048: Alien: Resurrection (1997) - The Research Song

 We've all been there...right?

SPOILERS FOR ALIEN (1979), ALIENS (1986), ALIEN3 (1992), ALIEN: RESURRECTION (1997), SILENT HILL (2006), FIREFLY 1x05, Starcraft, X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST (2014), and WORLD WAR Z (book and 2013 film).

In this episode:

• Fio's friend Joe joins us for our discussion!
• Discussion of Alien: Resurrection (1997), including Joss Whedon's writing, the interesting (but not altogether well-executed) ideas in the script, weird acting/writing choices, and where this movie rates in our heads against the previous movies.
• Joe sheds light on some of the Alien comics that may have influenced the screenplay for Alien: Resurrection.
• What themes are present in the script? Could they really decide which they wanted to focus on?
• Human vs. construct--was this explored to its fullest extent?
• How 90s is this movie, really?
• Interpretations of how the Alien Queen ended up with a womb in this film and why the Humalien Hybrid kills the queen. The fact that we have to spend a decent chunk of this podcast debating our interpretations of this sequence of events is evidence enough that this film is just really not clear.
• After Joe leaves, Ian gives his non-spoilery thoughts on The Strain, Guillermo del Toro's vampire/epidemic horror TV series currently airing on FX. In short: It's cool! ...But kind of uneven. Also: body horror.
• At some point, we're going to devote an episode or two of the podcast to the Silent Hill movie(s). I mean, if we have to. *heavy breathing*
• Next time: Cleolinda joins us once again for the final movie in our Summer Movie series: Prometheus!

THERE'S ALWAYS AN ADDENDUM:

• Joe had to leave somewhere around the 1 hour mark, but we don't really give any indication for the listener's benefit that he's left at that point. Apologies.
• I think at some point (when we're trying to figure out how long after Alien3 this movie was) I accidentally said Alien3 came out in '93 instead of '92. My mistake.
• Compare Fio's Research song to Data's Scanning for Lifeforms song
• Highlights from Fio's timestamps:
• 6:09 - Based on our sample size thus far, 100% of the people who have seen the Alien movies were too young to see the Alien movies.
• 1:32:22 - “We’ve pretty much exhausted our topics” Oh have we, Fio? Have we? Because there are twENTY FUCKING MINUTES LEFT.
• Anybody who figured we were going to spend a good portion of this Podcast talking about Firefly, Starcraft, X-Men: Days of Future Past, World War Z, a huge diversion on The Strain, and giving a random shout-out to Apt Pupil, you deserve a cookie.
• So I’m getting the feeling that we think Call is the most interesting character in this movie. I don’t think I’m wrong in this. IAN: Definitely the most interesting new character, at the very least. Alien!Ripley's pretty interesting, if written a little vaguely.

Music:

• Intro: "This is My Design" - original song, music by Ian. More on this as it develops.
• Outro: "Human" - The Killers | YouTube | iTunes |

(Screencap taken from http://www.metacafe.com/watch/mv-hRMGg/alien_resurrection_mutation/)

http://archive.org/download/AMOT048/AMOT048.mp3