ALIEN: REVISITED movie edit (* unfinished project *) — Page 2

I've thought about giving ALIENS a shot (after this and a few other edits; gotta get the hang of this first!).  For one thing, I always felt the gun sound FX were a bit on the wimpy side, so I would definitely replace them with something more bassy/boomy (PREDATOR or DIE HARD would be good examples).  I "may" consider making the smart guns actual plasma/laser guns (this IS the future after all), but that may be a little much - it would definitely have to be tested to see how it looks and sounds.

I can't think of anything I would change visual FX wise (other than giving the gas giant a ring to match the 1st film and a few other things), but sound FX could be improved and definitely some elements of the script.  Don't know how I would do it, but I always thought it was stupid that a sergeant would wait for orders to RUN AWAY (I always thought the whole point behind sergeants was that if the officer became incapacitated in any way, they would take charge), so I would try to re-edit that scene to show a more realistic portrayal of military trained troops while still coming to the same conclusion.

Don't know what to do about the "Alien Queen hanging onto Ripley's endoskeleton super foot", but that would be one thing I would try to address...

Even so, my take on ALIENS is that the Queen is essentially the same type as the Alien in the first movie, but mutated due to radiated colonists (namely Newt's dad) being the host... so in essence we have a wasp-based creature mutate to a bee/ant-based creature, with the "bone-headed" Alien warriors being weaker, watered-down versions of the first film Alien (which would also explain how much weaker they are - remember that the Alien in the first film survived a fusion engine blast from the Narcissus).

Well, ALIEN 3 and 4 don't exist in this dojo, so when ALIENS ends, that's it for me.

But all those points are valid:
- the score I can take or leave; it works for the movie, but not if you listen to it by itself (though it would be interesting just to see what another score, be it a temp or original [check out a guy called IslandRocks on youtube], would sound like)
- I have NO IDEA how to re-edit the finale other than showing the Alien Queen with some footing on the outer airlock wall (which would mean her whole weight wouldn't be on Ripley's foot).  Granted, inside the airlock there could be zero gravity, but still.  Even if you can't change the finale, I would DEFINITELY change that last shot of the Alien Queen falling away from the Sulaco - talk about fake looking!

Jaitea said:

Hi Monroville, the main thing that annoys me about Alien is the scene with the decapitated Ash. The jump cuts between Ian and the dummy head need fixed and when the skin is being burnt off by the flamethrower the final blast of flames blows off the last of the skin revealing the white plastic looking mannequin head, no eye sockets, skull, nothing.

 

I'll have to check it again, maybe the last blast of flame could be cut before the plastic head was revealed.

J

YES!   That is definitely something I want to work on; be it editing and/or taking images of Ian Holm and figuring a way of mapping it onto the fake head (I definitely want to deal with the bit where Ripley is trying to get the head to stay down and it keeps wanting to tip over - I would consider just editing that bit out so the first you see is Ian's head through the table). 

In fact, it's funny you bring up the "mannequin head" that appears after the 2nd flamethrower blast, because I was thinking about that yesterday - it needs either something akin to an endoskeleton skull or at least a more Incredible Melting Manish appearance



...or just cutting out the 2nd flamethrower burst. 

Bingowings said:

I remember happening across the novelisation of "The Incredible Melting Man" in Woolworths when I was a kid and the front cover freaked me out so much that I refused to go near the books section for months later, just encase it was still there.

That film is gloriously sick, the bit with the head plopping down the water fall is classic.

Funny you say that, because that's how I felt about the Saturday morning Scene (the arts and leisure section of my local paper) way back in the day: in the back, they always had the movie reviews and ads, and that face would always freak me out - you'd turn the page quickly, and then peel it back just to get a peak. 

Sad as it is to say, I will say that those memories of the ad are probably way better than the movie itself (though it still has a warm, gloopy spot in my heart and on the dvd shelf).

-Angel

Here are some images to show the angle I want to show the Nostromo and Refinery:





I want to see how either would look if the only lighting on them came from the model/ships themselves (as it would in deep space).

BTW, I am currently looking for one of the Monsters in Motion or Halcyon Nostromo models to use for filming.  If anyone can find one, please let me know...

vaderios said:

-Angel

I think the opening of Alien is meant to be spartan and depressing, but your mockups are cool, as always. :-)

BTW, does anyone know where I can find/purchase/borrow one of the Halcyon Nostromo models for use in this edit (on a side note, the image below may be used [or one similar to it] to replace the atmosphere entry scenes - minus the landing gear, naturally)?



On another note, if someone has one for me to borrow, I will go ahead and ask if I could have it (re)painted per these images:



Vaderios: how difficult would it be to do a mock-up depicting the Nostromo like a regular commercial/cargo plane, such as something like this:



the idea being: in space, without much light, a large spaceship would have various running lights, bioluminescent lights and reflective strips so as to make it visible especially when entering a populated area.  Not to mention, being a commercial vessel, wouldn't the Nostromo be branded by Weylan-Yutani the way most trucks/planes are (as opposed to just a dark, grey hunk of steel), with the company logo on the engine pod?  Here are some more images:


(the star field may be a concept used to show the Nostromo in faster-than-light travel as well [the idea being that the ship is in a gravity well "bubble", with the stars warping around it to depict that invisible bubble.   In fact, this would work well with the "spinning star field" we see at the end when the Alien is ejected out of the Narcissus - the idea being that the shuttle was still within the hyperspace bubble created by the Nostromo].  I want to experiment showing a [even slightly] different take on what hyperspace would look like)







Okay, THAT is probably a little overboard (not to mention I know that Ridley did NOT want to copy CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, especially since it came out the year before), but you get the idea.  I would still prefer the prior images of the Enterprise I posted earlier as the primary concept, with maybe some painting and company logo branding on the Nostromo to better reflect its status as a commercial ship.

Currently, I'm on Thxgiving vacation, but if it takes a week or two for posts, then so be it... it will still be here.

I apologize for long waits on posts or updates, but between work, bills and being a first time editor, it is going to take some (by some I mean a lot of) time.

Jaitea and V: appreciate the work so far!  I hope to post an image blending an image of the IMM onto the white areas on Ash's melted face to see how that looks.. I wonder how imposing an image of the first TERMINATOR skull would look too (specifically the shot right after Arnold gets out of the burning truck and you see the close-up of the skull bathed in flames turn towards us - its pretty black looking in that image, but you do have the flames over it, so it may not mesh well)

Monroville said:

I wonder how imposing an image of the first TERMINATOR skull would look too (specifically the shot right after Arnold gets out of the burning truck and you see the close-up of the skull bathed in flames turn towards us - its pretty black looking in that image, but you do have the flames over it, so it may not mesh well)

-Angel

It would be interesting to see an edit taking out the fake head being propped.. I understand you have to have the scene where Ripley is sticking the needle into his neck to activate him, but I'm wondering how it would look to just go to the Ian Holm head and just delete the "fake head tipping over" stuff.

I or someone else could play with color-correcting the scenes where we see Ripley and the back of Ash's head (which have a very bluish cast to them, due to the overhead lights - thing is, all scenes with full-frontal Ash are color corrected.  If anyone has seen the large laserdisc special edition that came out some 15 years ago, this scene was NOT color corrected and was just as blue as the "back of the head" scenes are).

2:28: that looks pretty good!  If there was a way to "tilt" the head to the right to match the following flame thrower shots (again, don't know how but if the face could be mapped onto the dummy head - so the right ear wouldn't be seen and the right side of the face would be less seen), that would be perfect.  Also, Ash's slight smile would have to be added onto the dummy head in the following shots ... otherwise, good job!

Also note at 2:08, Ash's eyes are open when Ripley hits him, but when Parker turns around to flame him, his eyes are closed - never noticed that before.  One thing that could be cool if rendered properly, what if his eyes were blackened out during the flaming scenes and/or had flames coming out of the eye sockets?

I would play with the flamethrower edit: again, not much can be done, other than adding FX onto the white dummy head areas, and/or cut it in mid burst during the second FT burst (I could see the audio being turned up during the mid-2nd burst, so when it cuts off, you have that horror movie "jarr" effect.  A good example would be near the end of BLADE, when Karen is crawling out of the pit, trying to escape the zombie-vampire doctor friend).

Here is something that could possibly be done with some of the space shots:



figuring out ways of silhouetting the Nostromo/Refinery...

Sad news:

Dan O'Bannon dead at 63