Filmmaking / Directing : Alien: Romulus - First Look by Sam Sokolow

My favorite is Aliens too, Sam Sokolow. The only movie I haven't seen that's already out is Alien: Covenant. Can't wait for Alien: Romulus!

Hi Sam, Aliens definitely

Aliens is my favorite. I can't wait to see Alien: Romulus, too. Looks scary. I have enjoyed the Alien franchise, but I haven't been 'scared' since the original. That scared the crap out of me.

Frankly, I am done with the horror flicks. I have seen all the previous Alien films. I am ok skipping this one.

By a long shot, Sam Sokolow - Aliens! It was also the first movie novelization that I ever read. Loved it. Would have liked to have seen what would have happened had Newt survived in A3. I was also disappointed that they took out the scene of Ripley's realization that her daughter had died of old age. This would have made Newt's presence more meaningful.

So let's now talk about a John Wick / Terminator / Alien crossover, Maurice Vaughan. Whatever the story, it has to end with John shooting a xenomorph while sitting on the steps of the crumbled Skynet building to save a puppy. His foot leans on the skull of a T-800.

Fantastic ending, Leonardo Ramirez! John Connor and Ripley would be in the scene too. John Wick, John Connor, and Ripley would team up in Act One.

That's just too epic Maurice Vaughan !

Maybe one day we'll get a Terminator / Alien crossover, Leonardo Ramirez. It's possible since multiverses are popular.

I think they’d be fun to write Maurice Vaughan.

It would be fun, Leonardo Ramirez. I might write it as a stunt script one day.

There is a famous Hollywood story about how Cameron pitched Aliens. I am not sure if it is true, but it is too good not to share.

Cameron was in a room of executives and wrote "ALIEN" on a board. They responded with confusion. Then he added an "S," which elicited a response of interest, then he put two lines through the "S" to spell "ALIEN$" which brought down the house. Again, I don't know if it is true, but as John Ford said, "When you had to choose between history and legend, print the legend,"

Anyway, Alien 3 was way better than it had any business being. But my heart belongs to Aliens. "Game over man. Game over."

That’s the kind of pitch that doesn’t require much practice Tom Lapke. Pure genius on his part. “In the pipe, five by five.”

Bill Paxton (Hudson) had the best lines in the movie Tom Lapke : "look, there's something moving and it ain't us"; "What, you're going to put her in charge?"; "Maybe you haven't been keeping up on current events, but we just got our asses kicked, pal".

Vikki Harris Everything out of his mouth in that movie is pure gold.

Well, I did get to work on the reshoots of Alien 3 (David Fincher)...so that could be my favorite for career reasons....but think the OG Alien is my favorite. I was a bit scared watching this trailer!

I LOVE the OG (we have a Displate poster in our living room), but my favorite is Aliens. it's such a wonderful blend of both horror suspense and action.

When I saw "Alien" and I also saw the "string" that was used for the "chestbuster" (I have very quick response time in my visual acuity) that blew it for me! Alien was also a 50's movies " 1958 The terror from beyond space". While Alien was good, saw the other and could not under stand the crew making some many errors. The did not evacuate the atmosphere to make sure the alien breathed oxygen. By the way, this is how they killed the critter in the 1958 movie.

Aliens was great, the franchise was mediocre, Prometheus was problematic, Covenant was curious continuation and saw "ARomulus" was ok but it was a movie for the ages (movies for younger generation for reintroduction).

John Gostomski the film is "It! The Terror From Beyond Space." Marshall Thompson's tour-de-force. :)

When I saw Alien been a fan of sci fi for a long time to have seen a good number of 1950's films. They to us today are quirky but to me were like with view our films today. State of the art that becomes "Art of the State"! You can find it and it silly with the size of the ship and the critter moving about in it confines. The Nostromo was huge for mineral extraction and automated processing but in the book it was an oil refinery!

The best part of the movie showing dept of field adding to the vastness of space. The crew is in the control room and can't find earth, they try to contact Antarctica tracking and are in a shipping lane. It is a little thing but for someone into celestial navigation the visualization possibly coming in 90 degrees to the plain of the ecliptic.

Also in the movie they are "Space Truckers" space trucking across the galaxy. There are subtle things in movies that make our connection in the adventure with the actors. Booga booga, the greek story is alive and well!

Aliens is regarded as one of the best sequels in cinema history, made by the master of sequels himself, James Cameron. Aliens is yet another fascinating, complicated, and downright confounding production in the franchise. From years of development hell due to studio upheaval and legal issues, to a young director that got upset at the tea breaks his British crew took, and the staggering amount of times this film almost fell apart. https://youtu.be/Yqhp6Obt2Ng?si=EEwyYBdlx70O1AmX

Aliens showed me that they started having fun with a franchise. Alien left people with a sense of dread, frustrated that around ever corner in that shadowed area there was a critter dangerous to the human existence. It did not apparently eat you as a reward for hunting and killing you. It just killed you (eating and breeding subject matter was excused in the design of the critter's adaptation).

This would come later with the "Alien/Predator" universe evolution ( I have seen them all, sci fi fan even the bad ones to worse for that "train wreck" effect). Any "Futurama" fans out there, so bad that you have to watch it just to complain, to get off the track the last episode introduction ( Who keeps cancelling us!).

The crew of the Nostromo apparent has missed their due date to return to port as they were in a shipping lane before diversion. There are problems there with the commercial shipping codes established by the government as these people were "truckers" with a Weyland contract. There were so many holes that I would see covered by the action till the final battle between Ripley and the critter.

Still entertaining but there was that string in the first movie that I saw on the big screen that pissed me completely off and neutralized my interest in the dark lighting for a commercial spacecraft or other effects that did not make sense.

For those who are fans of "Event Horizon" and if you ran parts of this movie frame by frame there is so much data that supported the chaos of the mind caused by the transitioning from normal space to the environment of "interspace" to establish a shipping lane for travel. Similar to opening the opening of the American west though hostile territory. The scenes are in the "engine" room between possessed "Weir" and " Captain Miller" ( The "Lewis and Clark" aptly named and designed for deep space travel in to unknown and unmapped territory). Run that battle in the engine room to see all sorts of interesting images that are "subliminal" (they enhance the movie but don't save it from that horror crap that seemed to be written into movies still today, it just had a sci fi in space were others can hear you "SREAM" (get it SREAM move suspense)). It fit the watchable/study level for those aspect of moving making with good interaction between the character good and weak!

Check you the engine room scene frame by frame compare the "subliminal" activity to Alien then we have "Aliens" when the marines come to save the day with a "Vietnam" rumor of a not a war but a police action/conflict.

The Colonial Marine presence said to me that apparently there was enough of a exploration asset precedent that the government or government/industry alliance or need for heavy weaponry. Since this was another world that the "engineers" had screwed up and crashed with a load of the "death" can we tie this into "Prometheus" as they were on their way to Earth or Earth type systems to destroy when created by another sect of 'Engineers" (Peacefuls vs Destructors). There is a lot of discussion that can be generated on the fate of the "Peacefuls" vs the "Destructors" revolution between the two groups as oppose to the engineer civilization running into the "Predator" civilization to morph the genetic creation technology for military applications.

Did they lose a war and as part of the peace treaty force the relinquishment of worlds they experimented on. Questions, questions, question show a good universe leaves questions for the imagination to ponder.

Anyway to get back on topic, good action movie to payback the critters with the tenacity and brutality of the marines hamstringed by the corporation "rat" (interests) willing to risk all to get this new potential weapon so with each experience learning at great cost to the "brutality" of the engineer "destructor" / military sect. Questions, questions, questions and speculation..

My problem with "Aliens" is that according to my searches with AI search engines, LV-426 the original planet in "Alien" is the same planet in "Aliens" anyone seeing a problem here as if it was the same planet. This planet would have been scanned, the "engineers" spacecraft detected and the cargo in possession. There would have been no mystery. See my conundrum!!!!!!

Even if the "Nostromo" could not communicate with earth, even if the "Nostromo's" destruction was written off as a asset (asset depreciation/complete loss) loss. The accident was apparently known so did "Ash" delete any outgoing messages (they would have been in transmission degraded, weaken) so we have questions, questions, questions surrounding the first movie rescue prerogative what written into the ship's AI system "Mother".

With all that aside, it was an action packed success to the "slaughter" of the defenseless "space trucking" crew of the "Nostromo". There is social politics of the 1960's, 1970's, in the book there is "oil", in the movie "minerals". The AI search engines say I am incorrect on the "oil"/ "mineral" thing. I remember "Oil".

If you are a fan of "Dark Star" they were blowing up unstable planets ever expanding humanity's mapping (Lewis & Clark reference) project. Remember the "Beachball" with the critter feet.

The short of it was it was exciting enough to forget the "plot" holes with guns, guts and glory for the marines. Women in both movies were trending showing the "ying/yang" component of all the characters as human being in uncharted territory with this wits, tools and improvisations to compete, dominate but come to realize that this Xenomorph was not a naturally evolved critter as was shown in the franchise progression.

Where the engineers brutality or treaty compromise could be similar to the Stargate "ancients" who seeded the galaxy "mucked up" to create the "Wraith" or other confusing focus of that universe with creating "replicators".

See what can happen when you are a creator of universes with the rest of trying to understand the question of the "truth" .

Even in the bible, you have a "Creator: Engineer" who engineers several AI products. The first batch goes "rogue" then not being destroyed are given a world of their own. This morphs away from the beauty of this first batch of creations morph in to grotesque critters who keep the "Creator: Engineer" busy providing research data on this "free will" component malfunction as the 1st batch developed as conscience awareness of its circumstances.

The 2nd batch apparently benefited from the research data from direct observation of the 1st batch. The 1st batch is "Lu" and his boys as they cannot reproduce but can become grotesque critters called "demons".

With the 2nd batch secured and functioning, the 1st batch technically allowed to continue in limited expansion as the "Test tube" shaker that day (open ended discussion) was off, not enough, too much to cause the issue. In "Dark city" (the actual Matrix), the mix n match of memories we sufficient.

Back to the "reality of the Bible creation story", 2nd batch secure! The creator/engineer tries again creates the 3th product, man! Then from a successful achievement on this product as there was a an analytical programming still awaiting to be done, the cranial capability research of the 2nd generation with the research data of the failure of the 1st generation of this AI product.

Feeling good about the 3rd generation the tree of know was created for this programming feat at a determined date (speculation still pending about dating but time was passing, what was it or was it). A 4th generation is created from part of the 3rd generation as it was proved to be successful.

Not withstanding, with the 4th generation AI product apparently had the ability to replicate (we will call this parthenogenesis) not tested but now we have two new products 3rd generation with additive features (reproduction but with not a way to add mater to the mix) The 4th generation with the ability to reproduce on its own and the ability to allow 3rd generation features to be incorporated into it mix).

I know it is getting deep but in creating a "universe", one as to keep the storied fact/myth rolling!

We get to the "Tree of knowledge" as this has always been a question of the data accumulated as information for training AI models. We saw 1st, 2nd research result data added to the training data. Not since we don't have wings, 3rd gen cannot replicate what was the "knowledge" that was going to be imparted to the 3rd, 4th that was refined from 1st, 2nd gen. Different environment already planned if the project did not go well?

Well the 4th gen with this ability of parthenogensis is more turned to curiosity than the 3rd. The engineer takes a vacation but tells the "blank" slate AI units or thinking incorrectly that they have entered the reality of the physical universe to start evolving. They are the "black boxes" and once the programming start to have what might be defined as consciousness as defined in 1st and 2nd but apparently 3rd is content with 4th the height of the AI endeavor. The tree is left with password lock (metaphor: snake). The 4th gen interfaces with the password lock to provide the key and the "Tree of Life" is unlocked.

Enlightenment is immediate with training data uploaded, 4th gen convinces 3rd gen to plug in. Elation results with the upload to the concept of experiential consciousness. Exploration of the habitat results but just as comfort of life can created, the engineer comes back to see the "hack" of the data/information database.

This disrupts the plans of the engineer so the experiment is determined to be a failure to which 3rd and 4th gen are cast out to the wrangle with the whims of the evolutionary process in the physical universe.

I have been playing with this while so in pushing my writing, moving it to a space where I consider we are all "creators: engineers" of our own universe in storytelling. The key is to get to the script level, option it, fund it and get it in production for distribution to the market.

Rough draft 8/21/2024 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John Gostomski brilliant response!

Thanks, if fact this conversation prompted me to rewatch "Aliens"! I understand the ship at the end getting hung up in the "Fusion" reactor debris material emphasis on the camera shot on the leg in hurried take off escape but Bishop should have (being an android) noticed the weight differential as he compensated for the turbulent atmosphere or a warning light that the landing gear did not close.

It is a scene at the time of this writing I considered rewatching but the "plot hole" was hidden (disguised) and maybe unworkable with a less calamitous event going on,

Similar, the alien entering the landed ship to kill the crew causing a crash the ship showing a early view of the hive mind where tactical skill or just a lucky opportunity with the marines.

They had gotten sloppy thinking the critters were animals so had gotten sloppy (precrash of ship). Pilot could not apparently feel the entry leaving the access gangway open and unguarded. Spunkmyer's fault!