Alien (1979)

[sus]

Whereas all the people. They're so provincial. They're so ignorant and provincial. Stupid Monkeys who get themselves killed because they can't follow a simple quarantine protocol. And they have no appreciation of the complexity around them, they can only view it as a nightmare.

 

[sus]

To me, provincialism is partly about being unable to escape the particular value system, this-good that-bad, which are parochial to your unique circumstances of birth, your unique position in a larger system. To only see the Other very narrowly, in its relation to yourself. To use words like "evil" when you mean "I don't like it" or "It's not in my self-interest."

What I have come to appreciate about the Mithraic cults is how they draw a fundamental shared empathy or identity between hunter and hunter. We are all hunters and hunteds. Our prey is always itself a predator. David sees the big picture, perhaps because as an android he isn't part of the cycle, part of the hunting. On the sidelines he sees it for what it is.

 

[luka]

There he is, the gazer, the sifter.

Consumption is too definitive for him.


Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and shrug!



I sound like I'm being mean, but I'm not.😂 I find Version a genuinely fascinating, enigmatic character of historical dimensions. I mean, I only realised this the day before yesterday, but there it is.


Greatness has been thrust upon him despite the fact he never leaves the house.



I forgot about the Hugh Grant thing. About a Boy.




Good morning, Version. I am just about to go and have some lunch.

It's just stuff to me.

Amazing.

To be honest, I don't really get what's any different about the way I process stuff compared to the way anyone else my age or younger does. I don't feel particularly unique in my sense of things feeling somewhat arbitrary and weightless. That's just how the internet feels in general to me and many of us live on the internet now.

You are the distilled essence of your time. Of course you're not unique, you're literally a version. But you are such a pure version of everybody else that you are the Ideal Form. Abstract, perfect, unchanging.😂🤣🤣

 

[version]

Vershy Versh: How do we kill Corpsey, Gus? There's gotta be a way of killing him. How? How do we do it?
Sus: You can't.
Luka: That's bullshit.
Sus: You still don't understand what you're dealing with, do you? The perfect organism. His structural perfection is matched only by his hostility.
IdleRich: You admire him.
Sus: I admire his purity. A survivor... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality.

 

[IdleRich]

That's what's intriguing about the alien in Annihilation too. It's impossible to work out what it's doing, why it's doing it, whether it's doing it out of malice, indifference or something else, or whether motives and emotions like that even come into it.

In the book of Solaris it's much more explicit that they cannot hope to understand the sentience they find. It would be like, for example, expecting animals that live by the side of the road to understand the objects left behind by a family that stopped for a picnic... hang on a sec did Tarkovsky make two films about the exact same thing?

 

[version]

There he is, the gazer, the sifter.

Consumption is too definitive for him.


Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and shrug!



I sound like I'm being mean, but I'm not.😂 I find Version a genuinely fascinating, enigmatic character of historical dimensions. I mean, I only realised this the day before yesterday, but there it is.


Greatness has been thrust upon him despite the fact he never leaves the house.



I forgot about the Hugh Grant thing. About a Boy.




Good morning, Version. I am just about to go and have some lunch.





Amazing.

You are the distilled essence of your time. Of course you're not unique, you're literally a version. But you are such a pure version of everybody else that you are the Ideal Form. Abstract, perfect, unchanging.😂🤣🤣

This was proper insulting. Glad he's dead.

 

[luka]

i miss him

 

[sus]

Vershy Versh: How do we kill Corpsey, Gus? There's gotta be a way of killing it. How? How do we do it?
Sus: You can't.
Luka: That's bullshit.
Sus: You still don't understand what you're dealing with, do you? The perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility.
IdleRich: You admire it.
Sus: I admire its purity. A survivor... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality.

The second-best Corpsey copypasta

 

[sus]

realizing we've had the provincialism conversation before

 

[IdleRich]

Like I mentioned upthread, I think it's important (and unfortunate) that all the Alien films are about first encounters. Small groups of people who have no idea what they're seeing, what they're getting into. Because realistically, in the long run, I think human's extremely sophisticated improvisatorial coordination capacities would defeat the xenomorph. Over the long-term, our ability to build sophisticated environments, to practice science, and to coordinate billions of organisms is unbelievably powerful, more powerful even than these law-of-physics-defying impossible nightmarecreatures who can grow from 3 pounds to 300 in an hour, and survive in the vacuum of space for decades, and radically alter their genome in a single generation.

With a little bit of time I think you can imagine human societies, even human societies with present-day technological conditions, setting up extremely tight quarantine protocols, with advanced airtight fortifications and detection systems, and using aircraft & drone to detect and decimate the xenomorphs. Yes it would be incredibly bloody costly messy business as we learned and adapted.

Not saying this to do the whole YouTube vid genre of "which fantasy monster would win." More just to say that you're right, our abilities to niche-construct and cooperate are obscenely powerful and there's (what Lynn Margulis would call) a neo-Darwinist conflict orientation in these films that reflects now-outdated evolutionary paradigms

I think if the xenomorph landed on an unprepared earth there would be a problem but otherwise...

I mean vampires hide for a reason right? And of course like any good parasite they are not trying to wipe out humanity, just live off it.

nb those mathematicians who calculate that vampires would have grown exponentially and 'turned' all of humanity are working off a flawed premise, as I understand it from everything I've read or seen vampires can choose whether they turn their victims or simply kill them, it's normally a rarity to make a new vampire - either an accident or they fancy them or similar.

 

[IdleRich]

like mixed biscuits

I automatically 'like' anything insulting mb but that was a really good one.

 

[luka]

we need to capture mb and perform a series of intrusive experiments on him

 

[version]

Luka desperate to take me down a peg after 20 pages of version virtuosity. He can't handle it. I see the tags.

 

[luka]

Gus messaged me and said youre just 'riding on his coat-tails'

 

[woops]

It's not something I can just do on a whim, like catalog was prodding me to with E.T. It only happens with certain things. It's not a conscious decision to burrow into a book or film. It just happens for a while then the energy goes elsewhere.

whereas i reckon if i sicced @sus on Chris marker or something he'd tear it to bits

 

[IdleRich]

never seen it but it is funny that lynch and cronenberg are jealous of ridley scott when they never made a film half as good as gladiator. maybe being and advertisment man with no vision is a good thing?

Isn't that what makes jealousy, not being as good as someone?

Though Gladiator is bullshit for morons so the point is moot.

 

[luka]

Isn't that what makes jealousy, not being as good as someone?

Though Gladiator is bullshit for morons so the point is moot.

you didnt understand it

 

[IdleRich]

Corpsey's contribution to this thread will be something like "If you squint you can read 'Ridley Scott' as 'Diddly Squat'."

If you squirt maybe

 

[luka]

 

[IdleRich]

To me, provincialism is partly about being unable to escape the particular value system, this-good that-bad, which are parochial to your unique circumstances of birth, your unique position in a larger system. To only see the Other very narrowly, in its relation to yourself. To use words like "evil" when you mean "I don't like it" or "It's not in my self-interest."

What I have come to appreciate about the Mithraic cults is how they draw a fundamental shared empathy or identity between hunter and hunter. We are all hunters and hunteds. Our prey is always itself a predator. David sees the big picture, perhaps because as an android he isn't part of the cycle, part of the hunting. On the sidelines he sees it for what it is.

Like how the striker and the opposition goalie are somehow bonded in a way their teammates can never be. The arrow seeks its target as the target seeks the arrow as the Buddha said.