Model Kit of the Week #16: Alien

Memory Bank: Alien (1979) vs. Prophecy (1979)

To this day, I boast a very distinct memory of being in a Ben Franklin-type store with my parents and sister in the year 1979, and sneaking over alone to the book rack to steal a look at two "scary" literary titles: Prophecy by David Seltzer and Alien by Alan Dean Foster.  

Of course, both books were based on film screenplays, and I remember thinking --- as a fourth grader -- that both seemed absolutely terrifying.  

I also remember feeling amazed and kind of free, maybe even giddy, that I could turn to any page in either book and read something that would torment my imagination for days and weeks to come.

And then I tried to imagine how scary the movies would actually be.  I had to imagine that factor because my parents are good ones, and they would never have let me see R-rated movies at the tender age of nine.  So if I was going to *know* about these horror stories...I had to read the books.

I didn't see either film until I was older, though I did read and enjoy Foster's Alien first.  Seltzer's Prophecy is also better than the movie, I think.

Today we know, of course, which of the two films has better stood the test of time: Ridley Scott's Alien over John Frankenheimer's Prophecy.  The former is a celebrated classic, and the latter is a kind of...hoot, a camp-classic. 

But interestingly, both films came out in the same year, and in very broad terms boast a few similarities. Both films involve reproduction, and a threat to human reproduction, in the form of something unknown and homicidal  And both films also involve a gigantic nemesis whose form is not immediately known or understood.  Prophecy draws its life force from American history and the American past, while Alien draws its energy from the future, and cosmic unknowns.

The advertising from both films, as you can see from images above and below (in the trailers), highlight images of eggs, and something evil growing inside an egg.  I think that was probably the key scare factor for me at age 9.  Something horrible was going to hatch in both stories. 

In terms of how it succeeds or fails Prophecy -- sometimes grandiosely termed "the monster movie" -- is really about the "past" of horror movie-making in 1979 terms: about a cinematic story scuttled by a ridiculous and unconvincing monster suit.  In contrast, Alien represents the defining line in modern horror  film where monsters became believable, even when shown on-screen for a long duration. 

Similarly, Prophecy is earthbound, while Alien looks to the stars.  

I know it probably seems odd, but today when I think of one film, I inevitably think of the other  one because of that experience in the book store, I suppose.  I'm sure this linkage has to do with where I was in my development at that time, gaining an awareness of books and movies that I wanted to see, but which I also knew would likely scare me.  I remember very vividly seeing commercials for both films on television and feeling truly conflicted.  Like I had to see both movies, and yet was afraid to see both movies.

At the age of nine, I couldn't have predicted that Prophecy would be a bust in terms or scares, or that Alien would generate approximately one million and one imitations.  I just knew that, for some reason, Hollywood was giving us two horror movies at the same time that seemed to have a broadly similar appeal.

Evil Eggs.

Flight of the Navigator

It was a time of innocence. A time when children’s films where a gateway into imagination. The 1980s and 1990s saw countless films geared towards kids that till this day remain classics and bring a smile, at the mere mention of their titles, on the face of adults who grew up enacting scenes and characters from these films. Flight of the Navigator is a film that, even though I don't remember watching growing up, brought about memories from my wonder years.

Flight of the Navigator is a story about a boy, David (Joey Cramer), who is abducted by an alien, Max (Voiced by Paul Reubens), only to return to Earth 8 years later to find everyone has aged except for him. What follows is an escape and chase movie as the scientists at NASA want to study the boy and the spaceship that crash-landed along with him while the alien in the spaceship needs him for maps that have been stored in his brain. 

The film is full of subtle humor and moments that will warm your heart. Like most kid-centric films of the time there is always a strong moral behind each action and lessons to be learnt. The adventure quotient is good enough to make children run to the nearest enclosure and imagine a spacecraft taking them around the planet at speeds faster than light. Another aspect of the film that really stood out was the dialogue which although is geared towards entertaining the kids has stood the test of time and sounds fresh enough to have made me chuckle quite a few times during the film.

Max: I crashed into electrical towers and my star charts were erased. I need the ones in your head to complete my mission.

David: So you need ME and my INFERIOR brain to fly that thing?

Max:Correction, I need the SUPERIOR information in your INFERIOR brain to fly this... thing.

David:Where do you go next, Max?

Max: Back in time to when I picked up my creatures. By now they're so hungry, they could eat a zigzog.

David:What's a zigzog?

Max: Kind of like a hippo, but with feathers.

For most adults Flight of the Navigatoris a journey back to their childhood, while fans of Sex and the City can find a young Sarah Jessica Parker in a small role sporting pink highlighted hair, something I'm not too sure Carrie Bradshaw would approve of? As for the younger generation, they can enjoy the film for what it is, fun, adventurous, humorous, and a feel good family entertainer that should be in everyone's home collection.

Rating:  4/5

DVD Information:

Special Features - Commentary by director Randal Kleiser & Producer Jonathan Sanger

UK Release Date - 19 November 2012

Running Time - 86 Minutes

Region Code - Region Free

Certificate - U

Movie Thoughts - Is this the right time?

I've been struggling for the past year or so with trying to introduce some of the classic children films to my daughter (who is four and a half now). I tried A Christmas Story about six months back, but she lasted about half an hour before leaving. I am aware that her attention span is around the 30-45 minute mark in a theater (while watching any children's animation/film) and that is reduced even more at home because obviously there are a lot more distractions at home. In fact, a while back I tried to have a movie play date at home for some of her school friends, but they all lasted about 30 minutes into Toy Story before they were off playing with the kitchen set.

While my daughter is addicted to Peppa Pig, Dora and Chotta Bheem (Indian Cartoon), I have desperately been waiting her to watch movies like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, or Goonies, or even Mary Poppins, but alas I have been unsuccessful. The only full length animated feature she has managed to sit through, and does so repeatedly, is Tangled. So there seems to be some hope after all.

The reason why I bring up this discussion now is because this morning my daughter woke up and told me about a dream she had. According to her, she dreamt about being in space going to different planets where aliens live. So, the little light bulb on top of my head suddenly lightened up. Could this be the right time to maybe show her E.T.? She is all into aliens right about now and fascinated by their existence (or lack of), so could this be the moment I have been waiting for? As it happens I have wanted to buy some DVDs of movies that I watched as a kid and this might just be the moment I take that step and try showing them to my daughter.   

The truth remains that I can't wait for her to someday be as crazy about films as I am, but what the future holds I do not know. What do you think is the best time to introduce classic films to kids? Should I go ahead and show her E.T. and see what she thinks, or maybe wait a while? I mean the other day during #MTOS (Movie Talk On Sunday on Twitter) someone mentioned watching Rocky Horror Picture Show at 4, so E.T. should be okay?

Men in Black 3 (3D)

It's quite evident when movies are made simply to make money. Okay, most movies are made to make money, but sometimes it seems that a film is almost forced upon the audience. Men in Black 3 is one of those films.

The films brings together, once again, Will Smith's Agent J and Tommy Lee Jones' Agent K, and adds on the element of time travel to their book of adventures. As Will Smith travels back in time to save Tommy Lee Jones' character from getting killed in the present, thankfully the makers went ahead with casting Josh Brolin as a younger Agent K rather than using CGI. Besides the time travel element, the story takes on a more emotion and serious path, which is also the most obvious direction it could have taken, almost completing the "cycle of life" linking it back to the original Men in Black. It's a much stronger story, but one that proves to be disappointing due to the lack of originality in the execution of the film.

10 years too late, the film brings about absolutely nothing new to the previous two films. The humor is exactly the same that the audience has been seeing till now. The "normal personal" turning out to be an alien has been done to death in the films. Even worse, celebrities’ turning out to be aliens is a joke that no longer amuses or fascinates. There are no real additions to the gadgets or supporting characters. What is really unfortunate is that even thought the film travels back in time to the 1960s, it fails to make the most of the time period. It remains so caught up in the story and focused on the two main leads that nothing around them really matters. Although on the positive side, Josh Brolin shines as the younger Agent K and it seems that Will Smith miraculously hasn’t aged a tiny bit over the years.

All in all the film lacks the WOW factor that the first two films had. Now, it might prove to be interesting for the newer generation who were too small to remember the first two films, but then the story is such that it only makes sense if you have seen at least the first film, which came out in 1997.

I do hope that this is the last of the series. Unless, Will Smith is secretly preparing his children to take over the franchise and we will be seeing a reboot of the film in the future. Actually, in that case, I really hope this is the last we have heard of the Men in Black.

I was also a bit irritated since I had no choice but to view the film in 3D since the local cinema was not playing the 2D version (actually they were in the dubbed Hindi version), but once again 3D is nothing to talk about and is your average run-of-the-mill 3D that is becoming ever so common in mediocre films.

Rating 2/5 Stars

   

PROMETHEUS

PROMETHEUS
Written by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof
Directed by Ridley Scott
Starring Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender and Charlize Theron

David: Sometimes to create, one must first destroy.

The ship which Ridley Scott’s latest foray into outer space is named for, PROMETHEUS, is itself named after a Greek god. In case you’re unfamiliar, this particular God is not only credited with the creation of man, from clay no less, but also with providing mankind with fire and the possibility of progress. The trouble is he had to steal the fire in the first place and so his deed would need to be punished. Aside from eternal torment and torture, Prometheus would also be forever known as a symbol for overreaching and the often unfortunate consequences of doing so. There is only one person doing any overreaching on this ship though and that’s the director. Not to mention, it would seem to me that naming an exploratory space ship thus would just be more of a subconscious effort to sabotage your chances for success than anything else.

PROMETHEUS opens with stunning shots of landscapes and waterfalls and culminates in a bizarre spectacle that announces the possibility of a truly unique and breathtaking film experience. It then moves rather quickly into all too familiar territory. Type on the screen dictates the time and place of the mission, while people are asleep in pods on the ship, and an android watches carefully over them with some potentially questionable motivation. There were months of speculation but now there is no denying that this is an alien movie, somehow connected to Scott’s seminal 1979 film, ALIEN. It isn’t made clear just how at first but it certainly follows exactly the same pattern as his original film, as well as James Cameron’s sequel, ALIENS. After everyone wakes up, they pal around in the cafeteria; the ship’s authorities have money on their minds at all times; disposable crew members are picked off in small increments; heck, there are even things that pop out of stomachs and girls in tiny, objectifying briefs. The technology allows the film to look fresh and updated but the familiarity left me wondering if I was watching a remake and also why no one told me ahead of time.

So, once you realize PROMETHEUS is an ALIEN movie, the question becomes is it actually a good ALIEN movie? It is, to some extent, if you consider the word “alien” to mean beings from outer space and not the specific ones from the original film. Go in expecting them and you will be disappointed. That said, I can’t guarantee you won’t be disappointed if you go in not expecting them either. We wait to see what all the fuss is about for a good hour, and marvel at its beauty, because PROMETHEUS is nothing if not beautiful, but by the time the action comes, we have been waiting for it for so long that it almost feels forced. And I know that genre pics like this warrant all secrecy but the fact is that the spoiler moments in this film almost spoiled it completely for me. There are moments that are just too hard to believe or too sadistic to be taken seriously. Some of these moments are too hard to truly recover from even. Scott may know aliens but he doesn’t seem to know much about creating credible human beings here.

PROMETHEUS is co-written by LOST alumni, Damon Lindelof (along with relative newcomer Jon Spaihts). Like in the popular television series, Lindelof again attempts to tackle ideas about where we came from and where we’re going. And once again, he provides vague musings about our nature that truly only beg more questions. Hence the reason any characters left at the end of the film are only left with one question on their minds; why is this happening? Naturally, they must find out and so PROMETHEUS seems destined to continue its quest, which, while noble in intention, is really nothing more than a setup for a sequel. With that, PROMETHEUS the film reveals its true mission is not so dissimilar to that of the ship. Profit at any expense is always more important than understanding humanity.

Attack The Block

Attack the Block, for me, was simple and unadulterated fun. First and foremost, I would so like to thank the aliens who invade, in the movie, for choosing a country other than USA. I think they have suffered enough cinematic alien invasions and thus for a change moving the action to a community block in London was a great choice.

My likeness for the movie lies in the fact that it doesn't try to be something it's not. It's simply a “chase” film and doesn't hide away from that. Instead, it relies on some snappy dialogue and good performances by the young cast to entertain. I'm sure I missed out on some dialogue due to the strong dialect, but considering it brings authenticity to the film, it's a point I can look over.

Attack the Block is an entertainer. The aliens, although look like gorillas from afar, bring a certain coolness with their fluorescent teeth. The community block and the apartment complex is a character in its own. The direction takes you right into all the action with a fair number of scares. Yes, the story is thin, but then the movie doesn't claim to be intelligent. In fact, the explanation for the alien invasion is so basic that the audience will realize it's not a question on why the aliens invaded but more so what happens next.

Amidst all the running around and killings and aliens, there is also a look at community life from the point of the children. There is a moral to the entire film and that's to realize that "ever action has a reaction". So whether you mug someone (that's how the movie starts) or you kill an alien, there will always be some repercussions to your actions. 

Considering the movie doesn't drag (with a running time of about 90 minutes) and entertains without utilizing too much brain power, I'd happily give it a 3.5/5 star rating.