Let's Read the ALIEN RPG

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
Man, I didn't know there were 4 Species movies! I only saw the one... which wasn't great but had an interesting core concept. I'm sure the sequels are pure schlock but I feel an overwhelming need to see them... cannot resist.
 
Simlasa said:
Man, I didn't know there were 4 Species movies! I only saw the one... which wasn't great but had an interesting core concept. I'm sure the sequels are pure schlock but I feel an overwhelming need to see them... cannot resist.
Click to expand...

Please accept this post as a bonus to your saving throw to resist… they are awful, awful films.
 
hawkeyefan said:
Please accept this post as a bonus to your saving throw to resist… they are awful, awful films.
Click to expand...
Oh, but I can derive enjoyment and inspiration from the lowest drivel imaginable. These sorts of things are what my friend dubs 'One Eye Cinema'... good for putting on while you're doing something else, occasionally looking at it out of the corner of one eye.
 
The timing seems a bit off for that scene to work. As much as I like to see Burke suffer, wasn’t he grabbed only a couple hours before? I know the director’s cut adds some scenes, so perhaps that would alter the timing… but it seems unlikely they could grab him, apply a face hugger, implant an embryo, and then throw him into a cocoon in the time that elapses from the attack to Ripley’s showdown with the queen.
 
There's an extended added scene where the marines set up some automated turrets to deal with the aliens. I forget when that takes place, but it does add some to the timeline.
 
hawkeyefan said:
The timing seems a bit off for that scene to work. As much as I like to see Burke suffer, wasn’t he grabbed only a couple hours before? I know the director’s cut adds some scenes, so perhaps that would alter the timing… but it seems unlikely they could grab him, apply a face hugger, implant an embryo, and then throw him into a cocoon in the time that elapses from the attack to Ripley’s showdown with the queen.
Click to expand...
Maybe he didn't actually get an embryo yet and was just freaked out thinking that he did. Either way, it does seem like a short amount of time. I can see why they cut it, but I like knowing what happened to him.

I'm listening to the Alan Dean Foster novelization on Audibles, I'll see how it pans out.
 
Speaking of the novel, here are a couple jarring differences so far:
  • Gorman does not get hit on the head in the APC when Ripley is gunning it, instead an alien stabs him in the shoulder with a tail blade.
  • Bishop did not do the knife trick with Hudson, and instead Ripley notices Bishop has a serial number tattooed on his wrist in the mess hall. Still slaps the cornbread, though.
There is a great scene where Newt and her family are off to the alien wreckage as directed by the corporation after Ripley's testimony at the hearing.
 
I’m surprised they haven’t asked Weaver to come back for one more.
 
AppleJax said:
This franchise is screwed. But like a trainwreck, I can’t look away.
Click to expand...
Seen one trainwreck, seen 'em all. :shock:

For a director with two of his first three films being indisputable classics, Ridley Scott has missed on about 75% of everything else in the rest of his career.
 
Three things to take from this thread...

@Seadna is almost persuading me to buy this.
I don't know how the idea that aliens eat glass and stones fits with the scene in Alien where the crew are hunting the first alien in the meat store.
Now I also want to see Species 2-4.
 
There was a Species ttrpg released by West End Games in 1995. This was based solely on the first film as it came out before the others.

I remember skimming it years ago. It wasn't anything special. It did expand the lore a bit, like explaining that the aliens weren't malicious but just watching how humanity would react. It also did some really weird stuff that contradicted the movie, like turning the titular species into shapeshifters who could mimic terrestrial animals like bears and sharks. I wonder if the writers actually saw the movie or not, or had to work from studio materials that weren't up to date?

There's also an old d20 3pp that was obviously inspired by Species:
www.drivethrurpg.com

Dryden: Hero or Horror - Ancient Awakenings Publications | DriveThruRPG.com

Dryden: Hero or Horror - Dryden: Hero or Horror What are the Dryden? Fertility spirits of the dark forest primeval? Being born of a Pandora's
www.drivethrurpg.com www.drivethrurpg.com
It gives three different versions for fantasy, modern and scifi horror campaigns.

Species was a weird shlocky b-movie franchise that sounds more like a porn parody of scifi horror than serious. I'm surprised it got four movies before seemingly dying off, much less novelizations, a ttrpg supplement and comic books!

Now the Aliens Marvel comics are apparently trying to copy it by introducing Giger women. Yes, plural.
 
Simlasa said:
Man, I didn't know there were 4 Species movies! I only saw the one... which wasn't great but had an interesting core concept. I'm sure the sequels are pure schlock but I feel an overwhelming need to see them... cannot resist.
Click to expand...

Ditto, the more I hear others say they're shit the more I wanna see it.
 
Necrozius said:
Was that a sequel to “The Duellists”?

Heh
Click to expand...
Sure. It's a trilogy.

Duel_%281971_film%29_poster.jpg


1688130738262.png

The_Last_Duel_poster.jpg
 
No argument that the Aliens canon is a complete mess. That's why, if I do run Alien as an ongoing campaign, I will base my campaign on the Aliens Earthwar storyline from the Dark Horse comics.
 
Necrozius said:
Duel was pretty great actually! One of Spielberg's first, I think?
Click to expand...
Also based on a book by Richard Matheson. His works the basis for the classic Twilight Zone episodes "Terror at 20,000 Feet" and "Little Girl Lost", and his books I am Legend, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Hell House and Somewhere in Time were all made into movies at least once.
 
Baulderstone said:
Also based on a book by Richard Matheson. His works the basis for the classic Twilight Zone episodes "Terror at 20,000 Feet" and "Little Girl Lost", and his books I am Legend, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Hell House and Somewhere in Time were all made into movies at least once.
Click to expand...
And What Dreams May Come, too.
 
I recently picked up most of the line from FFG. The game amd rules look really good, but the setting/canon is indeed a mess. I loved the first three movies - even the third - but dropped out after that. I don't like the directions they went in; if I run the game I'm going to drip a lot of the recent additions.
 
Torque2100 said:
No argument that the Aliens canon is a complete mess. That's why, if I do run Alien as an ongoing campaign, I will base my campaign on the Aliens Earthwar storyline from the Dark Horse comics.
Click to expand...
All the problems ultimately stem from Fox refusing to end Ripley’s story in Aliens. She got her conclusion. Shoehorning her into two subsequent movies where she didn’t need to be killed the franchise for years.

Letting Ridley go wild with History Channel conspiracy theories was stupid.

As for the comics? They’re hit and miss. As Expected from numerous different writers.

The stupid part is that people keep messing with the aliens to justify their continued presence. The aliens cannot build or maintain spacecraft, so everything happens because humans are perpetually terminally stupid.

Even if the galaxy is littered with ruins where aliens lie in wait, you’d think humanity would’ve developed better procedures for survey and quarantine after losing Earth just once.

To maintain their threat, the aliens need to be at least as smart as humans and grow their own giger spacecraft.

Of course, Starcraft tried that and it immediately turned into flaming garbage where the hero’s psycho ex-girlfriend and lingerie-clad succubus goes on a galactic genocide spree because some mustachioed villain hurt her feefees. As a comedy that would be fine, but it written to be completely serious.

I don’t want to live on this planet.
 
AppleJax said:
All the problems ultimately stem from Fox refusing to end Ripley’s story in Aliens. She got her conclusion. Shoehorning her into two subsequent movies where she didn’t need to be killed the franchise for years.
Click to expand...
Eh... Alien 3 is where her story should have ended. I don't think Alien 3 was as bad as others say it is. Other than killing Newt and Hicks offscreen. I think that they could have brought some needed grounding to the movie.
 
For those of you who (like me) are deprived of opportunities to actually play this game:

I really enjoyed watching and wholeheartedly recommend the Alien RPG Let's Plays by Garblag Games.

The players (the ones in the British Garblag chapter that is) are a bit older than most, have a good party dynamic and know their lore and game rules, so a lot happens each session. They are also about the only group I have watched that found a good middle ground between being a quiet, attentive class waiting on the GM and the sort of non-game where everyone is just noisy and discussing everthing in existence but the game. Also, they put maps and online dice rollers to good use on screen (rather than just having talking heads in boxes) making the game that much easier to visualise and follow.
 
chuckdee said:
Eh... Alien 3 is where her story should have ended. I don't think Alien 3 was as bad as others say it is. Other than killing Newt and Hicks offscreen. I think that they could have brought some needed grounding to the movie.
Click to expand...
Fox shoehorned Ripley because they fell prey to franchise disease and thought it wouldn’t get views without Sigourney Weaver. It was a stupid idea then, and it’s especially stupid now when it’s infected every IP like a disease.

It’s called Alien. Not Ripley.

Not that anyone seems to be able to make decent movies without Weaver either.
 
AppleJax said:
-Snip-
Click to expand...
Hence why I chose the Dark Horse continuity. The Dark Horse sequel comics at least made an attempt to address your issues. The "Aliens as Psychic Parasites" concept is probably the most interesting interpretation of the Alien mythos.

You are right that Alien is pretty shopworn as an IP but I think that's more a symptom of how safe studios like to play things now. They can no longer innovate, they can only just endlessly iterate on the same ideas over and over again. It's a big part of what makes the Star Wars sequels so awful. It's literally just going through the motions while stripping them of their original meaning.
 
AppleJax said:
Fox shoehorned Ripley because they fell prey to franchise disease and thought it wouldn’t get views without Sigourney Weaver. It was a stupid idea then, and it’s especially stupid now when it’s infected every IP like a disease.

It’s called Alien. Not Ripley.

Not that anyone seems to be able to make decent movies without Weaver either.
Click to expand...

Agree, although Predator is a classic and I am a fan of Arnold, I like that the films don't focus on Arnold, they are about the Predator and its latest prey.

The first 3 Alien films work, but by the end of the third film it is more about Ripley than the Aliens. I like the 4th movie despite many flaws, but it has definately become more of a Ripley superhero flick.
 
chuckdee said:
Eh... Alien 3 is where her story should have ended. I don't think Alien 3 was as bad as others say it is. Other than killing Newt and Hicks offscreen. I think that they could have brought some needed grounding to the movie.
Click to expand...

ngl, I think Alien 3 is a damn good movie, especially considering what it went through in production.

I can see why people don't like it - losing Hicks and Newt is a gut-punch. But it's the Alien universe, did you expect a happy ending?

AppleJax said:
The stupid part is that people keep messing with the aliens to justify their continued presence. The aliens cannot build or maintain spacecraft, so everything happens because humans are perpetually terminally stupid.
Click to expand...

I'd completely ditch the later continuity and set any game at the same time as Aliens or Alien 3, where the xenomorphs are still pretty much an unknown.

I personally envision them as a sort of interstellar virus or plague, infecting any space-faring society they encounter. (Like the Space Jockey from the first movie.) And given that humanity is starting to move out into space, they're running into them.
 
Cessna said:
I can see why people don't like it - losing Hicks and Newt is a gut-punch. But it's the Alien universe, did you expect a happy ending?
Click to expand...
Thematically, I agree. I think some people (including the actor for Hicks) weren't too happy with the way it was done mostly offscreen.

Again, thematically, it makes sense. The cruel apathy of an unforgiving universe killing off beloved characters in an unceremonious way. I get it, for sure.

James Cameron set up a happy ending that set expectations. I'd wager that the more hardcore fans of Aliens don't like the ending of Alien either.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Banner: The best cosmic horror & Cthulhu Mythos @ DriveThruRPG.com
Back
Top