Alien (1979)

[IdleRich]

this game looks interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorn_(video_game)

I've read a fair bit about this game strangely enough, I've heard it's very atmospheric but lacking in gameplay.

 

[sus]

Goya worth mentioning. Sleep of Reason.

 

[0bleak]

I've read a fair bit about this game strangely enough, I've heard it's very atmospheric but lacking in gameplay.

Might be perfect for me then with motor skills/visual-spatial issues.

 

[IdleRich]

I don’t even really understand the story so don’t listen to me

earth was populated by. engineers something something alien something xenomorph something David something oh no

I lost interest to such an extent I couldn't get much more than that out of it.

 

[0bleak]

oh, see it described as a combat/shooter game... never mind then

 

[IdleRich]

Other decadents such as Rops and Moreau perhaps too.

Oh you mentioned Rops, I'm sure there is one that has kinda tentacles or long necks or something and looks really Alieny but I can't find it.

 

[IdleRich]

oh, see it described as a combat/shooter game... never mind then

I thought it was more of a puzzle kind of thing in a twisted kind of way.

 

[version]

@IdleRich @0bleak

There are loads of actual Alien games too. The one in particular that gets the praise is Alien: Isolation which is more of a survival thing modeled on the first film. You get to explore the derelict on LV-426 in that one.

 

[Murphy]

It’s a psi-op - we’re never going to reach another star system and the aliens are already here

 

[0bleak]

I thought it was more of a puzzle kind of thing in a twisted kind of way.

yeah, but I guess there's still combat/shooting involved, too

 

[Murphy]

 

[IdleRich]

There was a quote from one of them where she says (something like)

We have to go into orbit and blow up the whole planet, it's the only way to be sure

And my friend said "I never knew Ripley was Irish".

 

[version]

Giger did the art for a couple of point-and-click games in the 90s.

 

[version]

Félicien Rops

Some of his illustrations really remind me of David's from Covenant. I mentioned da Vinci, but maybe there's a Decadent current there too.

L'Oeuvre graphique complete. Félicien Rops. Ouvrage établi et présenté par Jean-Francois Bory. Avec un texte contemporain de l'artiste par J.K. Huysmans by Félicien ROPS, Jean-Francois BORY,

Paris, Arthur Hubschmid, 1977. Octavo, 688 pages with over 640 illustrations. Cloth; top edge slightly marked; an excellent copy with the lightly creased and indented dustwrapper in the plain card slipcase a little tanned and foxed . A catalogue raisonné of the artist's graphic works; the text...

www.treloars.com

 

[version]

There's the Alien-Joy Division connection too.

 

[version]

@sus

Something piquing my interest atm's the biomechanical thing. The blurring of the biological-mechanical distinction's obviously the point, but considering the alien in terms of one then the other's intriguing. There's a spectrum from organic parasite to synthetic weapon you can play around with positioning it on. I've mentioned the horror at the thought of nature producing something like that elsewhere, Darwin and his parasitic wasp, but there's also the horror of the perfect machine and that opens up a whole other line of thought where the alien stops being horrifying because it's so different from us and starts being horrifying because it represents the endpoint of a technological trajectory. It's both the wildest of animals and most efficient of machines. As Ash says, "Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility."

 

[sus]

I'm really annoyed I've spent an hour filling out online forms and wanting to KMS but when I'm sane again I look forward to pondering this with you V

 

[IdleRich]

@sus

Something piquing my interest atm's the biomechanical thing. The blurring of the biological-mechanical distinction's obviously the point, but considering the alien in terms of one then the other's intriguing. There's a spectrum from organic parasite to synthetic weapon you can play around with positioning it on. I've mentioned the horror in the thought of nature producing something like that elsewhere, Darwin and his parasitic wasp, but there's also the horror of the perfected machine and that opens up a whole other line of thought where the alien stops being horrifying because it's so different from us and starts being horrifying because it represents a culmination of a technological trajectory. It's both the wildest of animals and most efficient of machines. As Ash says, "Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility."

Going back to Alasdair Reynolds, the basic premise is that the solution to the Fermi Paradox is that an ancient alien race called The Inhibitors wipe out any civilisation that achieves the power of leaving their solar system.

Anyway this is relevant cos these Inhibitors have evolved to the point where they are (or maybe have replaced themselves with) machines, and much is made of their "cold machine intelligence" and how they have become these perfect, remorseless killing machines.

Although there is one weird bit where the narrator says something about how their distant ancestors were more like mammals than any of the other races they annihilate and so there must be a question of if they do perhaps feel the tiniest flicker of regret on wiping out humans rather than many-legged squid beasts or whatever.

 

[version]

Moebius apparently did some designs for the film which ended up being lost or stolen. There are only a handful of images online. Nowhere near as good as Giger's designs, but interesting to see a different take on the derelict and space jockey.

I didn't know Giger did some work on Prometheus beyond them basing things on his original designs either. There's a blog with a ton of pictures and information about this stuff.

Alien Explorations

<center>Exploring the "Alien" Movies and HR Giger.<br> All entries are continuously edited and altered. <br> Articles are published not by actual date.</center>

alienexplorations.blogspot.com

 

[version]

Crescent moons like scythes—two symbols of death—

Another Giger.