability the queen doesnt have. Thats what makes it a perfect being. It adopts the features of the creatures it wants to hunt, to hunt better. At the same time the queen stays the same.
As much as I love The Queen in Aliens, the scrapped “Eggmorphing” scene/concept from Alien is FAR more terrifying. I’m in the Aliens>Alien camp but I still love Alien & the mystery surrounding everything about the beast in that first movie is just…. perfect.
Same
My headcanon is that the eggs are former lifeforms that have been morphed eiher by whatever material (black goo perhaps?) was in use by the Jockeys or by the Xenos themselves via the tail rape injection we saw in the first film.
Think about it, you cleanse a planet in a way that automatically refills your ammo supply so that you may do it all over again as many times as you like! Its brilliant!
The egg morphing plays into the queen easily though. Xenos morph people into eggs to get a few xenos then they make an egg with a queen facehugger to have a queen. Basically they create the eggs to build up the start of a nest to protect the queen when she comes, once she does they focus on collecting hosts for the eggs she produces more efficiently.
@@IaMaPh1991 That is painfully blatant in the original movie.
The cut eggmorphing scene was supposed to be answer to Lambert's question back on the Derelict. "Where's the rest of the crew?"
"Parazitoid wast but somehow even more disturbing"is definitly better then "writers don´t know how eusocial organism works" of first sequel.
Also work better for what metaphoricly xenomorphs stands for.
@@-.-.11 yeah idk why some people seems to think it’s one way or the other when both can perfectly co-exist
¡Gracias!
I mean TBF, the whole idea of the alien taking on the host traits makes sense to me. Also Ridley Scott confirms in his commentary for the first movie that this idea was there from the start.
Ehhhhhh he said the same thing about his changes to Blade Runner, so I have trouble believing that.
@@worldscoolestperson7672 so you're telling me that if the alien infected, say, Jones the cat, that it would look and act the exact same way it does in the first movie? Right down to having a human skull? It's not even Scott alone who said this. The various comic books that were released around the time of the second movie also went into detail about this. I understand in this video he's going by the movies alone but this idea has been around for like ever. I mean the whole point is that the alien imprints off of its host. And again, this makes sense to me. It uses the host to incubate. And think about this, depending on the environment the alien may need certain traits from the Host in order to survive. That's what makes it the perfect organism. It's completely adaptable. I can see where he's coming from with his argument regarding the predalien becoming a queen and then creating this weird breeding cycle. But I don't really see a problem with the concept otherwise.
I like the idea of the xenomorph acquiring characteristics from the host. It helps him adapt, for example, to the environment in which it finds himself.
*It finds itself in
Drones don't have a sex/gender.
Only the queen is a she.
@@igorivanov299 Lets be real
Does it matter?
@@historicflame972
Yes it's important to be accurate.
A lackadaisical approach is never ideal.
@@igorivanov299 how does that make any sense? If a female exists then the other aliens must be “male” then, otherwise how a female is a female and not just a thing that lays eggs?
@@igorivanov299 Then lets be real, Aliens is not a direct sequel to Alien, its a soft reboot. Ridley Scott never considered it as a sequel as evident from his Prometheus and Covenant. And considering that...Ash called it Kane's son so....
Best thing about the Alien sequels is each one is just the same story(kinda) but each directors take on it is so different and make for a pretty unique series.
“The best on screen portrayal of the face huggers we’ll ever see is in Aliens”
Oh how things changed…
A perfect organism is one that best adapts to its environment. That means that if the xenomorph constantly changes shape depending on its previous hosts then it constantly adapts to succesfully hunt its prey.
Personally, I believe the perfect organism would have no need for physical adaptation, as It's already best suited to all environments.
For the facehuggers in 3, in the assembly cut we see a queen facehugger that one of the prisoners picks up after they hang the ox. Since that’s the only one we see in that cut, it’s safe to assume a queen facehugger has two embryos, the queen l, which takes a long time to grow and a drone to prepare the nest
The aliens only take some of the dna from the host when a face hugger first latches on. Hence the dog alien. There’s actual a lot of cool hybrids of the species.
5:31 I always saw it (I’m not sure if I read it as a kid) the xeno in Alien is a worker and those in Aliens are warriors. Which is why the dome is missing from the tougher, more robust warrior class. Could totes just be head canon again though
Yeah, that's how it works. The Big Chap is a drone, and the others are warriors. They were originally going to be the same, but the resin dome kept cracking in action scenes, so they made them different types of Xeno
1:29 it’s true… IQ’s have dropped.
In the director's commentary Cameron explains his theory, pretty much as you've explained, that the ridges appear on the Xenomoph's skull after they age a bit which honestly makes sense
It makes zero sense. What happened to the skull and hollow eyes? Not to mention Ridley scott established back in 79 in interviews that you are supposed to understand that the Xeno is dying by the end of Alien. Its lifespan is short.
Well maybe it wasn’t dying and was beginning to molt into the ridged headed Alien. And as for the skull, my theory is that is shifts as the alien grows and that the humanoid skull contorts into a Xenomoprh skull like the one we see in Predator 2 in the trophy room
I think with Giger having been on set for the first one with Ridley working on designs and going back and forth helped a lot. Where the later ones just mostly pushed him away and tried to keep him out, though he did always try to stay connected to the franchise.
I’ve always found it kind of weird how the dog hybrid just has the regular xenomorph head shape. When in reality they should’ve probably thought more about integrating the unexplainable skull and expanding on it what if instead of a human looking skull, the skull instead changed to each host for instance the dog hybrid had more of a dog skeleton including a slightly longer jaw with more pronounced canines. Still trying to make sense of that
Honestly it would be really interesting if you did reviews of the first 2 Species movies since they use Gigers designs in them. And also because of Natasha Henstridge of course.
something I never liked is how as the xenomorph movies progressed they lost "human characteristics" in the original design the big chap had six fingers and as they progressed they lost fingers, their feet that were almost human now look like "legs" of some animal, and not to mention the complete disappearance of the human skull,
they also "lost intelligence" in the sense of "sapience", in the first movie the big chap acted in a way in which he showed that although he was a wild creature he had a certain level of "consciousness", as the movies progressed they became they behaved more and more like animals, and with this it became very easy to kill until the point where they die in droves,
I know that what I am going to say is a controversial opinion, to say the least, but almost all these things began in the second movie "aliens" almost everything that I complain about is there, as if that were the seed of the plant we are talking about now,
and the truth is that whether or not they agree with the latter, I personally do not deserve all this degradation of the so-called perfect organism . . .
I think that as cool as the scene was, the sentry gun sequence (in the Director's Cut) of Aliens ruins the sense of cunning that the Alien had in the original film. It makes some sense later on in the film when they are climbing their way through the ceiling shafts to ambush Ripley & Co, and then by the time they attack they are all coming from different directions in the room, showing a level of tactics and strategy to their attack. But them mindlessly running in and dying to the sentry guns just shows how meaningless they think their lives are, which is in stark contrast to Ash's dialogue describing the Xenomorph as a "Survivor". Even though I adore Aliens, and I think as cinematic experiences go it remains a masterpiece of horror and thriller, there are indeed aspects of the film that do not connect very well with the original, despite its best efforts to stay grounded in the same universe and provide relative continuity.
The og alien was only threatening because the setting was in space, hundreds of light years away from earth with no hope of any rescue, the characters were all just regular people with no weapons or combat experience and they had a sleeper agent android sent by the very company they work for to ensure the capture of the alien, by ANY means necessary. The feeling of loneliness, hopelessness and despair is aleast 50 percent of what made the first movie so scary, the other 50 percent being the xeno itself. If the crew were battle hardened marines the xenomorph would be destroyed in no time. Hell, that's probably why the company decided to use unarmed space truckers instead of marines to retrieve the creature. This means that turning them into hive mind bugs is the only way you could've made them more threatening in a more "familiar" setting like in Aliens.
This is why I am somewhat more biased towards the Predator as my favorite movie monster. It's not a dumb monster who eats humans. Instead it's smarter, stronger and more agile than humans. It's so superior to humans that it purposefully nerfs itself for the sheer fun of it. The Predator's society is probably so advanced that death is completely meaningless to them. They care more about the sheer thrill of the hunt and the honour than living a safe and stable life. It's a cool ass concept and it's such a shame that the Predator seems to play second fiddle to the Alien these days.
Worth the wait. Welcome back
I think the Alien taking the characteristic of its host is interesting and doesn’t conflict with the perfect species thing. It’s possibly shown with the Alien in the first movie. With the implied rape scene.
I like that idea myself.
@@anubusxMr. Ditkovich, how you doing?
@@raymonddarhk20
Worried about the future.
@@anubusxyou might get the perfect specimen.
@@anubusxyou might get the perfect specimen.
I actually liked Resurrection and will defend it haha. Mainly because the newborn was an interesting concept. And the design had something to do with it
I kinda like the concept AVP Extinction introduced, with the xenos having a "purebreed" strain, facehuggers which implant praetorian embryos (larger crested aliens that can morph into a Queen if necessary), and a "transbreed" strain, which is what the regular facehuggers are, creating aliens that take on traits of its host.
My head cannon was something similar. It didn't matter if the queen was hosted from a human or dog etc, they would always produce regular eggs. The DNA from the queen's host wouldn't infect or alter the eggs.
Awesome to see a new video by ya, Cordz. Wonderful work as usual
I can't imagine how frustrated it makes YOU if this is how mad I get that you have so little views. Great as always, my man
it's not doing too bad for 4 months on hiatus. It's doing better than my last video that's for sure.
@@cordzfx I hope you make videos about the four species movies.
@@cordzfx A lot of people don't seem to talk about Species. It's probably not as popular as the alien and the predator franchises. I've been a Species fan since I was 12 and I watched the first movie with adult supervision, and I watched all 4 movies on Prime Video when they were free.
I acknowledge that The Species Franchise has its flaws, but I will always enjoy the classic franchise for what it is even if the movies were low budget. The Lore, the characters along with the hybrid characters will always hold dear to my heart even if they are forgettable at times.
My favorite characters were Hybrid Sil and Empath Dan Smithson from The Species movie, Mercenary Preston Lennox and Molecular Biologist Dr. Laura Baker from Species 1 and 2. Astronaut Dennis Gamble and Hybrid Patrick Ross and Sil's clone Eve from Species 2 and Eve's daughter Sara and College student Dean from Species 3.
Hollywood should revive the franchise with another sequel without retconning the four movies like a sequel tv series or a Species Sequel Trilogy that is continuing the events after Species 3 and Species: The Awakening. If it were me, I would've called it The 5th Movie Species: Resurrection, The 6th Movie, Species: Reckoning and The 7th Movie, Species: Retaliation. I wish they would revive it and hire people who really love the franchise and people who really care about the lore and the source material and who wants to respect and honor H. R. Giger's vision. But due to our current Political Climate, that's probably unlikely. Regardless, If you're a fan of The Species Movie Franchise, Make this hashtag go viral. #ReviveTheSpeciesFranchise
Hey, maybe you can make a Species Theory TH-cam Channel and make all kids of theory videos on how the movies and the characters could've done better and make more What If videos for the franchise and maybe you could make more videos that would add more lore to the hybrids and for the Species Franchise.
Alien 3 is fresh as fu** and you know it.
Biggest balls in cinema history
I actually think the idea of the xenomorph taking characteristics from its host is what makes it the perfect organism in a way. Because certain traits can be more useful in certain enviroments, and less useful in others. For instance, the speed of the runner/dog alien comes at a tradeoff of size and strength. In a hive, xenomorphs having different abilities to counter the abilities of the native lifeforms on the planet it is invading would be very useful, rather than all xenomorphs having the same strengths and weaknesses against a myriad of lifeforms on a planet. The problem is that this idea was taken too far in other media especially with the predalien. Rather than taking useful traits like enhanced speed, the predalien gets dreadlocks and an instinct to take trophies. Any traits taken by the xenomorph should have some benefit towards it, otherwise that kills the idea of it being a perfect organism if it takes undesirable traits. A predalien should be a slightly larger xenomorph with mandibles and a predator shaped head crest. That’s it. The designers for the movie and many of the comics tried to incorporate more predator traits which should have been left out so as to make it clear that the “predalien” is a xenomorph with predator traits and not a hybrid creature.
There was always an insect element in the original Alien. It's lifecycle is based on some parasitic wasp and there are other parasitic bugs and plus it has armor like a bug's exoskeleton. Makes strange sounds like bugs do, probably sourced from insect legs scratching like some of them do... and its attacks were partially based on the lightning quick movements of a preying mantis. On top of that I think there's a bit of demon (horns on the back instead of the head) and Pan or satyr in it it... cuz of all the dicks and it's implied it "rapes" Lambert, likely impaling her with its tail. The Facehugger definitely rapes its victims. And when Dallas is in the vents losin' his shit, he just so happens to stick his hand into a puddle of alien slime that's subliminally reminiscent of jizz.
ANother fun fact, Giger's Alien 3 concept would have had the alien yank out victim's brains through their mouth when it kisses them using some kind of barbed promiscuous. It's in some concept art. That would have been so nasty. They should have gone with his Alien 3 just as he designed it.
I wish more Alien pursuits would acknowledge that fact. You can watch interviews and listen to the commentary that talk about the insect influence.
The original aliens felt like they were pulled straight from a gothic painting and then smashed violently into some alien architecture, it gives it this distinctly...well...alien feel, it's a truly horrifying creature that feels like this predator with an indifferent feeling to the characters motives, it's not hunting it's surviving.
And then covenant came along and now its an angry smooth boy that smashes it's face into a window, I know it's meant to be a 'protomorph' but what makes the alien so scary is how it stalks it's prey, only striking from the shadows making you feel claustrophobic and wonder where it is, showing it completely in the light and acting like a feral animal feels distinctly not alien and honestly, I'd be all for the protomorph stuff if it actually behaved like a flawed alien, making mistakes like it's still evolving though still behaving like the alien should.
Although I will say I think the fact it's characteristics changing based off it's host are meant to imply an inherit ability to instantly adapt and thrive on any eviroment, though admittedly I will say it's done fairly poorly.
Last thing I'll add is that, since the queen embryo had been extracted from a cloned Ripley meant it was still an imperfect specimen since some DNA had still been merged, it still lays eggs it just doesn't use the egg sac like it aliens, I also will say that it makes no sense but hey, that's what they were going for (of course unless I'm totally wrong in which case please correct me and ignore whatever I said)
1:56: damn straight😁!
I absolutely love every one of your videos. You have the best sense of humor, on the interwebs - ever. Thank you for the good laughs and also truly respect your stance on the Alien series and the lack of continuity from film to film.
And the fact those comments are still going from your predator video is so sad.
Love your videos. I always love to look into and appreciate the design that goes into well anything and everything. Probably helps that I do my own art so I’m always looking at details.
Poltergeist III also used a Giger designed creature the Worm in the Tequila monster.
And a Train for another movie too. Might of been species too. But he did this Ugly Train thing.
Awesome video. Looking forward to the next one.
I guess I've always felt the changes in the Alien's design, but couldn't put my finger on what was different. This perfectly laid it out.
Giger's art is something else. I just ordered the new 40th anniversary book that came out about him and his work. Reading that before bed will be a trip.
i actually love the idea of it changes alot through whatever genetics it takes like some super adapting mega monster that is a perfect parasite. though ive always wondered do they ever eat? we have seen them bite humans but never eat
Yes Ripley, IQ's dropped significantly while you were gone.
Wonderfully crafted video, Cordz. Thank you.
They've also forgotten what exactly was scary about alien, it wasn't so much that the alien looked scary, it's that you're alone in a finite space with a thing that wants to eat you and lay eggs inside your chest
Aliens was the last good Alien and much like Predator 2 should have the last Alien film.
Well if they never made more predator movies after 2 then we never would’ve gotten Prey, which is easily the second best predator movie.
Aliens is shit ruined the franchise
Fuck off with your dumbed down alien made to be cannon fodder shit.
That bug gestation picture was absolutely disgusting. I’m just glad my memory is trash and I don’t remember images very well.
Man, I was so happy to see a new vid!
Glad you’re back making vids. This was informative yet fckn hilarious. Good work
Glad to have you back man. Keep up the videos please! 👍🏼
You could not be more spot on with your assessment of the films. Bravo .... love it when someone truly gets it and what the first 2 films are to this lost and sadly damaged franchise.
Couldn’t it be argued that the artificial, mechanical elements of the original Alien are make it look more earthly and man-made? Ribbed piping, hydraulic hoses and such are very much of this world, created and understood by human beings, in a sense tying those early designs down to something familiar and recognizable. Their removal, therefore, would make them more alien and not less.
That’s not to say I don’t still absolutely adore Giger’s original designs, of course, but I can definitely understand where the makers of the Alien movies were coming from when they decided to dial back the biomechanical style. In a way, I’m glad they decided to leave well enough alone, instead of trying (and inevitably failing) to recapture the essence of his art in later movies.
New subscriber here. Great job on being so detail oriented and organized and clear with you’re arguments. This is the kind of film criticism I’ve been looking for. Well done, and I look forward to checking out your past uploads.
8:34, LOVE THIS ERIC CARTMAN IMPRESSION!
Excellent vid as always cordiez
Thank the lord you're back!!!
I forgot i was subbed to this channel for awhile lol. Glad to get another vid. :)
I think the fact that the alien takes its host DNA is a good retroactive explanation for why these supposedly alien creatures are just guys in suits. I assume this idea was at least partially in the heads of the makers of the original Alien, since I'm not sure why else they'd stick a human skull into an alien creature like that (plus in interviews they describe what the Alien does as "rape" and not "a parasitic infection", and Ash calls it "Kane's son").
"Spaceballs is better than every movie after Return of the Jedi"
.....and now I must give this video a thumbs up.
I loved the Bio-Mechanical side of the Xenomorphs and as the sequels and spin offs went on, my heart went down the drain when the make-up artists removed them...
I think the only two variations of the Xenomorphs that I like are the Ravenger and Carrier from the ps2 game, Aliens vs Predator Extinction. Other than that, the original one from the first movie is still the best design.
I want to watch the next video now, this was very informative, specially for those who know little about ALiens trivia xD. Great video CordZ!!
Biomechanical Genius. Giger is up there with Dali and DeVinci
this guy always covers my favorite films, the alien franchise and terminator are the best!
2:15 literally the best cursed image I’ve seen
I like your videos because you actually tell the truth about movies, good or bad.
CORDZ: Uploads
Me: Return Of The King
Aliens was the first movie of the franchise I saw as a9 years old and it scared the shit out of me. Those xenomorphs will forever be the only true versions of xeno's so real to me it feels af if they actually exist and have haunted my nightmares as a child.
It's hard to beat perfection
I hate to pull, the “oh well in the extended universe” card but, in the extended universe DNA reflex as it’s called has been retconned to be more basic. Anything bipedal is born looking like the OG xeno and anything quadruple or animal like is born look like the dog. Both types have evolutionary lines that follow the same basic pattern of drone, warrior, praetorian and finally queen. I’m a huge fan of the extended alien lore but, I loved the original concept that the alien was only alive for a few days, would take hosts turn them into eggs to create the second generation and just die. That’s great it’s simple and strangely alien, like a violent fruit fly. I’m fine with the whole glorified ant thing but, it could’ve been done better.
Xenomorphs got turned from unsettling psuedo humanoid otherworldly terrors into raptor bugs when they moved to digitrade legs.
Good to see you back! Missed you!
OH MY GAHD BOYZ ITS DA CORDZ
The Queen is the ultimate Xenomorphdesign, it's basicly the Jurassic Park T-Rex of the Alienfrancise, which contains just two movies, meaning "Alien" & "Aliens"!
Thats right. Just cater to the lowest common demoninator. OOOO big monster! BIgger than the other one! cool! OO robot hit mosnter cool!
That point you made about carryover dna is actually a plot point in the new Marvel alien runs. The first storyline, Bloodlines, has a xeno born from a goat-like animal, grows into a queen that lays an egg, and then impregnated a human. The resulting xeno kept the goat horn gene.
The first two movies will always be my favorite
I mean, O’Bannon actually paid out of his own pocket to have Giger design the alien before Scott was even on board.
Honestly if this video went on for 3 hours I would've watched every second of it
Great to see new content from you, mate. Looking forward to part two. I'm not half the movie buff you are but this stuff really resonates with me. Nice artwork as well by the way, especially the robocop piece.
In my opinion the xenomorph from the game Alien isolation has the best alien design.
The artwork is amazing
One correction friend in resurrection, the Queen did start off with its standard ovipositor, laying a clutch of eggs it’s only later it entered into a second womb based reproductive stage
I missed you man, you`re the best.
Um Ackchyually the xenomorphs in Aliens looked different because they are warriors and the alien in the first is a drone. Also it’s the T-850 not the T-800!
Awesome video
Your last sentence is confusing. Your saying it IS and ISN’T called the same thing.
@@TalentCaldwell oops typo lol
Nice intro, bro! 'The Poz Button' podcast JUST did a podcast on 'Alien'. It compliments this episode PERFECTLY!
It’s crazy Winona Ryder played the Alien in Alien Resurrection.
The arms were originally on the the original ChestBurster too and you can still seer the remains of it in the movie. But they were removed.
I never really thought about the designs all that much and I have to mostly agree with your takes on them. Looking forward to the next video :D
To be fair, Cordz, I would say Space Balls is better than half of RotJ too.
wouldn't even disagree
As a kid, I remember seeing pictures and clips of the xenomorph and being so confused since I didn't know if they were meant to be biological creatures or androids of some kind.
What’s always been funny to me is that while Cameron removed the dome over fears of it breaking, they added those spindley arm “blades” which on the figures tend to break all the time lol. Neca “quality control” not withstanding
Ok I just discovered this channel… obsessed
They do explain...yes I know "comics and video games don't count blah blah blah" but in the 90's the writers at Dark Horse comics had the appropriate amount of chromosomes so I can respect some of the ideas they had. In Aliens Labyrinth they explained that the dome the aliens have works sorta like a fun house mirror that feeds information to the skull shaped apparatus in the front of the alien's head allowing them to see in a full 360 degrees around them. Which means all those moments in the movies and such where the alien was right next to someone and didn't attack? Yeah they could totally see you there, just didn't choose to kill you for some reason. Which is both cool and scary. Also I get it anytime an alien gets sucker killed from behind or whatever doesn't make sense but fuck it I think that's a cool idea!
The xeno went from being an elegant sleek biomechanical intelligent killer to a slimy screaming turd on legs
Great vid. Looking forward to seeing the prequel analysis
Nice. Can't wait to see a follow up :)
_Alien³_ is where the design of the creature was perfected. A lethal feline finesse replaced the clunky man-in-a-rubber-suit vibe that dogged the earlier films. I'm glad they ditched the cumbersome tubes on its back. Most of the rod puppet shots look pretty bad, but there are several shots that look phenomenal. It's too bad they didn't have the digital compositing tools we use today.
My theory of how and egg ended up on the sulaco was that the company commanded bishop to bring one on board. He would have had plenty of time before taking ripley to rescue newt.
The xenomorph became more and more animalistic as the films progressed which unfortunately killed the creepy and sadistic vibe of the original xeno.
The xeno in Alien was 💯 different from the ones we saw in Aliens and the films after.
The xeno in Alien had sadistic serial killer vibes as it clearly enjoyed fucking with remaining crew members. It relished scaring the fuck out of Lambert by taking it's sweet time in killing her. Hell it even seemed to be smiling the entire time! All that mixed in with how calculated and sneaky it was when it attacked the crew members really added an extra layer of terror to the species. Then they topped it off with rape innuendos which was genius. The xenos from the sequels were not as calculated as that one in any way shape or form.
Glad someone noticed this because it's always been frustrating to me lol.
I think there were three face huggers in Alien 3. One that impaled itself on the glass of Newts cryotube causing it to bleed and start the fire. One that impregnated Ripley and one that got the dog.