I think Nips is in the running. (Okay, technically her character is “Nibs”, but Lily Newmark seems to really like sharing topless photos of herself, so…)
Moderating:
As you might recall, we are trying to get away from randomly objectifying women on this site. That post has nothing to do with the topic, it’s just an opportunity to leer. Knock it off.
So does Kirsh know what is going on with Slightly or not? It’s not clear to me.
I didn’t expect Eyeball to have intelligence. I thought it was just a parasite that infested eyes.
It seems more and more that the vast majority of this cast is coming to a bad end by the time this is all over.
Well, he certainly knows everything any of the synths see and hear, including the super elaborate plot to stick a facehugger on… Joe or whomever to smuggle aliens off the island.
I have a kind request for the thread: whoever is the first person to comment on a new episode, it would be very helpful to add a note at the top of the post like *** Episode __ ***. It will help people avoid unwanted spoilers, and be less confusing for people like me thinking “what are they talking about?” Thanks!
Does anybody know off-hand what day new episodes drop?
I thought this was open spoilers. Sorry about that if that was incorrect. New episodes drop Tuesdays.
I’m certainly enjoying Olyphant and Ade Edmondson as ever, but the hybrid characters only sometimes come across as childishly-awkward/robotic, and the rest of the time as extremely wooden.
Also; in the same way that the Jurassic ‘World’ films still tended to confine themselves to pretty discrete areas of the world, I’d prefer if this show wasn’t stuck on tropical sci-fi island quite as much.
All good! It is open spoilers, no need to apologize. I just reflexively open and read the thread without thinking about if a new episode was released, so seeing where new episode comments start is a help.
They blew the “technology is indistinguishable from magic” attribution in episode 4, it was Arthur C. Clarke, not Issac Asmiov.
I seriously doubt that was an accident.
Yeah, maybe so. But I can easily imagine casual viewers will take the misattribution and run with it, thus making it more “truthy” than the real one.
Maybe I’m imagining it, but I keep hearing a three note motif when the boy genius is on screen just like the one used for Gene Wilder’s Willy Wonka.
I think we’re starting to see why hybrids aren’t a continuing technology in the future of Alien.
I’m also wondering if it’s a coincidence that there are now characters named Arthur and Isaac.
I’ll keep watching just to see the insufferable boy genius meet a gruesome end.
He also bungled the quote, I think—saying something like ‘at some point, technology is just indistinguishable from magic’, where the real one talks about a ‘sufficiently advanced’ technology. I think that’s a telling difference: the original points out that what seems inexplicable may just have an explanation we don’t understand yet, while the bungled version speaks to a naive techno-optimism of eventually being able to do anything with the right tech. In combination with the misattribution (which I agree was likely intentional) I think this is intended to further chip away at the ‘billionaire genius’ (well, trillionaire in this case I suppose) myth.
**Spoilers for 8/26 episode
These are my questions as well. I want the show to explain it. The show, indeed the Alien universe, is a bit iffy on travel times and if there is FTL. I thought it was much further ahead in a timeline. I thought the only scifi in it was the cyrosleep working. The crew of any ship is put into stasis for a long journey. To that end, the timeline of a 65 year mission would make sense. It would take that long to get to places.
As I think about it, it makes earth dystopian that the five companies have taken over. The brother seemed to believe that what they did was best for everyone. Most people probably don’t know and don’t care what the corporations do. It might be interesting to know if you are born into a corporation, can you migrate to another? Or is that your home country as well?
Where was I? Oh, 65 year mission. I went on the digression because it would seem that space truckers are getting things and bringing it back to earth. That might be real, although love a correction. It might be tough for us, as a species, to live elsewhere. Bringing things back, then, makes sense. Hopefully, the corps cleaned up the earth. I think the Nostromo was on a two year mission? The problem with that is it makes Ripley a bad mom. She left her young daughter for two years? More? Especially knowing the company could redirect them?
The Maginot might have been on a 65 year tour because it was an old ship and didn’t have whatever the AU uses for FTL. In Aliens, Burke tells Ripley that there have been a lot of advances since she was gone. I wonder, therefore, if the Nostromo was the newest of the tanker class? It could make the trip much faster than the Maginot. Equally, then, when the marines go back, they travel faster.
I think the boy genius said he didn’t like talking to Kirsh because Kirsh is all data. No spark or joy. I assume Kirsh’s current parameters are to watch and observe the children while also doing the experiments with the aliens. Therefore, I think Kirsh knows and will put it in a report but it doesn’t mean anything to him.
I agree that the cast is coming to a bad end.
When I watch things, I look for world building. What did the author(s) think about certain things. Timelines, people, daily lives of most compared to the people we do see. Are Prometheus and Covenent assumed to have happened? What are those ramifications? How many companies are around in Aliens or later? I try not to judge a show based on those things. I like knowing the writer(s) thought about it. I find it easier to forgive something a writer researched but then chose the drama over someone who just wrote.
I am at that point as well but also want more. Again, in the latest episode, two adults completely manipulate the kids including boy genius. Not sure if this ties into the quote being attributed to the wrong person or not. Even the brother got manipulated and he’s not that much older, it seems. I’m not sure who I want to take out the boy genius but I have a lot of options.
Thanks for the discussion!
The production went to great pains to make the Maginot and Nostrimo into contemporary looking ships. The inside of Mother, the cryo pods, the dining room, these two ships clearly came off the same production line.
Yes, but even if they were both built in the 2050s, it doesn’t preclude the Nostromo being retrofitted with an FTL drive sometime between the Maginot launch in 2055 and its own launch in 2120.
That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if the writers didn’t put as much thought into this as we are. The ships travel as fast as necessary to advance the plot.
I was reminded today that there was a similar “goof” in Alien: Covenant, and now I’m confident this wasn’t a mistake and is referencing the earlier film.
In Covenant at one point, David (evil synth) says to Walter (non-evil synth), “‘Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair.’” He then says “Byron. 1818. Magnificent. To compose something so majestic, one could die happy… if one died.”
But that quote is from Ozymandias by Percy Shelley, not Lord Byron. Walter and David later have this exchange:
Walter: Who wrote Ozymandias?
David: Byron.
Walter: Shelley. When one note is off, it eventually destroys the whole symphony, David.
Having a supposed genius misattribute a quote in Earth is pretty obvious foreshadowing.