The A/2s always were a bit twitchy

A fantastic preview for this summer's Alien somethingquel, Prometheus, which stars Michael Fassbender. Previously.

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avraamov

sounds to me like Peter Serafinowicz asking the questions…
madopal

They mostly malfunction at night….mostly.
madopal

Serafinowicz should do “Ask Michael 6″ in that vein. He already does other Q&A things on Twitter.
http://profiles.google.com/stephen.schenck Stephen Schenck

Is the headline missing a word? The A/2′s whats were always a bit twitchy?
- Ramone
  
  No…but it shouldn’t be possessive.
- Warren_Terra
  
  A quick Google finds it’s a quote from Aliens:
  
  Bishop: [Bishop is puzzled by Ripley's reaction towards him] Is there a problem?
  Burke: I’m sorry. I don’t know why I didn’t even- Ripley’s last trip out, the syn- the artificial person malfunctioned.
  Ripley: “Malfunctioned”?
  Burke: There were problems and a-a few deaths were involved.
  Bishop: I’m shocked. Was it an older model?
  Burke: Yeah, the Hyperdine System’s 120-A2.
  Bishop: Well, that explains it then. The A2s always were a bit twitchy. That could never happen now with our behavioral inhibitors. It is impossible for me to harm or by omission of action, allow to be harmed, a human being.
  - Surly Driver
    
    That answers the question, but it wasn’t the question you thought you were answering. ; )
http://halfbakedmaker.org Robert Baruch

But do they want. More. Life!
CSBD

At least two of my co-workers could have gotten roles in that movie as androids without any acting required.
GertaLives

I loved Alien (who didn’t?) and positively despised Aliens, ending my experience with the franchise right there. This time around might just bring me back.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Alien and Alien³ were basically art films. Aliens was a popcorn movie.
  - http://twitter.com/writebastard Ian Wood
    
    Did you catch the original concept for Alien³ in the DVD extras? Wooden Planet Monastery Ship!
    
    Didn’t survive storyboarding.
    - Mister44
      
      If you have the Extras from the Quadrilogy set, they go into a lot of detail about what the film could have been, and why it was so sloppy in the end. Personally, I didn’t find it as bad as other people did, but I went in with low expectations.
      
      Note to self – have a fucking script before filming starts.
    - http://twitter.com/jmtd Jonathan Dowland
      
      Thank god for that. It felt like the writer/director-to-be had this concept he was desperate to get onto screen, the Alien franchise landed on his lap and he started figuring out how to graft them into it.
  - MelSkunk
    
    Oh I am so grateful I’m not the only one who doesn’t find Aliens ‘the best Alien’ movie. I liked one and three, and found most people HATE three with a firey passion.
    
    I am insisting my girlfriend and I see this the INSTANT it is in the theatre, given I haven’t had a worthwhile Alien film come out when I was old enough to attend a screening.
    - http://www.disoriented.net/ angusm
      
      I liked “3″. It plunged me into the kind of existential gloom that you could normally only get from speed-reading six Russian novels one after the other.
      
      Mind you, I also enjoyed “Aliens” (for all that it was a very different type of movie to the original) and thought that “Alien Resurrection” was at least pretty to look at.
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      I haven’t had a worthwhile Alien film come out when I was old enough to attend a screening.
      
      And you think this parade of pretty, young people is going to be it? How did we go from grungy character actors with no make-up in Alien to Lip Gloss In Space?
      - http://twitter.com/tom_hiles Tom Hiles
        
        How? Well, for a start, the Alien crew were glorified truckers and engineers. This crew are scientists. Grungy wouldn’t really work.
        Pretty? Well I wouldn’t have said ‘no’ to either of the female cast from Alien, at the time.
        Young? The average age is of the Pro cast is only 3 years younger than the average age of the Alien cast. Yeah, I figured it out.
        Really, are you trying to find reasons to hate this film?
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        I can barely tell Michael Fassbender and Harry Dean Stanton apart.
      - hypnosifl
        
        Harry Dean Stanton was probably the least conventionally good-looking, followed perhaps by the two Brits, Ian Holm and John Hurt, but I’d say everyone else was conventionally attractive even if they dressed kind of grungy. And in Prometheus, I’d say Sean Harris isn’t necessarily so conventionally attractive, look at his picture here, and go here to see the punkish way they’ve made him up for the movie. And Rafe Spall seems somewhere in between conventionally handsome and goofy-looking, look at the pictures in this article.
    - http://twitter.com/librtee Sasha@librtee
      
      I should point out it’s still a 20th Century Fox film.
      Anybody who is reading this blog should really seriously be boycotting anything to do with the MPAA until further notice.
      
      It’ll still be the same flick, wait a year and watch it at a friend’s house or whatever.
      - hypnosifl
        
        Speaking of the MPAA and waiting a year, I’m sure the director’s cut will be gorier, whereas they’re cutting the release version to make it PG-13 since it’ll sell more tickets (I wish they could just have two versions out in different theaters). I’ll still see it in theaters–too excited about this to wait, and plus I don’t have a 3D television–but I hope they don’t water it down too much.
  - Doni Marquart
    
    Alien was the first movie I ever saw that I literally jumped out of my seat and screamed (you know, when the alien beast in the belly ’erupted’)
    - http://twitter.com/BongBong BongBong
      
      It shocked me so much as a kid (first ‘R’-rated movie I saw) I had nightmares every night for about a week and a half.
    - david8
      
      So did the actors – they knew the alien was going to make an appearance, but Scott didn’t tell them about the gore and all that gross. So he did manage to capture a somewhat sincere reaction from his actors.
      
      Another fun fact: When they’re first exploring the Space Jocky, Scott still felt that the set was too small. So he put his 5 year old-ish kids in spacesuits and had them do the walking around. It’s pretty neat – next time you watch this scene, keep an eye out for some particularly kiddie-like walking.
      - http://twitter.com/tom_hiles Tom Hiles
        
        I’m a bit skeptical about that story – without knowing much about improvisation, how would the actors have known how to react to John Hurt’s convulsions without scripting? And wouldn’t the false torso set up for the chestburster in the scene where the alien ‘makes an appearance’ kind of give the game away?
  - http://twitter.com/BongBong BongBong
    
    “Art films”? Did we see the same movies? Alien was a gothic horror movie.
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      Art film and popcorn movie aren’t actual genres, but they do convey the director’s purpose.
      - http://twitter.com/lennyd43 Why So Serious?
        
        If Alien is art film, then what is every Wes Anderson’s movies, materials from Sofia Coppola, Lars von Trier, Terrence Malick etc ?
  - david8
    
    Scott, then Cameron, then Fincher. You’re bang on in your assessment, sir or ma’am.
- t3kna2007
  
  I truly, madly, deeply enjoyed the hell out of Aliens. The first time I saw it, I came out of the theater with sore arms, either from my own terrified clenching or from the grip of the person next to me. I still watch it every two or three years because it was such an incredible experience.
  
  Where do you want it?
  HAR HAR! Bay 12, please.
  
  So great.
  - GertaLives
    
    I found Aliens great fodder for cheesy quotes, but it has nothing of the sheer desolate terror of the original. I don’t think I would have found it so off-putting (it’s certainly high adventure) if it didn’t serve as the sequel to Alien — it’s just not in the same league for me.
Felton / Moderator

Just stay away from me, Michael Fassbender! You got that straight?
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  I guess you don’t like the cornbread.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jeff-Ritzmann/1532420118 Jeff Ritzmann

C’mon, do the thing with the knife!!!
Ashen Victor

I can see that character in the movie absolutely stabbing a crewmen while crying rivers:

-”Sorry John, I´m totally stabbing you on the liver and that makes me sad, do you understand?”
-”Yeah dude, that´s so saaaaghd [dies]”
-”I´m glad you understand”
sincarne

Gosh, do you think they’re foreshadowing a plot point with that “I can do things my human counterparts might find … unethical” bit?
- sincarne
  
  Snark aside, that was pretty awesome.
- Warren_Terra
  
  It’s not a big revelation to anyone familiar with Alien or iirc Aliens. At most, it’s disappointing that they’re implying the coming plot twist is the same one they used last time.
  - hypnosifl
    
    Part of the plot twist in Alien was that the character was an android, not just that he betrayed the crew (and in Aliens there was no real twist other than the fact that Bishop turned out to be helpful throughout). And I doubt they’ll use Alien‘s twist that the Weyland Corp. already knew what would be on this alien planet and is expecting the crew to be killed, so even if he does betray them in some way it would be less of a “twist” and more just a creepy character acting in an unsurprisingly unethical way.
- http://twitter.com/tom_hiles Tom Hiles
  
  Maybe that’s a bluff, based on how established the evil android twist is in the franchise, and he’ll turn out to be a good android, like Call in Alien Resurrection? (forgive me for mentioning the name)
  - Mister44
    
    I liked that movie a lot. The directors had a similar look and feel and several of the same actors from City of Lost Children.
    - hypnosifl
      
      “directors”? The only director of Alien Resurrection was Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who also directed City of Lost Children.
      - Mister44
        
        Sorry – extra “S” in there.
    - http://twitter.com/tom_hiles Tom Hiles
      
      I enjoyed it but I don’t think it was worthy of the other films.. the dark humour wasn’t really dark enough to justify a humorous spin on the series, too much gross-out and not enough dread. Overloaded with gimmickry too.
Preston Sturges

So if he’s “David” he’s gay but if he’s “Dave” he’s straight?
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  That’s pretty much how it works.
  - Mister44
    
    OH – THAT’S how it works. It makes sense, a friend who is gay is David, and my straight uncle goes by Dave.
    - oasisob1
      
      My middle name is David. Nobody ever calls me Dave. They don’t call me David, either. How does this work?
      - Mister44
        
        Maybe you’re just a little gay. I dunno – I know a lot about a lot of things – but I am no expert on this.
      - Preston Sturges
        
        I you like girl-on-girl porn, you’re a straight man.
        
        If you think it’s disgusting, you are gay.
        
        Actually that is a standard that has been used by clinical psychologists.
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        I’ve always used the Three Stooges metric.
      - Preston Sturges
        
        >I’ve always used the Three Stooges metric.
        
        Only if you exclude Curley Joe.
  - dculberson
    
    What about people like me, who go by either one? Oh, wait…
- Culturedropout
  
  But does he want to be a real, live, boy?
xian

David, sing Daisy for me…
benchscientist

nuke it from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.
awjt

looks scawwwy!!!
http://twitter.com/uwes98 Nigel_T

The 8 above his signature at the end is upside down. WHAT DOES IT MEAN?!
Antinous / Moderator

His answers are straight out of the question section of any beauty pageant.
- Warren_Terra
  
  Programming is programming.
Mister44

I am VERY excited about Prometheus. I am sure The Avengers is what most nerds are excited about – but Ridley Scott is just a different caliber.
CvilleJohn1234

I see that Mitt Romney’s campaign videos are getting better.
- GertaLives
  
  The tears we far too convincing for that.
- http://twitter.com/BongBong BongBong
  
  Oh, that’s good. Haaaaa!
quantize

Alien Resurrection is a much maligned and mostly very entertaining film…until the ridiculous alien/ripley hybrid creature turns up, but before that it’s probably the most uniquely inventive and darkly humorous of all the films, it’s just that the sensibility is european (of course!). Alien 3 just doesn’t stand up to repeated viewings, unlike the rest.
- http://twitter.com/tom_hiles Tom Hiles
  
  Being entertaining, inventive and darkly humorous do not alone make for a decent Alien franchise film.
Andrew Tubbiolo

The entire atmosphere of the whole piece is somewhat ….. East German. Wonderful.
- http://twitter.com/BongBong BongBong
  
  I got the same vibe… Nazi German propaganda meets Stanley Kubrick meets Dyson vacuum cleaners.
  - oasisob1
    
    I want to see that trailer! The new Dyson 8 from Weyland. Doesn’t lose suction, ensures the prime directive is followed… brings back samples… something, something… profit!
  - Andrew Tubbiolo
    
    Nazi’s had gawdyness, East Germans tried to be a modern proletariat. And yes, Kubric had a very similar feel in 2001.
  - solitaire
    
    I totally felt Fassbender was channeling Chaplin’s Great Dictator speech in the “What makes you sad?” bit. The voice is very close and the deliberate facial expressions make it.
    - Andrew Tubbiolo
      
      Oh yes! I see it now, so true! Thanks!
http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios

“Prometheus” is going to ROCK so hard, it may knock the Earth off it’s axis.

Can.

Not.

Wait!!!
Scurra

I’m starting to get worried that this may be the first film I will not be able to follow when it comes out because of the expectation that the audience will have seen all of these “set-up” videos – rather than for the usual reason that the script was rubbish. (Note: I haven’t watched this video, nor any of the others because I’d quite like to be surprised by the actual film. And even so I know quite a lot of the plot already, just by a process of osmosis.)
I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing, you understand. But it needs to be handled with care. For instance, if some of this material will end up in the film (albeit probably only as background) then those who have seen it already may feel a bit cheated.
bumpngrindcore

Y’know I’m sick and tired of all these prequels, sequels, reboots, remakes and sequels to prequels…but damn I really wanna see this movie!!!
http://www.oeilgauche.com/ Ludovic Pessot

I’m more and more excited to see the movie. This teaser, by itself, is a small masterpiece.
Viktor

Huge fan of the franchise, I am a bit surprised at the hate for Aliens. I have been re-watching them all with my daughter and am in the middle of 3 now. The worst bit in Aliens really is that the queen used the elevator, I chuckled at that. Other than that I thought it was popcorn action fun filled with great characters and actors! The setup for 3 bugged me as I hated what happened to Hicks and Newt. It is very bleak though. Alien rules and the fact that Prometheus explains that setup that has plagued my imagination for years makes me really want to see this film NOW! I just hope it doesn’t do what star wars did as far as prequels that have lived in my imagination being turned to shite with jar jars, etc….

Great fact: Bill Paxton is the only person who has been killed by an Alien, a Predator and a Terminator.
eerd

“I understand human emotions, although I do not feel them myself,” with the single tear – reminded me of the end of Terminator 2, “I know now why you cry, but it’s something I will never do.”
BeeArk

And the Prometheus/Alien spoofs start in 3…2…1…

http://youtu.be/UIA_DfpjHx8
- http://aqfl.net Ant
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCq7XJbah0s from http://videosift.com/video/ALIEN-Easter-Egg was better!
penguinchris

This viral ad posted on this very popular blog was pulled from youtube for copyright violation (this particular copy of it anyway).

Viral marketing: they’re doing it wrong.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Maybe they have a virus that deleteriously affects their judgment.
  
  Or maybe they’re just assholes.